2-Put it together
Yoongi doesn't consider himself many things. He's not particularly endowed in the muscle department. He is light on his feet from six years of basketball, though, and going off of Lim Joohyun's black eye in eighth grade, he's got a pretty effective upper right hook.
His mom thinks he's handsome, but all moms think their sons are handsome. That's their job. Moral support. Lying in the face of adversity. More miraculously, Seokjin mentioned he had a nice face one night. In passing. And he was a little tipsy. But Seokjin doesn't dole out compliments easily, not even drunk. Not when it comes to looks. He'll be the first to say when you should return some newly purchased pants.
(Namjoon's usually the criticized during these situations, but lately he's been growing into his body, more aware of what suits his lanky frame and that pink striped rugby shirts should not be found in his, nor anyone's, wardrobe.)
So Yoongi's not strong, out of his friend group he's not remarkably attractive. He's an average cook and a terrible singer and if you ask him to do basic math on the spot, he'll most likely walk out the room. But Yoongi is quick-witted, the first to read a situation, the first to reach a conclusion. He notices everything others seem to pass on. He listens.
Which is why Yoongi would like to blame his sudden discrepancy on:
He hasn't gotten more than four hours of sleep a night since last June.He's currently functioning solely on three cups of coffee, a blueberry granola bar, and a vitamin gummy.He hasn't seen another human since... Possibly Hoseok on... Wednesday. Maybe. That might have been a fever dream.The apartment is really dark.ReallyLike really.
~~~
They both wrote the intro, they both know the fade out, but Yoongi still holds up three fingers in a silent countdown and gives Namjoon a jabbed point when he flips the mic on.
"Happy New Year, Konkuk youth!" Namjoon says brightly, a little on the loud side, enough that Yoongi cringes and slips a headphone off one ear. Namjoon holds his hands up in apology. "RM here. We are back to our regularly scheduled program, another year older, and I hope everyone had a restful break and ate at least one meal that didn't come from a convenience store. If you didn't, my mom sent back enough kimchi pancakes to sustain the entirety of the literature and science departments. I'd be happy to share."
This is not an exaggeration. Not only did Mrs. Kim cook enough for a third of the prefecture, she sent all the leftovers to their apartment because she thinks Hoseok's losing too much weight with dance and that Yoongi is just twig of a human being, ready to be carried away on the slightest of breezes.
That's why you get cold so easily, she tells him every time he happens to be near Namjoon during their weekly phone calls. Eat more. Sleep more. You both are hopeless. Did you get the kimchi I sent?
"Suga-hyung wants me to inform you all that my mother is a much better cook than I am. As in she actually cooks, all food is edible, and no pots were harmed in the process. Thanks, hyung. Once again, I appreciate the support."
Yoongi blows a vague kiss in his direction and Namjoon catches it dramatically and cradles it to his cheek.
"No, trueslow22, Suga-hyung and I are not in a romantic relationship." Namjoon laughs when Yoongi chokes on spit and has to guzzle his water. "Thanks for thinking that we sound cute together, though. You should see the height difference. We're flipping adorable."
Can't argue with that. But everyone looks cute when paired with Namjoon. Probably the dimples. Probably the crinkle eyes.
"Sorry, robozutter, but I am in a very happy relationship of three years with the love of my life. However..." Yoongi presses his lips together and shakes his head. Namjoon's smiling hugely and looking at him with happy eyes. "Suga-hyung is available, though, if you go for sarcastic, pretty music majors who like to build Ikea furniture in their spare time."
Yoongi flips him off and lets him know that the next time he breaks one of Seokjin's belongings (the current list includes, but is not limited to: their dining room table, dining room chairs, two pots, a lamp, three figurines, headphones, and a pair sunglasses) Yoongi's going to sit back and eat some chips and watch him get tossed to the hypothetical sharks (because real sharks are endangered and misunderstood and need to be protected).
Namjoon gives him a sheepish smile, chuckling as he moves on to actual topic of interest for the night, but there's a nervous gleam in his eye that means he thinks Yoongi is serious. And he is. Like 82%. Yoongi's gonna let him sweat this out.
Compared to their busier seasons, the number of messages is pretty low tonight. It's the first week back to school and most people are catching up with friends, hitting downtown before the coursework starts piling up and keeps them confined to library carrels and dorm room desks where they want the distraction of a killer playlist and Namjoon's velvety baritone.
There aren't many requests. It's mainly welcome back messages, a few people asking about Namjoon's significant other, a few more trying to wheedle Yoongi into a date now that they know he's on the market. It's all innocent jest, though. A handful of people around campus know who Namjoon is despite the DJ cover. He's personable that way, a notable figure in the culture here.
But Yoongi's obviously never a said a word during their program since its inception last spring. No one knows what he sounds like, who he is. He doubts anyone in the music department would ever guess the ever-elusive Min Yoongi spends his Tuesday nights running sound for the university radio station, bickering back and forth with the resident campus heart throb.
(According to last fall's online poll put out by an underclassmen that gathered 1,287 votes, Namjoon is the most fuckable TA at the school. A certificate showed up at his apartment, gold foil and everything. Seokjin keeps it hung on the fridge like a proud parent.)
If people knew who Yoongi actually was, they wouldn't even consider joking about dating him, let alone showing actual interest. He'll probably remain certificateless for the rest of his life.
A familiar username catches his attention towards the bottom, one of the more recent comments, and Yoongi sips his coffee and tries to not be concerned by the restless fluttering in his stomach.
[Vante] Have you ever been in a bathroom at a party and the music is just loud enough to be heard through the door but not loud enough to actually understand the lyrics and you look into the mirror and don't quite recognize yourself and you feel completely alone because no one probably notices that you're even gone?
[Vante] That's how I feel all the time lately.
Something startling in Yoongi's chest wants to fly out. He has to look away from the screen for a moment, listens as Namjoon gives advice about a letter someone wrote in, something about how it doesn't matter how often you're there for others if you're not a friend to yourself first.
[Administrator: Suga] I understand that feeling. You're suddenly aware of how you need to breathe or blink, how your tongue rests in your mouth, that you probably annoyed someone earlier, that you disappointed another. That no matter what you do, no matter what sky you're under, the world is too vast and you are too small. I get that.
Flickering silence. Yoongi looks up over the desks to see Namjoon watching him with a slight frown, eyes roving his face, as if he's trying to figure something out. Yoongi realizes he's reading the messages. Their messages.
Yoongi smiles and it's a small thing, but Namjoon's appeased and returns to the show, voice deep and tender, a comfort in its own way.
[Vante] I feel really small today.
[Vante] A customer at work told me to shut up and that I was annoying. A professor told me my theory wasn't academically sound enough or something which is just the adult way of saying stupid
[Vante] Sometimes I just get really excited and want to share with people you know?
Yoongi knows all too well what it feels like to want to reveal yourself to the world only to get thrown away each time.
[Administrator: Suga] I know, yeah.
[Administrator: Suga] It's okay to love something a little too much, though. Wanting to share and spread that love. There's nothing wrong with that.
I think it's beautiful, Yoongi doesn't write, caring about something so deeply the words just spill out, tumbling over the others, an unstoppable force.
Yoongi doesn't think about the night of the party.
Doesn't think of Tae and his eyelashes.
Doesn't think about all his words. All of his wonderful, bumbling words tangling together around them, leaving them both breathless.
Vante doesn't respond after that which is okay. Because Yoongi has a show to run. Because Namjoon is still sending him curious, hesitant glances. Because Yoongi also tends to love things a little too much, a little too deeply, and he hates that small part of his heart that doesn't know when to stop giving.
~~~
Yoongi actually loves that part, he just wishes it wasn't set on killing him.
~~~
Yoongi is remarkably, almost (read: very) uncomfortably, aware of Tae now. It's no longer just fleeting interactions in the library or the coffee shop, but a flash of his loping form from across the arts quad, the echo of his voice in the dining hall from some unseen place, a glimpse of his smile through the windows of the dance studio. He's everywhere Yoongi is and Yoongi wonders if Tae has always been here, just out of sight, and Yoongi just hasn't been looking. Hasn't been listening.
A quiet "hyung" off to his left, and Yoongi looks over and Jungkook's lingering at his side, holding out a muffin. Banana-nut. A good one from the café and not the campus coffee shop.
Yoongi splits it with him as they walk to the music building in a silence that extends further than just unspoken words.
A small breeze kicks up, playing through his hair, making him shiver. It's cold, even for a winter in Seoul. Jungkook's arm brushes his shoulder and lingers there before pulling away.
Yoongi's kept it to himself, but Jungkook's voice is one of his favorites. Clear and lilting when he sings, squeaky at the edges when he laughs. Always genuine. Always warm. Always something a little more intimate than it should be for the moment.
Yoongi's kept it to himself because it's not fair to tell him that. Not anymore.
Yoongi brushes Jungkook's arm this time, a little overcome, and Jungkook loops their pinkies together. They don't pull apart until they split ways at the stairs, and Jungkook smiles brightly at him and all the lights in in the foyer reflect in his eyes.
I'm sorry, Yoongi wants to say. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry you had everything taken away.
In his Score Reading class, Yoongi sits in the back at his keyboard, hands on the keys but not actually playing. A familiar position, him and the piano. His professor notices but doesn't comment, just smiles at him in that soft way of hers that still contrasts sharply with her pressed pantsuits as she makes her rounds. She understands. Yoongi made sure, with the help of Namjoon, that she understood, that they all understood, after last winter when he almost flunked out because he felt so hollow inside he might has well have been a bird.
Airy bones make for great flight, not so much for studying.
Or sleeping.
Or eating.
He's better now. Most days. But then there are days like today when Yoongi sits at a piano with sheet music spread before him and he can't read a single note.
A hand on his shoulder, and Yoongi slips off his headphones and Dr. Lim leans in close, says, "Play what you need to play, Yoongi. Don't worry about the assignment today."
They're supposed to be transcribing a minuet of Mozart, parsing the instruments from one another. It's simple but delicate work, something Yoongi could usually breeze through. She knows this. He knows this.
But today he's coiled tight, fingers stiff, and he tugs his headphones back on and works through just the pianist accompaniment of the piece, then shifts over to a sleepy Nocturne from Chopin and then a dramatic Sonata from Beethoven and into an aggressive Allegro from Liszt, just getting more upset the longer he plays because everything is too systematic, too controlled, and Yoongi lets his fingers fly because he's frustrated and he doesn't want to be angry because he doesn't have the right to be angry but he is and he doesn't know why and he doesn't know how not to be. He doesn't know how else to show it but through this, through all the noise.
He stops abruptly, mid-song, breathing too fast, too ragged. When he opens his eyes Eunae is turned around in her seat towards him, wide-eyed and mouth agape. Yoongi blinks at her, still coming back to himself, and looks over to find Chunghee staring him down as well. The few others towards the front are also watching him with restless eyes. Dr. Lim seems ecstatic.
Yoongi realizes three things in the span of three seconds:
His headphones have slipped off his ears.His cord is disconnected from the keyboard.He's been viciously playing aloud for the class to hear for the past seven minutes.
Yoongi's face burns. He gathers his sheet music and his backpack and flees from the room, Dr. Lim calling out for him as he goes. Yoongi's running as soon as he meets the hall. He almost loses it on the staircase, does lose it on the front lawn where he curls into a bawl in the icy grass under a barren tree and digs his fingers into the earth until he feels the soil cake under his nails.
Yoongi calls Namjoon, lets it ring and ring and ring because Namjoon doesn't have a voicemail. He gives up, calls Seokjin. It does go to voicemail. Yoongi panics. He was already panicking but now his throat is shriveling up and it takes all his focus to dial in one more number.
"Hyung?"
It's stupid, stupid, stupid but Yoongi just needs to hear one of their voices.
"Yoongi-hyung," Jimin repeats, voice deeper through the phone, off-kilter because he's worried; but it's still his voice, still high and full. "Hyung, are you okay? Can you text me?"
Yoongi shakes his head. His hands are trembling. He squeezes his eyes shut and listens to Jimin speak to someone on the other line. Music in the background fades out. The speaker crackles with movement.
"Hyung," Jimin tries again, and Yoongi takes a shaky breath. "Hyung, I'm leaving the dance studio with Hobi-hyung. We're walking outside now. Are you at the studio?"
Yoongi pulls up his messages, sends him a shaky, ouutsise.
"Ouutsise? Outside? Outside the music building?"
Yea
"Okay, hyung. Okay. We'll be there soon. Don't move."
Not possible, he wants to say.
I can't feel my legs, he wants to say.
I can't feel my heart, he wants to say.
He wants to say, wants to say, wants to say.
The sound of crunching snow and heavy footsteps draws his attention, and Yoongi looks up at the same moment Hoseok spots him from across the lawn. He and Jimin both run to get to him, and Jimin drops to his knees and reaches to cup Yoongi's cheeks and wipe away the tears that gathered there.
"Oh, hyung," he whispers, voice so sweet and eyes so sad. "My precious hyung, you're okay."
Yoongi sniffs and falls forward to rest his forehead on Jimin's bare shoulder. He's only in sweatpants and a loose tank top, but his skin is still warm and damp from practice, from what must have been the sprint over here.
A hand on his back, rubbing up his spine, and Yoongi sniffles again and wipes his nose and leans away to watch Hoseok gather up his fallen sheet music and flick away the snow melting into the paper so he can place it neatly in Yoongi's backpack. He too is only in shorts and a baggy tee, and Yoongi regrets calling them out here.
Hoseok taps his chin and frowns. Stop that. You're not a burden, he signs.
Yoongi blinks wearily up at him and sighs because he is. Namjoon might be depressed and Jimin might have anxiety and Hoseok and Jungkook might be deaf but it's Yoongi who's the trifecta of fucked up. It's Yoongi who can't get his shit together.
"Hyung."
Yoongi takes Jimin's hand and lets himself be pulled from the snow. His legs are numb, fingers are following. They both walk him home. Jimin has a shift at work and Hoseok has another class, but they wait until Namjoon's done teaching and arrives on his doorstep with tofu soup and lamb skewers and plans to binge watch a nature documentary about whale song that just happens to have an epic score.
Jimin kisses the crown of Yoongi's head as he leaves and Hoseok mimics the action on both of them on his way out.
"Wanna talk about it?" Namjoon asks once the door closes, hand resting on the remote, waiting to press play.
Yoongi considers it, but what is he supposed to say to make them understand?
My parents are getting old and I'm not doing enough.
Some days I feel so heavy I can't get out of bed?
I can't sleep because I can still hear Jungkook's screams?
My music has always been my voice and even that feels like it's slipping away?
Yoongi just shakes his head and hunkers down with his bowl because even without saying it aloud, Namjoon always seems to understand.
"Alright, hyung. But I'm here if you ever want to talk."
The soup is warm and fills his stomach and a little portion of his heart. The feeling returns to his limbs. He falls asleep halfway through the film on Namjoon's shoulder, listening to his heartbeat mix with the melancholic sounds of a big blue orca without a pod.
I too am a lonely whale drifting in an open sea, Yoongi thinks just before he slips away.
~~~
No one thought to call Seokjin to let him know that Yoongi wasn't dying. (Because that's the only reason Yoongi would ever try to call someone to get their attention. It's an SOS, 119 worthy situation when he does, and it's only happened a handful of times over the years.)
"I'm glad you're okay, really I am, but when I can't reach you or anyone and Namjoonie doesn't come home for a night and it turns out you all are just canoodling in the warmth of your living room while I'm up awake fretting and stress-baking like a concerned housewife with a husband on the frontlines, there has to be some consequences."
Those consequences include paying full price for all menu items for a month.
Jimin doesn't mind because he has an employee discount. Hoseok whines so much Seokjin drops it down to two weeks just to get him to shut up.
Shameless, Yoongi signs at him, a quirk to his lips, and Hoseok's eyes scrunch up over his mug of hot chocolate and he just shrugs like, what can you do?
~~~
"You're coming to the party, right?"
The last time Yoongi was at a party, he almost fell in love with the way a stranger spoke about a painting.
Fuck no, he's not going to another party.
Jimin mistakes his silence on the subject for confusion instead.
Which he is also confused over the nature of the latest intended get-together. It's still January. They've got a couple weeks before Hoseok's birthday. It's too early to find out the results of internships and scholarships and such. Obviously too early for graduation or recitals.
"The one for Taehyung," Jimin supplies when Yoongi still hasn't made an effort to lift his hands. "My new roommate?"
Yoongi frowns and signs, When did you get a new roommate? Who was your old roommate? Why does this new development require a party?
Jimin narrows his eyes a bit but doesn't look surprised by Yoongi's lacking knowledge of his private affairs despite how often Jimin likes to share them. He drinks his tea instead and the furrow between his brows smooths over after a few sips. "Youngjin. He moved in with his girlfriend after finals. Taehyung transferred in last semester and we hit it off. He doesn't have a lot of friends and I thought a party would be nice. You're coming, right? It's Saturday at my place. We're doing dinner and a movie."
Dinner and a movie means it'll probably just be the handful of them. Something more intimate than the last hoorah. Something that won't allow outsiders. Something that won't lead to a stunning boy with a stunning voice sitting beside him on a somewhat shoddy sofa again.
I feel really small today.
Yoongi doesn't know why he's remembering that now, but he nods because it'll make Jimin happy and a Happy Jimin leads to, well, a happy everyone. Talk about the sun incarnate. Jimin's smile always makes his heart flush.
Plus, Yoongi knows what it's like to be in a place that feels like it doesn't want you.
Yoongi's not sure what he can offer this new kid, but at least the guy will have another familiar face in the cafeteria the days Yoongi decides to brave the masses.
"I promise you'll love him," Jimin says, his voice warm around his smile, so big that Yoongi can't help but trust him.
~~~
Yoongi's late. He knows it, Jimin clearly knows it from the seven messages he's left in the span of sixteen minutes, all various levels of disappointed. Disappointed Jimin is almost worse than a Disappointed Seokjin. Disappointed Jimin is like accidentally kicking a small dog and it looks up at you in utter betrayal. Disappointed Seokjin is when you've let your mom down and she hugs you and says it's okay even when it obviously isn't.
Jiminie [8:02pm]
u promised you'd be on time
PROMISED
(◕︿◕)
Yoongi Hyung [8:05pm]
I'm on my way. Sorry. Got caught up with work.
Jiminie [8:06pm]
u always get caught up in work
ALWAYS
(*￣з￣)
Yoongi Hyung [8:06pm]
I have champagne. And wine. And strawberry juice.
You said he likes juice, right?
Jiminie [8:06pm]
...
.....
I am placated (¬､¬)
get your little butt over here
Yoongi Hyung [8:07pm]
Ten minutes.
Jiminie [8:07pm]
we just put the movie in. Jin-hyung saved u some bbq
Yoongi Hyung [8:09pm]
Thanks Park Jiminie
Jiminie [8:09pm]
yeah yeah love u too ('ε｀ )♡
Unlike Seokjin and Namjoon's place, Yoongi doesn't know the passcode to Jimin's apartment. It's one thing to walk in on two of your close friends having dinner in their underwear and another entirely to walk in on your other friend's stranger-roommate-whose-name-you-never-bothered-to-learn-and-after-four-months-didn't-want-to-bother-with-asking getting a blowjob from his girlfriend while perched on the kitchen counter.
Yoongi stopped coming over after that.
You're late, Hoseok signs quickly and then drapes himself across Yoongi's body in what could be considered a hug. It's been a long week. Yoongi thinks they might have brushed their teeth together two days ago. He can't remember the last time they actually sat down to catch up.
Yoongi's taken to avoiding the café. Picking Hoseok up from dance. Hunting Namjoon down in the library. So far no one's caught on yet, assuming he's waiting until their ban is removed to resume buying coffee and that he's just being kept up in the studio with coursework when really he doesn't want to take the risk of running into Tae because he's a coward and not afraid to admit it. At least not to himself.
I brought alcohol, Yoongi signs, lifting the hand with the bag hanging off his wrist.
One of those bottles is now Jimin's you know.
That's why I got two.
Hoseok chuckles and takes the sack from him and makes towards the living room.
"Champagne!" Jimin cheers a moment later, which is quickly followed by "wine!" from Seokjin.
Yoongi slips off his shoes and lays his coat along a bench behind the door because the wall hooks are taken. Yoongi stares at a mustard colored peacoat for a moment. Jimin would never wear that.
"Juice!" someone else shouts, and Yoongi rolls his eyes because the new kid is going to fit right in. Jimin doesn't have anything to worry about.
Jimin's all about the theater environment when it comes to movie watching. He's also a slob. Yoongi keeps one hand on the wall as he works his way through the dark and still manages to trip over a pair of shoes, possibly a broom, then rams his foot into a random box. There's some kind of dance number going on when he slips into the moving room. On screen, of course, but Yoongi wouldn't put it past Jimin and Seokjin to start an impromptu musical given the chance.
"Hyung," Jimin hisses from the direction of the sofa. The swirl of primary lights is disorienting, and Yoongi shuffles over and Jimin finds his hand and pulls him down partially into an open seat on the sofa while the rest of him lands on someone's lap. They inhale sharply and Yoongi pats their chest as an apology. Pecs. Pecs means Jungkook.
Jimin giggles and presses his mouth close to Yoongi's ear. "Thanks for coming, hyung."
Yoongi taps Jimin's thigh twice because it's too dark to sign, then adjusts himself so he's properly seated and not straddling Jungkook's leg.
The scene changes. Yoongi recognizes Emma Stone, her character slipping away from a party into the quiet of a bathroom. Yoongi thinks it's ironic that they're watching a musical with two deaf guys in the room, but Hoseok's been bobbing along with the dance moves, enough to jostle Namjoon beside him and bring out a laugh here and there. At least the movie is in English and they're all in the same boat with subtitles.
The dance ends. The scenes slip by. Yoongi closes his eyes at the meltingly lovely piano tune that drifts about the room. He's seen the movie before, with Seokjin in theaters, and he's not a huge fan when it comes to Broadway-esque soundtracks—but this one is nostalgic and sweeps you off your feet and Yoongi admires that, that just a simple melody can make you want to stop and listen and dream.
For a minute, Yoongi just lets himself feel how tired he is. Overwhelmed and sluggish. A burnt-out stub of a human being. But then he hears Jimin's bubbling laughter and notices the warmth in the room, how it smells like cinnamon. That it's calm. That his chest is thawing 0ut. For the first time in weeks the anxious buzzing in his mind has filtered into stillness. Not quiet enough to smother, but just low enough that he could probably take a nap.
Yoongi really wants a nap.
He wakes up partway through another dance number, extremely disoriented and with half his face numb because it was pressed into Jungkook's shoulder the whole time. There's drool drying on his bottom lip and Yoongi swats at it clumsily.
There's a quiet giggle beside him, one with a husky undertone, and Yoongi's a little confused because he doesn't recognize the sound.
His gaze flits around the room, finally adjusted to the brightness off the screen once more. Namjoon and Hoseok on the loveseat. Seokjin at their feet. Jimin curled into a corner of the sofa. Jungkook leaning back against his knees.
Jungkook, who he thought was the new roommate.
Jungkook, who is not the one whose lap he fell in, who is not the one he's been pressed against for a good forty minutes now, who is not the one he just left a puddle of saliva on.
Yoongi looks up quickly, inhales sharply, just loud enough in the quiet of the room for that familiarly unfamiliar face to glance over at him.
A double-take is what he gets, and Tae's eyes have gone wider than eyes should be able to go.
Yoongi stands abruptly and tries to cover it up by calmly walking to the side hall where he holes himself up in the bathroom. He dabs cold water on the back of his neck. Fake flushes after a minute or so. Washes his hands. Dries them. Washes them again. Dabs more water on his neck, his wrists, behind his ears. Anything to cool down. Knees? Elbows? Seokjin always puts some cologne there because of heat glands or something.
Yoongi can't stay in here forever. He has an assignment due Monday. The radio playlist for next week isn't done. Jimin would never keep him fed. He's killed every goldfish he's ever owned. Yoongi's been the chaplain at every funeral.
But Yoongi can't go back into that living room. He can't sit beside Tae again. Tae. TaeTae. Taehyung. God, how could he have missed all the signs? Why did he not make this rather crucial connection? How long have they been skirting around each other?
YOONGI FUCKING DROOLED ON HIM.
DROOLED.
For a minute Yoongi just stares at his reflection, tries to pretend that he's anywhere but here, in this moment. That this is not happening. That he's another person. Another person who brushed their hair this morning, who has their roots dyed, who doesn't have dark circles or this random pimple beside their eyebrow and didn't wear their ugly glasses today because they didn't think they'd be seeing anyone important.
Taehyung is not important. Yoongi refuses to let him be.
The movie is still going when Yoongi slips outside and he makes a detour to the kitchen. Dinner. That should take up at least ten minutes if he goes slow. And if he eats in the kitchen, that's another fifteen.
Yoongi's setting a bowl in the microwave when someone clears their throat behind him. Yoongi closes his eyes, breathes through his nose. He knows it's Taehyung because that's how these things work. That's how they work apparently, with these coincidental moments that always feel like time is tip-toeing around them, like the world has slowed down to accommodate their meeting.
Yoongi turns casually, trying to appear okay and nonchalant and not like he wants to throw up in the sink.
It is Taehyung. He's wearing wide-legged pants again, blue this time, and a baggy red sweater that swallows him a little. There's a wet patch on his left shoulder that Yoongi wants to hide his face in the fridge all over again and maybe slam the door closed while he's there.
All in all, Taehyung looks cute and small and kind of like he's also considering throwing up in the sink.
Yoongi frowns and reaches for his phone to ask if he's okay, but Taehyung just bites his lip and says, "I'm sorry."
Sorry? What's he's sorry for?
He blushes hard, and when Yoongi continues to stare at him, he just blushes some more. The same shade as his sweater.
"About me. And everything," Taehyung speaks up. His eyes are everywhere except on Yoongi's and it sounds like he's trying to speak without breathing. "Every time we meet I... Well I didn't mean to be annoying or anything, it's just that I'm always surprised to see you and I'm never ready because you're, you know, you, so I kind of freak out whenever I have to talk to you."
Oh.
Oh.
Yoongi's vision tunnels inwards, the edges black, and something small snaps in his chest and he takes a shuddering breath because of course. How could he have been so blind on top of everything else that's fucked up about him? Of course the guy's been tripping over himself because he's mute. Of course he's been a nervous wreck because how do you speak to someone who can't speak back?
Yoongi lets his eyes wander the sharp planes of Taehyung's face. His wide brown eyes, those long lashes.
Taehyung looks down at the ground and Yoongi watches his face warm.
He's angry, but under all the anger rolling in his stomach, Yoongi more than anything is upset with himself because maybe he let Hoseok's words from all those weeks ago wriggle in too far. Maybe he really thought that this beautiful boy who talks with his hands and compares people to art could have liked him.
Yoongi leaves his food behind. Leaves Taehyung behind.
"Hyung?"
He exits the kitchen and bypasses the living room and hears Seokjin call after him. Yoongi ignores him, tries to find his shoes in the dark and gives up and flips on the lights.
"Yoongi-yah."
Yoongi shrugs off the hand on his elbow, slips his boots on. Reaches for his coat.
"Yoongi, is everything okay? Yoongi, look at me please."
Yoongi sighs and it shudders through him. Seokjin glances at his face and pulls him in to hold tight.
I'm fine, Yoongi signs after pulling away, and Seokjin's the newest to their group when it comes to signing but he knows enough. Long day. Tired.
"Stay then," Seokjin says, eyes soft. "I'll heat up your dinner. You can take a nap in Jiminie's room. Please stay."
Yoongi shakes his head. There's movement from the doorway and Jungkook appears around the corner and takes one look at him and rushes forward.
"Hyung," he says quietly, only when he's close enough for Yoongi hear. "Are you okay?"
Yoongi nods. Jungkook frowns harder. Repeats the question. Yoongi clenches his fists at his sides and looks over their shoulders to where the others have appeared and this is a nightmare. He just wants to bolt out the door and down the hallway and find a spot where no one can see him. Where he can be small and sad about this and then just get over it like he always does.
Only Jungkook follows his line of sight and watches as Taehyung shifts from foot to foot, then back to Yoongi who feels like he's going to cry, who must look like he's about to cry because Jungkook turns away from him, eyes wild with rage, and says, "What'd you do?"
"Jungkookie," Seokjin whispers out of surprise, and Yoongi places a hand on Jungkook's shoulder and tries to draw him in but Jungkook doesn't budge, still glaring at Taehyung.
"What did you do?" He repeats, voice crisp and piercing in the small space, and Jimin steps forward, eyes wide, and lifts his hands to sign and Jungkook just shakes his head. "What'd you say to him?"
Taehyung opens his mouth and the smallest sound of distress slips out. He looks to Yoongi, but Yoongi doesn't have the words either.
"Jungkook," Jimin says, hands moving at the same time. "Calm down. Taehyung didn't do anything."
Jungkook's hands move after that, but Yoongi can't see from this angle what he's saying to the others. He can see Jimin's response, though. Furrowed brows, anger brimming at the corner of his mouth, like he wants to raise his voice.
Taehyung's not like that. This is a misunderstanding. He turns to Yoongi next, hands moving as he goes. "Hyung, did Taehyung-ah say something to you?"
Yoongi shakes his head because he wants this to end. He wants to go home.
Jungkook's staring at him, still wound up and braced for a fight. Yoongi signs, I'm fine. Nothing happened. It's just a bad day.
And none of them can argue with him on that. They have to let it go.
Jungkook hugs him once more and then pushes past all of them, bumping Taehyung's shoulder as he goes. Namjoon follows after, scolding him for his manners, and Seokjin pats Yoongi's head and goes to try to dissuade the situation.
Jimin takes Taehyung by the arm. Taehyung who is still biting his lip like he's going to cry.
I could have loved you, Yoongi wants to say. I almost loved you.
Shame and embarrassment and a little bit of heartbreak crushes his lungs, cutting off his breath. The two of them walk away, heading for a bedroom, and Hoseok looks at Yoongi, really looks at him and signs, Taehyung said something, didn't he?
Yoongi nods and Hoseok's eyes sharpen.
Let it go, Hobi. Hoseok clenches his jaw. It wasn't bad. He's a good kid. Just a little ignorant.
I can talk to Jimin.
Please don't. Not now.
Hoseok nods, torn, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. That's so weird. He's been just fine with me and Jungkook.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe he just doesn't like me.
Everyone likes you, hyung.
I don't like me, he wants to say. Instead he shrugs, and Hoseok hugs him as well and Yoongi doesn't know what he's done to deserve their kindness.
Text me when you get home, Hoseok signs. I'll probably leave here soon with Namjoon.
Sorry for ruining the night.
Hoseok's frown deepens, his face pinching into angles, and Yoongi wants to apologize if only to get him to stop making that little downturned frown. If Jimin picked a bigot as a roommate that's not your fault.
Maybe it is a misunderstanding, Yoongi shrugs again, and Hoseok stares at him and sighs deeply.
Jimin will figure that out. Don't worry about it tonight.
Yoongi knows that's not what he wanted to say, that there's something more Hoseok is carrying around and wants to ask but knows he shouldn't breach tonight. Instead he claps Yoongi on the back, sees him to the door (all five and half feet), and reminds him once more to text when he's settled in.
For once Yoongi doesn't make a detour, for once he doesn't play music on his trip home. He just listens to the sounds of the city at night, the quiet murmurings of the people he passes, the comforting lull of traffic moseying by. On the bus he taps a melody against the metal side bar, keeps the song going on his thigh as he walks the next block to his apartment.
He texts Hoseok as soon as he's inside the elevator, and then Yoongi makes it all the way to his room, face washed and teeth brushed, before he realizes his fingers are still moving. Still playing.
Yoongi doesn't write the song down this time. Just lets it play and play and play in his heart.
Maybe if he keeps it trapped there it'll just disappear.
~~~
Turns out Taehyung is the newest barista at Seokjin's parent's café.
Turns out Taehyung was one of Namjoon's students last semester.
Turns out Taehyung is in Jungkook's photography class this semester.
Turns out Taehyung loves the color yellow.
Turns out Taehyung wears these round, wire-rimmed glasses that always sit a little crooked on his nose.
Turns out Taehyung hates wearing shoes.
That he can raise one eyebrow at time. Wiggle his ears.
That he can tie a cherry stem with his tongue.
That he can recite the entirety of Hamlet's "to be or not to be" monologue while in character.
Turns out Taehyung really has been here all along.
Turns out Yoongi's not as good at listening as he thought.
~~~
Turns out Yoongi might have liked Taehyung more than he realized.
~~~
"Yoongi-ssi, can I have a word."
Yoongi hangs back and lets a couple students pass him by. Dr. Lim is waiting at her desk, leaning into one side to face him. She holds out a notebook for him to take so that he doesn't have to dig in his backpack for his whiteboard.
"I just wanted to check in on you," she continues as he takes the pad from her. "You seemed distraught after our last class period."
Fortunately, graduate classes only take place once a week.
Fortunately, Yoongi's had six days to recover and mold himself into a more presentable version of himself.
Unfortunately, Yoongi thought the simple "welcome back" he received at the start of the lesson was all that would be said to him in regards to his rather dramatic escape last week.
"Yoongi-ssi." Yoongi glances up, realizes that he's gripping the notebook to his chest like he's about to bolt from the room with it. Dr. Lim's gaze is gentle, careful, like she expects him to do just that. Again.
"You are my most talented student," she says instead, and Yoongi swallows thickly at the unexpected praise. "You have an overwhelming amount of potential. But potential means nothing if it's never acted on."
Ah, there it is. The scolding. The disappointment. The moment she finally tells him that he needs to suck it up, get over whatever it is that's making him this ticking timebomb of nerves.
"How's the opus coming?"
Yoongi thinks of his blank notebook and considers telling her that he needs more time. That he'll have to extend. That he can't do it. That the music is gone. That he has nothing left to say.
Instead he taps a melody against his sternum.
Instead he scribbles, I wrote a song.
Dr. Lim's eyes brighten, a corner of her mouth twists up. "That's wonderful, Yoongi-ssi." And she means it. Yoongi can see it on her face that this is the best news she's gotten all month. At least from him.
It's only one song, he presses on, embarrassed, because it's true. It's only one song. Not even a full one. Just the possibility of one.
"For now, maybe, but beautiful things don't happen overnight." Yoongi blinks at that, caught off guard, and Dr. Lim pats his shoulder and turns to settle back into her work. "I believe in you, Yoongi. I can tell you have a lot to say, even if you don't know what it is just quite yet. Don't worry. You have time."
I have time, Yoongi thinks to himself, and he just nods and bows and escapes the room with his head spinning off his shoulders because he only has the skeleton of a song and he needs so much more, but if his leading professor isn't nervous, then why should he be?
Because it's only one song, his mind supplies as he pushes down the hallway, through the front doors, legs wobbly as he lands on the sidewalk. Because the only song you've been able to write on your own in a year has been the result of an overwhelming interaction with an impossible boy whom you never plan on seeing again.
What if Yoongi's never able to write a song again because of Taehyung?
"Hyung?"
What if Yoongi's never able to write a song again without Taehyung?
Namjoon's standing in front of him, coffee in hand, and Yoongi looks past his concerned eyes and sees that the afternoon sky he left the building with is fading fast into dusk.
"Hyung." Namjoon looks at him for a long moment, deep eyes running over his face, searching for whatever it is that Yoongi can't say.
He must find it, find something, because his gaze goes soft with understanding and Yoongi wonders how Namjoon does it. How he reads people. How he just seems to know.
"Let's go for a walk, hyung," he says, taking Yoongi's bag from him so he has one strapped to both of his sides.
Yoongi doesn't say no because Namjoon wouldn't let him, anyway. Yoongi doesn't say no because there's sunlight streaming in through the cracks of the bare branches of the trees they walk under at an angle that speckles the sidewalk with flecks of gold.
Yoongi doesn't say no because he knows there's something wrong with him and Namjoon knows something wrong with him and everyone knows something is wrong with him but no one can seem to figure out just what exactly it is.
~~~
When Yoongi was young, they called him a prodigy.
Domestic competitions, international awards, accolades from famed pianists, offers from more than one conservatory. Yoongi could have gone abroad. Yoongi could have been one of the youngest musicians to play for the KBS Symphony Orchestra. Yoongi, quite literally, had the world at his feet.
His parents, his teachers, the entirety of the Korean Arts Council—no one knew when it happened. Especially not Yoongi. It was a gradual thing. Quiet. One day Yoongi couldn't imagine doing anything with his life but piano, and the next it was like he had this blackhole of a thing in his chest. Like his insides were empty, and all that remained was a lonely, beating heart, not quite strong enough to do anything but keep him alive.
"Hyung, you need to see someone."
In simplest terms, the music died, and Yoongi's been trying for years to bring it back to life.
Yoongi taps a staccato rhythm against his shoe. Looks up at the fringe of shadowed trees. Looks over to Namjoon who is watching him gently. Yoongi doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to.
Dead things stay dead, though. Everyone knows that.
~~~
Another night, another show. Yoongi likes to think he can run from his problems, but sometimes those problems work with you, and sometimes you have to be an adult about it.
(Yoongi remembers three years ago when he tried to avoid Hoseok for two weeks and started losing patches of hair from the stress.)
Namjoon hasn't brought it up again, the day he found Yoongi outside swaying on his feet with a thousand-yard stare—but Yoongi knows he told Hoseok, who told Jimin, who told Jungkook. Yoongi's not sure who tells Jin things. Yoongi thinks Jin naturally has a sixth sense for that kind of stuff. (Stuff meaning knowing everything about everyone all the time and if it's bad enough that he needs to bring them bibimbap to cheer them up.)
(Yoongi's gotten the bibimbap twice already this month.)
Namjoon doesn't treat him any differently, though. They still bicker over tracks, still laugh over the comments trickling in. They still discuss the best advice to give their listeners, still surprise each other with coffee, still threaten each other when Yoongi turns the heating on too high and Namjoon too low.
They're almost to the end of the broadcast. Namjoon's voice is especially deep tonight, a little rough around the edges from the cold he's recovering from. Seven people have already swooned in the comments. Namjoon winks at him every time Yoongi passes one on, then proceeds to hack his lungs into a tissue. There's a growing pile at his elbow.
Yoongi's better. At least he's trying. It's been two weeks since his talk with his professor, three since the night in Jimin's apartment. Yoongi hasn't seen Taehyung once. Hasn't heard him. Yoongi doesn't know if it really was all just a misunderstanding, but Jimin hasn't brought it up and the others seem to sense it's a bit of a sore area which only means that Yoongi's been showing too much of his heart and that's a dangerous thing.
There's only ten minutes left of the program. They've got one song left and then closing remarks. Yoongi's fishing through the last of the comments, making notes for next week's playlist when he catches the username.
[Vante] Have you ever hurt someone important to you? But you don't know how you hurt them and you just know that you did?
Yoongi stares at the marker blinking on his screen. He's not obligated to answer. He never has been. But Yoongi feels a connection to this listener. Feels like, if he didn't want to be so invested, he should have backed off weeks ago.
[Administrator: Suga] Yeah. My mom. My best friend.
[Vante] I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore. I don't think I'm supposed to be here. I just keep messing up.
Yoongi stills, looks over his monitor to where Namjoon's head is bobbing in time with the music. Unaware.
[Administrator: Suga] It's hard to show people everything. Most aren't brave enough to do it.
[Vante] You think I'm brave?
I think you have a beautiful heart, Yoongi wants to say. I think that you've made mistakes but mistakes aren't forever. I think that some people think that they know you even when they don't, and if you're not careful, then maybe you start to believe them. I think you deserve the love you keep trying to give everyone else.
Yoongi stares at the marker blinking on his screen, types out exactly what he was thinking, then hits enter before he can overthink.
Time passes. The final song hits its bridge. Yoongi closes out of the messenger program twice, only to reopen it each time.
"Hyung."
Yoongi glances over the top of his computer and Namjoon is waiting for him.
"Hyung," he says again. "I think you have a beautiful heart. I think you've made mistakes but mistakes aren't forever. I think you've started to believe what others think about you, even though they might be wrong. I think you deserve the kind of love you keep trying to give everyone else."
His voice is full of emotion that Yoongi can't decipher, and as the song fades out, Yoongi's throat knots up because Namjoon is so warm and so genuine and so, so wrong about him.
"That was it for tonight, Konkuk Youth," Namjoon belays into his mic, and Yoongi holds a hand up to his throat and squeezes. "Thanks for spending your evening with us. We hope you have a restful week, that you make someone smile, and that you do one thing a day that scares you a little. See you next time."
Namjoon doesn't say anything else after that. He cleans up his papers in silence and Yoongi does the same.
He sees that Vante never responded back to him, and Yoongi hesitates almost long enough to talk himself into just leaving. He doesn't know the kid. He doesn't owe them anything.
[Administrator: Suga] If you hurt someone on accident, it doesn't change the fact that you hurt them. You just apologize, and if they choose not to forgive you, then you move on.
[Administrator: Suga] Don't make someone else's pain your own. It gets hard to carry most days.
"Let's get a drink, hyung," Namjoon says, claps him on the shoulder, guides him into his coat and then out the door into the chilled night. Namjoon stops when Yoongi hesitates at the bottom of the steps again to stare up at the sky, the moon just a brief brushstroke behind the clouds hovering overhead.
"I love you a lot, hyung."
Yoongi grunts and Namjoon knocks their shoulders, Yeah yeah.
"Don't look so pained," Namjoon says, a slow smile spreading across his face, bringing out a dimple. "I'm a delight."
You're tolerable. I like Hoseok more.
"Hobi exhausts you. You like me more because I watch those animal documentaries with you and don't complain."
Yoongi bites his tongue, purses his lips. He starts to walk and Namjoon shortens his stride to match him. You don't complain because you like them, too. Who's the one who picked out the cuttlefish episode last week?
"That was you."
Yoongi blanches. Well you're the one who picked the sharks and then the whales and then the North American bears.
Namjoon doesn't make eye contact. "Fine. Maybe I like them."
Definitely like them, Yoongi signs, knocking their elbows. Don't try to downplay your nerdiness onto me. Now let hyung buy you a drink.
Namjoon steps in closer, smiling, then drapes a heavy noodle arm across his shoulders to pull him in close. "I love you, hyung."
He's trying to keep his voice light, but his chords go all husky and weird and Yoongi bites the tip of his tongue and taps the top of Namjoon's hand as if to say, I love you, too.
~~~
Yoongi finally spots Taehyung three weeks after Big Bigot Fiasco #11, as Jungkook declared it to be called.
(They've had multiple Big Bigot Fiascos over the years, and Hoseok and Jungkook voted that the incident definitely be included in the count.)
It's an accident, when it happens. A coincidence, of course, because that's the way they work. He's not at the café or the library or the cafeteria or anywhere near the art quad or the dance studio or the back alley that juts through the science buildings to the bus stop that Yoongi hasn't used as a shortcut in eleven days because he thought he spotted a mop of gold and a loping gait.
No, he's on the roof of the music building when it happens. It's snowing even though it was a high of forty-seven today, big fat flakes that stick to Yoongi's shoulder and hair and melt on the tip of nose where it juts out from under the hood of his jacket.
He doesn't realize it's Taehyung at first. No, first he realizes it's just the same starfished form from before. Similar build, similar sprawling, lanky limbs. Not many people pick the exact center of a rooftop and lay the way this person is laying, like they're waiting for the sky to drop into their arms.
If anything, this person could be anyone. If anything, Yoongi should simply retreat back into the stairwell and find another place to breathe.
Instead he lingers once more, just like last time because yeah, this person could be anyone—but it's not. Because Yoongi recognizes the voice, assured and unassuming and rough at the corners as it hums along to the song Yoongi just left playing in the studio.
Taehyung, Yoongi mouths, surprising himself, thankful that he can't make a sound because he didn't mean to call out like that. But he did and Taehyung obviously can't here him and Yoongi (should) obviously continue to avoid him but that voice, his voice...
Taehyung's singing a lullaby to the moon and suddenly it makes sense. Something makes sense.
The hopeless feeling that's been crushing Yoongi's throat for the past three weeks flutters, becomes something else.
"You okay?"
Namjoon asks just moments before the song ends, and Yoongi just nods because his bones aren't attached to his muscles and he's going gooey, melting right into the floor.
Why? he finally mouths, and Namjoon quirks his head and studies him with very serious eyes before breaking out into a grin that strikes Yoongi straight through the heart.
"Because you're smiling like an idiot," Namjoon answers playfully. He slips one headphone back on and bursts into a story from his class yesterday.
Yoongi wants to deny what Namjoon sees, but he can feel it himself. The eager, blooming smile that, no matter how many times he tries to smother it, only lingers for the rest of the night.
Jungkook surprises him after the show and walks him home, but not before they stop for dinner at a ramen street stall. Jungkook gives him his hardboiled egg and talks about some class assignments. Talks about this American artist he found on Spotify a while back who just dropped a new album and whose voice he knows Yoongi would adore because it sounds like listening to the ocean waves at night. (Yoongi's never heard the ocean at night, but the way Jungkook describes it makes him want to take a summer trip). Jungkook talks about the snowfall and this puppy at the pound with a missing eye and how he wants to start video-editing but the class isn't offered until next spring and he's already taking too many electives for someone a year behind in their major courses.
Jungkook has to ask him twice if he's listening. If Yoongi can understand him.
This is how their relationship works:
Yoongi is the only one that Jungkook still speaks to. Aloud. As in words out in the open air for the world to hear. For Yoongi to hear. Yoongi is the only one he trusts with that kind of power and Yoongi has to trudge around with this unwieldy hurt crushing his throat because he cannot understand why it's him of all people. Why Jungkook had to pick him.
"Hyung," Jungkook says, voice quiet beside his ear, brow creased with worry. Worry over his words, worry over Yoongi's lack of them tonight. Jungkook shouldn't be worried about him. Jungkook should hate him. Everyone should hate him but they don't and Yoongi wishes that they would.
You're perfect, Yoongi signs to him slowly, then reaches to swipe at a slice of green onion sticking to Jungkook's bottom lip. Intonation, pronunciation, you name it it's perfect.
Jungkook's gaze lingers on his fingers, frowning, then flickers up to his mouth. He takes a deep breath. His shoulders lift, fall. Yoongi waits for him to speak again, but instead Jungkook just closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, Yoongi's been shut out.
Yoongi watches him for a moment longer, trying to read his silence the way Namjoon reads his own; but Jungkook just works on drinking the soup from his second bowl of noodles and Yoongi doesn't know how to press forward without breaking him again.
Yoongi pulls out his songbook when he gets home. It takes a few minutes to find where it was tossed under a pile of papers for class. He digs it out and straightens up his desk, sets up his computer to plug into his keyboard and just... plays. It's a simple start, just a few chords here and there, a minor melody that doesn't have enough of a spine to be a song. But Yoongi keeps at it, letting his hand move without thinking, up and down and up, fluttering against the same keys again and again and again.
He stops to listen to the recording and hears the flickering disconnect of weariness, the heavy weight of unspoken words. It is, in simplest terms, completely fucking depressing to listen to.
So Yoongi swivels back to the keyboard and tries again.
And again
And again.
He hears his door slowly squeak open at some point in the night but doesn't turn around to acknowledge it. It shuts not long after without Hoseok trying to get his attention, so Yoongi closes his eyes and softly grips at his throat and then tries again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
The door creaks open, but this time Hoseok clears his throat and Yoongi blinks hard, once, twice, slides his hands away from his laptop and find his wrists aching and a few of his fingers asleep. He cracks them against each other and turns and finds that there's morning light coming in through the window and Hoseok's hair is dripping down his cheeks and onto the top of his bare shoulders and Yoongi has class in forty-five minutes.
Hoseok hums lowly to get his attention. You stay up all night?
Yoongi nods because he must have, there's no denying it. The pain in his ass and hands is enough evidence of that. Hoseok's face pinches up in concern, but there's this quiet glimmer in his eyes when he signs, Make something good?
Yoongi turns back to his computer and stares at the sound bars for a long moment before tugging his headphone cords free and pressing his mouse back to the beginning.
Quite honestly, Yoongi doesn't remember shit from the last eight hours. What he played or how he played it, if he made any edits, if he just sat here for god knows how long without actually moving.
What comes out of the speakers is this lived-in kind of sound, sweetly romantic at the edges, tender and intimate from within. A vulnerable piano solo embraced by an edgy string arrangement.
It is, without a doubt, a love song.
Yoongi doesn't remember writing it, but listening to the unpolished piece only brings one image to mind, though.
Taehyung.
Taehyung pressed against his side, showing him a painting that seemed to glow from within.
Taehyung laughing in the café, telling jokes to every customer that looked to be having a bad day.
Taehyung sprawled across the darkness of a roof, singing to a starless sky.
Yoongi presses the tips of fingers against his mouth where he tried to say his name aloud again, and Yoongi starts when he remembers that Hoseok is in the room, has been in the room, listening to the song with him, watching Yoongi with that unfiltered gaze of his that sometimes is even more serious than Namjoon's.
He's still watching Yoongi now, thoughtful but a little confused, and Yoongi keeps his hand pressed to his mouth to hide and Hoseok bites the inside of his cheek and signs, It's beautiful, hyung.
Yoongi wants to take that ocean trip now just so he can walk into the water and never come back out.
Hoseok leaves after that. Tells him to shower and stretch and eat some fruit and not to skip class, like he's some sort of doting parent. (Which he is.) Yoongi does all he asks, and he's almost to campus with a half-eaten banana when he notices that the sky is this impossible shade of blue for winter, so crisp and clean that Yoongi slows to stare for a moment as people bustle around him because it's a sight worth stopping for.
~~~
Yoongi clicks his tongue. Snaps his fingers. Flicks the string of his hoodie a few times. Pushes the little pack of food he's brought today towards her a smidgen. Tonight is beef. Everyone likes beef.
Jumbo just stares him down from three feet away like this is a competition and she'd rather eat her own foot before giving into him.
It's the RBF.
Yoongi tries smiling at her but she only yawns.
"She only eats kidney flavor, and it has to a mix of dry and wet... food. Hi."
Yoongi considers walking away, but he's crouched closed to the sidewalk and the amount of energy it would take to make a break for it just isn't worth it to him in this moment.
Plus, Yoongi's got this gut-feeling that if he waits this out, Jumbo's gonna give in.
That, and Taehyung's giving him a half-lidded, sleepy smile and Yoongi thinks his feet just melted. Makes for a hard getaway.
It's been a month since they've last met.
Also, answers. He's finally getting answers.
Yoongi lifts a hand in greeting and watches as Taehyung's whole body unwinds into something that resembles more of a human and less of a statue. He shuffles forward a step, then another, like Yoongi is the skittish animal in this situation, and crouches down while reaching for his backpack.
"Cats like fat, protein, novel textures and strong odors," he lists, as if reading from a veterinary pamphlet. "Plus, Hatshepsut is a queen and very picky. We also spoil her."
Taehyung has a can of catfood in hand and a small baggy in the other. He pops the tin and bends the thin, metal lid into a makeshift utensil to mix in the dry food. He smiles when he catches Yoongi watching him, but it's a little stiff at the edges, and he bites his lip as if embarrassed.
"Oh, the history department won rock, paper, scissors and got to name her," he says, most definitely embarrassed and a little of something else, a little something sad and much too tender for the hour. "I think it fits, though."
Hatshepsut toddles up to the can and scarfs half the contents in one bite. Yoongi watches Taehyung's hand splay across her back, giving a little scratch here and there as she eats. His own hands start to tingle and he tucks them into the creases behind his knees for warmth and to keep the light buzzing at bay before it spreads through his body and sends him into cardiac arrest.
"I want to apologize for the other night," Taehyung starts, voice low and intense, eyes downcast. A cheek bite this time. Yoongi squints. "I don't know what I said or did to hurt you, but I'm sorry it happened."
Have you ever hurt someone important to you? But you don't know how you hurt them and you just know that you did?
Hatshepsut sneezes. Taehyung tugs on her ear lightly then tugs on his own, rubbing the lobe lightly, playing with a dangling chain there. He swallows thickly and tightens his scarf to hide his throat and Yoongi's stomach is churning.
Hatshepsut finishes her meal. Starts to lick her paws. Taehyung cleans up the trash. Hums a tune under his breath, something too soft to piece together.
Yoongi's tapping a harmony to it.
"Look." Yoongi is already looking. At Taehyung's knobby hands and sloping jaw and those stupid, stupid eyelashes. Nobody should feel this overwhelmed by eyelashes. "I get that you don't like me and that's—that's okay, but we have the same friend group, and I don't consider myself a terrible person, so could you at least try to pretend I exist for a second? I'm really trying here, hyung. Yoongi-ssi. Sunbaenim."
Taehyung's mouth is pinched together. Yoongi holds his breath and waits for him to say something, anything else, that will clue him into why Taehyung sees himself as a dust mote through Yoongi's eyes when he's so much more.
But Taehyung's face only clouds over, the softness bleeds from his mouth. Yoongi studies his eyes, one double and one mono, feels all the words tumbling around inside and—
Yoongi grins, curls his hand into a fist, then pulls back and bumps it against his lips. Taehyung stares on with this lonesome frown and Yoongi drops his hand and mouths, I'm mute.
"I'm..." Taehyung shuffles forward and Hatshepsut bumbles out of his away. Yoongi mouths it again. "Sorry, I don't—oh. OH."
Taehyung drops his face into his palms, releases a shrill shriek, then topples back into the sidewalk.
"What the hell I'm such an idiot I'M SUCH AN IDIOT, HYUNG."
Taehyung flings himself back into a sitting position, crisscrossed this time, face bright and exasperated. "All this time? You've been deaf all this time and I just keep rambling on and on like some kind of idiot—"
Yoongi taps Taehyung's boot twice to get his attention, points to his own throat and shakes his head, points to his ears and nods.
"Not... deaf," Taehyung enunciates slowly, more so for his own good than for Yoongi's. "You can hear.. but... you can't speak?"
Yoongi nods and Taehyung, once again, keels over to curl up in the snow. Hatshepsut eyes him haughtily, then looks over to Yoongi like, can you believe this fool?
"It's terrible but for a second I was happy you were deaf because that means you probably didn't hear anything I said to you at the party or like, ever, and all my problems would be fixed but you did and now I'm just making a bigger fool of myself and god, I'm such a mess. You make me such a mess, hyung."
What a fool, indeed. What a beautiful, beautiful fool.
Taehyung bounces up and reaches for his backpack again. He pulls out a notebook, flips to a clean page, hands it and a purple pen over to Yoongi.
"Sorry, I don't know sign language or else I would, you know, sign." Yoongi takes the items from him even though his phone is in his coat pocket. "Can you tell me like, everything about yourself? All the things I got wrong? I've kind of just been living off an idea of you and now that I know you don't think I'm the bane of your existence I'd love to talk to you for real."
His smile is so huge now, so large Yoongi's surprised he can get any words past it.
"Or I am the bane of your existence and this just got real awkward," Taehyung nods, the tops of his cheekbones reddening as he speaks. "Okay. Great. I can work with that. I can leave?"
Yoongi drops a hand on Taehyung's knee, drops his gaze down to the paper because he can't handle that wide smile just yet.
Hatshepsut has long abandoned them. A group of students exit the arts building and they call out to Taehyung in greeting, but he doesn't verbally respond, only lifts a hand to wave. Yoongi writes quickly and neatly, glancing up only once and then back down just as fast because Taehyung was looking at him with earnest eyes.
Yoongi holds out the paper and draws back his hand, cold from where he left it on Taehyung's leg. Taehyung takes the sheet with both hands like it's precious and Yoongi sees his eyes flit over the page once, twice, three times. Occasionally he trails a finger over a word, mutters something quiet under his breath, too quiet for even Yoongi to hear.
My name is Min Yoongi. I'm a second-year grad student in music composition, but I am pretty concerned about climate change's threat on coastal and estuarine ecosystems. I have a toy poodle named Holly, but I do appreciate Agnodice's badass contribution to the medical field. I'm not a big reader, but I value Ginsberg's role in challenging society and embracing youth subcultures. The moon is a good friend. She says hi. I bought a cactus because they're even harder to kill than succulents. I named it James. He sits next to the toaster. I've never lived anywhere with a working garbage disposal, so my most irrational fear would probably be of my shoelace getting stuck in an escalator.
Finally, Taehyung takes in a deep breath. His face scrunches up prettily and Yoongi tries to hold on to the moment, bright and fleeting in his hands.
"Okay," Taehyung nods, tucking the paper against his chest. "Okay, good to know."
He's so stunning. So tender.
Yoongi holds out his hand and Taehyung reluctantly places the paper back in his palm. Yoongi scribbles this time, fast and flustered, and he shoves the paper into Taehyung's still outstretched palm and then stands and walks away and tries not to think about the power he just placed in someone else's grasp.
Have you ever seen a Rothko? They're simple and brilliant and luminous. Larger than life. Stir you up inside. They say what you need to hear. They're kind of like you.
Taehyung catches him half a block away, screams his name so loud Yoongi hears a few windows open from the freshmen dorm across the street.
"Next time!" Taehyung bleats from the other side of the crosswalk, caught at a red light that he could probably ignore because it's late and there isn't a car sight but Yoongi's glad he doesn't because he needs the distance. "Next time... Next time don't run away, okay?"
That could be referring to a lot of things, a lot of moments and places, but Yoongi knows what he's referring to and ducks his head. It's barely a nod, but Taehyung beams and clutches the paper, Yoongi's paper, Yoongi's words, to his chest. Nods. Turns and walks away from him with the slightest skip to his step.
Yoongi now realizes Taehyung walks like that not because he's nervous, but because he's happy.
Hoseok's lounging in the living room, wrapped in quilt with a facemask on and some hospital drama playing too loud on the TV while he pops corn chips into his mouth with the delicacy of chipmunk. He must catch Yoongi's movement from the side because he briefly glances his direction to wave, turns back to his show, then does a double take.
Hyung? He signs, eyes narrowed behind the panda mask. Suspicious.
Yoongi realizes his fingers are tingling.
The toes of his sock are wet.
One of his ears is numb where his hat didn't quite cover it.
That he's smiling, wide and giddy, flushed all the way to his ankles.
Yoongi's fingers fly to his lips, rubbing at them harshly as if he can wipe away the grin. The damage is done, though, and Hoseok stares him down as he slips off his boots and cuts over to the bathroom to run a hot shower.
In the mirror Yoongi sees what Hoseok did; a boy with shining eyes and warm cheeks and this dreamy, lost smile.
Yoongi blushes at his reflection and scrunches his nose until he sees something more familiar, a little more indifferent and a little less in love.
Oh shit.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh fucking shit.
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