for siobhandestele: coming home

[bangtanmod]

Title: Coming Home
Recipient: SiobhanDeStele
Pairing: Yoongi/Hoseok/Namjoon
Rating: R
Word count: ~21.3k
Warnings: slight violence, underage drinking, homophobia
Summary: For Namjoon and Yoongi, home isn't a place. It's a person.
Author's notes: To my recipient, I sincerely hope that you'll like the story. To my wonderful betas without whom this story wouldn't be so long and complex, thank you for putting up with me in the last two months, for all virtual hand-holding, support and love. Thank you for not giving up on this story and me. ♥


Disappear here.

The neon sign flickers; the alleyway in Hongdae sinks into darkness for a second - a skipped heartbeat - before the dim red light illuminates it again. A cat jumps off a trash can, causing empty soju bottles to fall on dirty concrete. The glass doesn't shatter; bottles are made to endure slight turbulences and shaky fingers. Instead, it cracks, a spider web of lines running from the place of impact.

Noise can be heard from the busy streets, branching through Hongdae like veins. Instead of blood, they carry a never-ending tide of cars and people in their '20s – the best years, when mistakes are forgiven with the youth as an excuse for everything. The honking of cars – the drivers' patience wearing thin – echoes between the walls which protect the alleyway from curious passers-by.
It's a dead end; nowhere to go but down the rusty metal staircase and to another, maybe better, quite possibly worse, reality. A modern-day rabbit hole in the heart of the city with soul.

Few streets away, at the entrance to a metro station, squeezed between a flower shop and an abandoned building, there're young people sitting on the stairs leading to the platforms. They should head home, but staying late is tempting, company is good, alcohol running in their veins is heating their cheeks in the cold night. They can miss this train; another one will come.

At the far end on the platform, White Rabbit, wearing a white collar is waiting for the last train to take him home. His tie is loosened, his coat not warm enough to keep the cold away. His briefcase full of last month's reports and complains filed against useless interns. Glancing at his pocket watch, he sighs. He is running late, as always.
Alice is nowhere to be seen tonight. The dead-hour of the night is no time for kids to wander around.

Somebody else is ought to be lost this night.

This digital age Wonderland of glass skyscrapers and billboards, promoting everything from fast food restaurants to newest models of smart phones, doesn't need the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat to be crazy; Tim Burton merely took the flashy parts of scenography advertised on city squares and tried to make the best out of it.

The neon sign on the brick wall in the alleyway oddly resembles a way out, an exit sign visible even through the thick layer of smoke in the building that's burning down to ashes because somebody was careless and left the heater on.

The red bleeds, dissolving the darkness. Shadows are dancing behind trash cans where stray dogs seek shelter from the cold weather. Winter is coming and the air is heavy, filled with smog and the stench of gasoline; it's getting harder to breathe. The wind isn't strong enough to lift up the ashes, above the buildings, the bridges. Soon Seoul will become Beijing; pollution will take it in its embrace and never let go. But before that happens, this year will end and a new one will come; people will celebrate, get drunk, make a thousand and one mistakes, kiss the wrong person, cheat on the right one, cry, laugh and forget, erase everything that hurts. Selective memory is a blessing; alcohol the means to make it happen.

There are more than twenty days before clocks will tick away the last minute of the year, and then Alice will be one year older than she is today. Maybe her sweet sixteen is just around the corner.

The dogs bark in the distance, interrupting the noise from the streets that barely sleep. A boy stops on the crossroad, waiting for the light to turn green. He puts his duffel bag on the pavement. It's heavy, filled with hopes and dreams; his shoulder hurts. The walk from the metro station was longer than expected.

A businessman stands a few feet away. His shift has ended late. Cold night air bites his cheeks and he pulls up the collar of his coat to protect himself from the dawning winter. He looks straight ahead of him and silently waits. His surroundings don't interest him, this city has long stopped being an unreachable and mystic place like it was when he came from the countryside as a student.

The street light bleeds green. Cursing under their breath, the drivers hit the breaks. The boy lifts his bag from the pavement, takes a step forward as a familiar weight settles on his shoulder. The man crosses the street quickly; disappearing in one of the many paths.

When the boy gets to the other side and the cars behind his back drive away, he pulls his phone out of his pocket. 2:30 in the morning, no new messages, no missed calls. He rereads the message with directions he received a few days ago, tries to figure out whether he's even on the right side of Seoul - of this metropolis that could swallow him whole.

His fingers are numb from the cold; his gloves forgotten on the train in a hurry. Cursing won't fix things, but he does it anyway. Nobody can hear him; streets are empty in this part of Hongdae, away from the nightclubs and restless youth.

He goes down the street, counting the alleyways he passes by. Shops are closed; only neon signs above their doors are still alive, full of colours. Sadly, these signs aren't arrows showing the right way.

A few minutes later he stops, peering into an alleyway. Red is bleeding in the distance – a good sign. Instructions mentioned it. He walks past brick walls with few graffiti decorating them; art of the concrete jungle, bright colours on the canvas of the grey reality. At the end of the alley a staircase leads to the underground, above it a neon sign in cursive, like the ones down the wide avenues of some American city he saw in a movie.
“Disappear here.”

Yoongi likes the sound of these words, the idea behind them and he takes the first step down the run-down staircase; a modern-day rabbit hole.

- - -

The phone rings; an obnoxious tune that Namjoon hates. Too cheerful and loud – it makes him pick up right after the first ring.

The sound echoes in the apartment, bounces off bare white walls. Groaning, he reaches for the phone on the nightstand.

His hand lands on a book instead. A miss.

On glasses he hates wearing. Another miss.

He lifts his head from the soft pillow, blinks a few times. First verse changes to chorus; a cacophony of high-pitched voices fills the air. Namjoon cringes and grabs his phone.

“Yes?”

His voice is hoarse. His head aches; the hangover is kicking in.

“Good morning, sunshine,” the voice on the other end of the phone says.

“Cut the crap, hyung,” Namjoon rolls on his back, staring at the ceiling. A shallow crack is stretching from the chandelier to the doorframe, barely visible but still there.

“Ouch... Sensitive much, Joonie?” Jiho laughs, loud and obnoxious, like he's above the world. Namjoon's lip quivers, a hint of a smile.

“Mhm,” he exhales and closes his eyes. It's early - way too early.

“I have good news for you; you'll be able to stop making covers of songs that were never a hit,” Jiho says. “I found you a producer, a real one, not those third class wannabes hanging on every corner of Hongdae. He's coming to see you next week, so play nice. You won't find a guy like this anywhere else. This guy is amazing. Trust me.”

“You never talk nice about someone unless they're a friend or a cousin. Which one is it?” Namjoon asks.

The other side of the bed is empty, cold, like nobody slept there for a very long time.
A lie.

It was warm when Namjoon returned home last night; Hoseok was there.

Jiho sighs on the other end of the line, “Am I that transparent?”

Namjoon nods even though his friend can't see him. “Yeah,” he says after a moment.

“He's a friend so you better not screw this up or I'll end you.”

“Fine. I'll be nice but if he's not good -”

“He's great. I wouldn't be dragging him all the way up from Daegu if he wasn't.”

Namjoon can hear the pride in Jiho's voice. It's amusing how he likes to pretend that he doesn't care for people unless he can benefit from them. They all wear this mask of arrogance and false superiority. Like it's in the description of their job, printed in bold letters on the first page of a contract no one of them remembers signing.

“Next Saturday. Don't forget,” Jiho reminds him before hanging up.

“I won't,” Namjoon says to the dialling sound.

When he opens his eyes, the white ceiling is staring back at him.
He puts the phone away, tries to remember how much he drank the night before, to predict how long the headache would last. He searches for warmth in cold sheets, remains of a heartbeat, a memory.
Hoseok never leaves things behind.

Namjoon pushes the past away before he crawls up. For a few seconds he does nothing and just sits there in the faintly lit bedroom. The last few rays of sunlight try to pierce their way in through heavy curtains, before the snow drowns them in endless night and fog rising from the Han River. Sounds of car horns and shouting of vendors from the street create much needed white noise. Namjoon massages his temples. The headache doesn't go away.

His hair smells like cigarettes; his tee is the same one he wore last night. He stands up, drags himself to the bathroom, leaving dirty clothes scattered on the tiles and gets in the shower. Cold water hits his skin, piercing it like a thousand of needles. Namjoon shivers.

He towel dries his hair, bleached strands falling in his eyes.

Hoseok suggested that he should dye it. “You look like Jack Frost,” Hoseok said when silver replaced black and Namjoon smiled in return.

He liked it back then. He still does. With bangs overgrown and roots showing.

On the kitchen counter there is a bowl of fruits he doesn't remember seeing yesterday. All the utensils Hoseok used are washed and put away; in the sink nothing but an empty cup Namjoon put there last night. Hoseok is gone as if he was never there. Namjoon isn't surprised, not anymore. The first time Hoseok left, he was back in three days. The last time Hoseok left was a year ago.
Maybe Namjoon should ask how long he'd be away, but he never does, because the answer would be a smile and a teasing “how much will you miss me”. Hoseok seems to believe that everything can be solved with a smile. Namjoon can't burst his bubble. After all it's easier this way, with no questions asked.

Namjoon pours himself a glass of pineapple juice, gets the bowl from the dish rack and cereal from the top shelf. He watches television while he waits for his cereal to get soggy.
News is on KBS, some idol show on MNET, documentary about the wildlife on SBS. He flips through the channels, reading fractions of headlines in the news. A car accident on a motorway leading to Gwangju. Rain storm in the south. Earthquake in Japan.
Namjoon turns off the TV. He's not hungry anymore.

At noon, he reaches for his phone, wanting to call Hoseok, to apologize for falling asleep in the middle of the conversation. He dials. Stops midway. The bold numbers glare at him. He hits backspace, stuffs the phone back in the pocket of his jeans, and heads out.

Namjoon gets off on the wrong bus station. He enters the first coffee shop he sees. The waitress smiles at him, asking if he's a student.

“You'll get a discount if you become our regular costumer,” she beams at him. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, a few strands falling on her neck. Her green apron fits her perfectly; the nametag on the breast pocket in a shape of an apple is catching the attention of every costumer. Namjoon doesn't even glance at it. The chances of him coming back are close to nothing, but he smiles when she hands him his coffee and wishes him a good day.

He takes the longest path to the studio. Today he's not in the mood for working, for any human contact at all, but as always something pulls him towards the familiar alley and the staircase on which he spent many months of his teenage years. When he gets there, he finds Donghyuk behind the mixing pult. A new track for whoever is the new rising star in the underground scene is in the making and Namjoon sticks around long enough to hear the finished product.

“You like it?” Donghyuk asks once the song is over.

“It's great, as usual.”

“It's for you, until you find a better producer.”

“Then I'm stuck with you for a lifetime,” Namjoon laughs. Donghyuk jabs him the ribs.

“Hey, don't hurt me, I'm just being honest,” Namjoon whines and Donghyuk rolls his eyes.

“According to Jiho, you'll get rid of me soon.”

“He said something to you?”

“Yeah, he talked about that Daegu guy. Bragged would be a better word,” he snickers.

“Another one of his charity cases?” Namjoon asks.

Donghyuk shrugs, “Probably.”

- - -

If spring smells like first love and cherry blossoms, autumn reeks of heartache and lost chances for redemption. Butterflies in the stomachs are replaced with graveyards in young mouths filled with words that have died on trembling lips. The hearts which haven't been broken yet have frozen, an eternal winter knitted between ribs.

And yet, some have the decency to say that autumn is a warm season with its palettes of browns and reds, bare tree branches soaring to the sky, colourful leaves on the pavements.

There is no red in the blocks of flats. Concrete buildings rise from the ground to the sky, a tsunami of lifeless grey in every shade between black and white. Working class neighbourhoods as the prime example of achromatic reality. Narrow streets branching through suburbs, leading to the end of the civilization.

Crows sitting on street lamps watch passers-by as they go to work and return home after 10 hours of being trapped in cramped cubicles. A strong economy for a strong country. Who cares that the children barely know their parents. Soon enough, “mum” and “dad” will be foreign words.

Hoseok never called his mother “mum”. That word is warm, gentle, full of love – everything she wasn't. She was always “mother” - cold, distant, sitting at the other end of the table during obligatory family dinners.

“Can you pass me the salt, mother?”

“My day was fine, mother. How was yours?”

“The parents' meeting will be next week, mother.”

Mother. Mother. Mother.

A punch to the stomach, a bruised heart. A rubber band around his wrist that keeps hurting his skin until it's red, veins pulsing in pain. Until it gets pulled too far – his mother's hand raised high in the air – and it snaps – the sound of his mother's palm against his cheek. The skin is red. It stings. No longer is she a mother to him, but a stranger like a million other people he meets on the streets.

The crow above his head squawks and his memories disperse. All that's left is fog clouding his vision.

In the blocks of flats, children do get bored and graffiti is blooming on the backside of the buildings; a patch of colour among the grey concrete, a reminder of juvenile rebellion and turbulent years. His tag should be among the hundreds of others. The paint cans in his duffel bag clank against each other, thin metal against metal. A familiar sound.

He's going down the same path like he did many years ago, his version of a boulevard of broken dreams. The crows watch over him like in an old horror movie. The scenography is almost the same – black and white. All that's missing is a madman or a businessman in a pressed suit with the tendency to kill in order to relieve stress from working extra hours. Korea's own psycho. Hoseok probably could fit the role of the victim, if he wanted to.

Every city he's been to has that one neighbourhood that is an exact replica of the one he grew up in. The similarities are striking – copy, after copy, after copy of the same blueprint with the same buildings and the same streets; only the names are different. And the birds sitting on street lamps.

An old man waits at the bus stop. Pulling his headphones out, Hoseok crosses the street without looking if any cars are coming his way. He sits on the bench, a few seats away from the old man and waits with him in silence until the bus appears around the corner. When the bus pulls to a stop, the old man gets up but he doesn't move closer to the now open doors. A kid not older than nine years old gets off the bus and Hoseok realizes that the man is not planning to leave the neighbourhood. The backpack on boy's shoulders is heavy, threatening to pull him backwards. The weight of education will pin him to the ground years before pre-exam stress and sleep deprivation. But for now, school is nothing but laughter during breaks and a loving teacher with endless patience for a million trivial questions. The boy smiles when he sees the old man and a high-pitched “grandpa” echoes in Hoseok's ears.

Welcome home.

Hoseok watches as the old man takes the backpack off the kid's shoulders and ruffles his hair.
Affection. Pride burning silently in black irises as the boy brags about all good grades he got today.
“Well done, Jimin, well done,” Grandpa says as they walk past Hoseok and he catches a glimpse of round cheeks and a toothy grin. It's awfully familiar yet foreign at the same time. Hoseok blames the name for all similarities he shouldn't have noticed. After all, it's just a name. The one echoing in the corridors of his childhood.

But he can't go down that memory lane, not again.

He looks at the sky, at heavy clouds rolling on blank canvas. There will be a downpour in the afternoon. Rain will wash away the vague memories like paint drops on dirty concrete, just like the waves wash away the footsteps on the beach.

- - -

Donghyuk collects the last few peanuts from the wooden bowl on the counter in his palm, throws his head back and tosses them one by one in the air. Namjoon gestures to the bartender to stop pouring alcohol in their glasses. The guy behind the counter nods in affirmation, as the first peanut hits Donghyuk in the eye. Next to him, Namjoon laughs, not loud enough to catch Donghyuk's attention. As expected, most peanuts miss his mouth, but one makes it and Donghyuk does a little victory dance as he chews it. Namjoon wonders how they managed to be friends for so many years, but before he can think of an answer, he's getting off the bar stool and bidding farewell to the half-empty bar.

“Where are you going?” Donghyuk asks as he pushes his empty glass towards to the bartender to fill it up.

“The studio. Jiho's amazing producer friend is coming tonight.”

“Can't that wait til morning?”

“According to angry texts I got in the last half an hour, I'll be dead if I don't turn up there tonight,” Namjoon laughs. Alcohol has heated his cheeks and his blood; he didn't even drink as much as Donghyuk.

With a wave of his hand, Donghyuk dismisses him and returns to the golden liquid in his glass. Namjoon pretends not to hear “what an amazing best friend, leavin' me hangin' because of some random guy” as he leaves the bar.

When he steps outside, cold wind bites his cheeks and clears his mind, and Namjoon breathes in polluted air that oddly smells like winter. He walks down deserted streets counting his steps as he rounds the familiar corners. It doesn't take him long to reach the studios; the neon sign flickers as he goes down the stairs. All lights are turned off; nobody trades precious sleep for extra hours behind the mixing pult. Nobody but him.

Namjoon turns on the lights in the hallway, in recording studios 3 and 5. It's a habit he doesn't seem to be able to get rid of. Studio 3 hasn't been used since Hunchul went to Gwangju five months ago.

Namjoon leaves the door of the studio open, tosses his jacket on the couch in the corner, and settles in the chair in front of a computer screen.
Blank text document, cursor that blinks in the first row. He lacks the right words, alcohol never does the talking for him. He stares at the white page, then at the ceiling. He's wasting time. Lately, he's been doing that a lot.

Namjoon pulls the phone out of his pocket. The clock shows 2:20 after midnight.
Half an hour, he thinks. He'll give the guy half an hour to show up.

- - -

“You're up in five. Don't chicken out!” the club manager shouts over loud music and screams from the audience. Hoseok smiles and yells back something between “We'll rock the stage” and “Don't worry, we're pros”. Namjoon doesn't want to hear any of it.

He's seventeen, his hands are shaking, palms sweaty, the mic could slip through his fingers at any moment.

The first performance in front of a crowd that isn't made just of his friends, on a stage that isn't impromptu stage in one of the many karaoke places they frequent. He looks over at Hoseok who's bouncing in the rhythm with the music, wide grin on his face, eyes sparkly with excitement and adrenalin – the natural high. He mouths something but Namjoon was never a good lip-reader and he moves closer – to Hoseok, to the stage, to the crowd of people waiting for them behind black curtains and transparent walls.

“Relax,” Hoseok says once Namjoon is close enough to hear him. “Everything will be okay. They'll love us.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Hoseok grins. “Because you're awesome and I'm fabulous.”

“Cocky much?”

“Nah, just confident. C'mon!” Hoseok heads to the stage, pulls Namjoon with him, his fingers around Namjoon's wrist – a jolt of electricity – and Namjoon frees himself before the audience can see them. He pretends not to see the hurt expression on Hoseok's face.

Once they're on stage, the music changes to the tracks Donghyuk produced from him and Namjoon finds confidence in familiar bass lines.

Their first showcase turns out to be a success – the crowd responds well to every verse, every bar. Hoseok keeps them hyped, adding a bit of oil to the fire. He feeds off positive energy, cheers and ovations. The stage is small, the audience close.

Namjoon feels waves of emotion crush over him and yet he doesn't drown, he stays afloat, on top of the beat. With every song, the lump in his throat becomes smaller and smaller until it disappears and the stage feels like home; audience like newly found friends. When the last song is over and melody gets lost in cheers, Namjoon smiles and thanks the audience for coming and not throwing tomatoes at them. Next to him, Hoseok facepalms, but Namjoon can see that he's laughing. Everybody is.

They don't get much money, barely enough to pay the electricity bill, but it's something. The manager says that they were good, for rookies, and that they should stop by next Saturday. Namjoon shakes his hand. It's a deal - they'll come.

“Why did you do that?” Hoseok says over a bowl of hot noodles.

“Do what?” Namjoon retorts between bites as the sound of metal chopsticks against ceramic bowls fills the air. The small restaurant – five tables, a bar with a couple of high stools and barely enough space to walk between them – is always full; popular with both students and workers. They're lucky they even managed to get a table tonight.

Hoseok accusingly points his chopsticks at Namjoon. “Cracked those bad jokes. That's my job, man!”

Raising his hands in the air, Namjoon mumbles. “Sorry” even though he really isn't. Hoseok rolls his eyes and continues eating.

The first performance turns into the second, the third. Few months are all it takes for Namjoon to be considered a monster rookie. His tracks on Soundcloud receive tens of thousands of clicks instead of barely a hundred, the number of his followers on Twitter increases after every performance, his notifications blow up. Donghyuk jokes about some big music company scouting him for their new boygroup because underground rapper turned mainstream pop star seems to be the latest fad and Namjoon buries his face in his palms. Hunchul ruffles his hair and sheds fake tears because his boy is growing up so fast. Namjoon takes this opportunity to jab him in the ribs and Hunchul winces.

“You need to tame your flatmate,” he says to Hoseok who looks up from his phone and the game he's been playing since he got to the studio.

“Sure thing, hyung,” he smiles and Namjoon sees mischief glimmering in his black orbs.

That evening, after the performance, Hoseok corners Namjoon backstage.
Small clubs in the outskirts have been replaced with those in the heart of Hongdae where stages are big, dance floors filled with the youth seeking affection and love with the help of alcohol and intoxicating music. They're done for tonight; they prepared the crowd for the main act of the evening. All that's left to do is to enjoy the benefits that fake ID cards carry, but they're not tipsy. They're high – on adrenalin rush and the crowd's ovations, on a performance that sucked the last joules of their energy and left them lightheaded.

Hoseok corners him in the passage way, unused equipment to their left, dimly lit hallway to their right. Nobody will come down here as long as music can be heard, as long as the night is still young.

Namjoon's thoughts are a mess that he's trying to untangle, but by the time he finds the right words, his back has hit the wall. Hoseok's kissing him – carelessly, hungrily, like the world will end tomorrow.

“They said you should be tamed,” Hoseok whispers, hot breath against heated skin. “Maybe now is the right time.”
His hands are on Namjoon's shoulders, chest, moving down, down, down. His lips have abandoned Namjoon's, moved to his jawline, his neck.

“What if it's the wrong time?” Namjoon gasps. Hoseok stills for a second, a skipped heartbeat. He looks at Namjoon, cheeks flushed, bangs sticking to his forehead. The lights are faint but strong enough for Hoseok to distinguish embarrassment from need, lust from reckless mistakes. Hoseok hopes that this won't be a mistake.

“You tell me,” and he's kissing Namjoon again. Slowly, painfully slowly. He licks his way in Namjoon's mouth, tasting cherry cola on his tongue.

Namjoon's hands are strong around his waist, sneaking under the oversized t-shirt Hoseok's wearing. His skin is hot under Namjoon's fingertips.

Every kiss melts Namjoon's resolve not to go further than friendship; every touch turns his world upside-down. He's changed his mind hundreds of times about Hoseok. He'll do it again.

Hoseok rolls his hips, and Namjoon almost chokes. Hoseok's fingers flick open the buttons of his jeans, and before long, they're wrapping around his hot hard cock, stroking and pulling with a solid touch.

Namjoon's breath hitches. Hoseok swallows a moan that escapes his lips a moment later. His knees are weak, he might crumble to the ground at any second. Hoseok's thumb flicks over the head of his cock with every stroke, making his hips jerk and writhe. Hoseok abandons his mouth, trails kisses along his jaw, tugs at Namjoon's earlobe with his teeth and whispers “Be a good boy, just for tonight”. He's set a rhythm, slow pace that has Namjoon gripping the wall behind him for support.
Somewhere, a small voice in his head is telling him that they can be caught, but before he has a chance to protest, Hoseok's dropped to his knees. Namjoon bites down hard on his bottom lip, drawing blood, tasting it on his tongue, when Hoseok takes the head of his cock into his mouth. Hoseok's tongue is flicking against the slit over and over, swollen lips wrapped hot and wet around his cock, and Namjoon can't stop shaking. His hips can't stop twitching up, and Hoseok graciously, slowly takes everything in, lips pulled tight around the hardness of his cock. It's slow, torturous, and absolutely maddening. Namjoon comes in spurts into Hoseok's sinful mouth. He groans loudly when he realizes Hoseok swallows it all down.

He doesn't remember the taxi ride home or climbing the stairs to their shared apartment because the elevator is out of function, but he remembers Hoseok's lips against his own as they stumbled inside, Hoseok's skin under his fingertips and the marks he left on Hoseok's collarbones.

He also remembers waking up in cold sheets and no notes left on the nightstand.
It's not the first time Hoseok has left without saying goodbye, and it won't be the last time either.

- - -

Yoongi enters without knocking. Neon lights in the hallway tell him that somebody is still here fighting insomnia with the help of mechanical harmonies and steady rhythm. Maybe they're waiting for him. Jiho's message said that Runch Randa would be in studio 5. He goes down the hallway, eyes scanning over number plates on every door. In almost every studio, lights are turned off, his reflection all he can see on the surface of the glass doors. He's probably late, business meeting shouldn't occur in the dead hour of the night, but he wanted to leave Daegu as soon as possible. He needed to leave his old life behind.

That's why he persuaded Jiho to arrange this meeting. The older understood the words Yoongi didn't dare to say, he read between the lines, just like always, and laughed at the other end of the line. “It's about time you dragged your ass up here,” Jiho said before hanging up and Yoongi knew that he would never have to turn back.

He can hear music from the studio down the hallway, some unfamiliar track with a steady bass line. Yoongi likes the rhythm but not the transitions. They need polishing; they need more melodies. The beat suddenly drops, disappears in the cracks in the walls, gets lost in the floor boards.

Yoongi knocks on the doors of the studio number 5. When nobody answers, he pushes the door open. The guy sitting in front of a computer has his headphones on, his fingers are flying over the keyboard and Yoongi recognizes the familiar interface of the music software he, too, once used until he found a better one.

The guy stops working and silently curses whatever section of the song he edited too much. He reaches for the styrofoam cup, tries to take a sip from the empty cup. Yoongi can hear him laughing at his misery and getting ready to get up. He takes off his headphones. Yoongi watches in amusement as he struggles with the cables and tries to free himself; then the guy's turning around and Yoongi bites his lips to prevent the laughter bubbling in the back of his throat. His smile transforms to something oddly resembling a mocking grin.

The guy eyes him for a second before he says, “You're Jiho's friend, right?”

“Yes. And you must be Runch Randa?”

“You can call me Namjoon, unless you're a fan and all you want is my autograph or to take a selca with me,” the guy – Namjoon – says, laughing, his dimples showing, and Yoongi sighs.

“As if you're that popular.”

“Hey, I have my little fanbase -”

“Mostly made of teenage girls,” Yoongi says. He shouldn't be bickering with the guy he just met, he shouldn't be ruining his chances for success, but Namjoon is still smiling so maybe he didn't fuck everything up.

“Fans are fans,” Namjoon says. “Make yourself comfortable,” he gestures to the couch and stands up. Yoongi unzips his jacket, but doesn't take it off. He drops his bag on the floor and sits down facing Namjoon.

“Jiho said some good things about you,” Namjoon starts as he tosses the cup in the trash bin. “Were those just lies to make me stay up and wait for you?”

Yoongi frowns. He's fully aware of the fact that Jiho has big mouth. It got him into trouble before. “Depends,” Yoongi replies. “What did he say?”

“That you're the best producer to ever walk on the face of the Earth.”

Yoongi snickers. “That's not so far from the truth.”

“Really?” Namjoon asks. Yoongi can feel amusement in the tone of his voice. There's something else though; something underneath it that he can't quite name. “You have to convince me in that, umm...”

“Yoongi,” he supplies and Namjoon nods.

“Yoongi,” he repeats the name, splits the syllables, turns them inside out and tastes them on his tongue. “I don't believe every rumour I hear,” Namjoon says and Yoongi's already reaching for his bag, pulling his laptop out.

Two hours later, Namjoon's locking the front door of the studios. Yoongi's standing next to him, his hands tucked deep in his pockets. It's cold, his jacket is thin. The weather in Seoul is drastically different from the one in Daegu.

“Your songs are great,” Namjoon says as he checks the lock one last time before climbing the stairs.

“Thanks,” Yoongi replies, his breath puffs of white air, his lips quivering.

They walk in silence to the corner of the street. Dawn is approaching; the sky a shade lighter than it was when Yoongi first got here. A taxi drives down the street without stopping on the red light. Streets are empty save for the two of them.

It's about time to part ways. Namjoon listened to his songs, said he liked them. He even came up with few verses accompanying heavy beats. It turned out to be that Jiho was right after all. Namjoon owes him a favour, a big one. They'll work together, in the future, and Yoongi is okay with that.

“See ya,” Yoongi says, ready to turn around.

Namjoon says, “Do you need a place to crash?” and Yoongi raises his eyebrows.

“I mean,” and he tries to explain himself, “you just came here and hostels are probably full. No offense, but you don't seem like the person that will get a room in Hilton or some fancy hotel in downtown Gangnam.”

“I'm not a charity case, I'll manage,” Yoongi says, Namjoon shakes his head.

“I'm not Mother Theresa, I'm just offering you my couch for tonight.”

Namjoon comes home and he's taken up that corner of the couch again, face buried in the cushions and limbs splayed over the edges. His offer was out of question tonight, but there was no way Namjoon could have known that, not with the way Hoseok comes and goes.

The music pounding out of his headphones is stentorian in the soft squeeze of the silence, and the steady rise and fall of his back hardly discernible beneath the dark. His duffel bag sits half-open on the doormat. Namjoon kicks it in place beside the shoe rack and says, “I'm sorry, the place is a mess.”

Yoongi shrugs. He doesn't care; he's seen worse.

“Namjoon, you're late,” comes Hoseok's voice, muffled and flat, tired even. The TV is running on mute beside him. Dim lights coming from the screen are softening all edges but Hoseok's features. Hoseok pushes himself upright, looks at Namjoon and Yoongi. Before Namjoon can say anything, Hoseok's on his feet, smiling, just like always. His hair is a mess, sleep lines on his cheeks. His gaze stays locked on Yoongi.

“Yoongi, this is Hoseok, he -”

“He's going to bed now,” Hoseok cuts him off walking past them, bare feet against cold floor. “See you in the morning,” he says before shutting the door of a bedroom. Namjoon exhales the breath he wasn't aware he was holding in. Yoongi drops his bag next to Hoseok's, kicks off his shoes.

Namjoon turns up the volume of the TV, lets the foreign voices fill the silence between them.

“I'll get you a pillow and a blanket. And, Yoongi, I'm sorry...”

“For what? Your flatmate?”

Namjoon nods. There's nothing else he could say.

“It's okay. I'll be gone in the morning.”

Hoseok cuts the lemon in half. Acid burns his skin on places he picked on his cuticles, strong aroma of citrus fills the small kitchen and he squeezes one half in his tea. Bringing the cup to his lips, he leans on the counter and scans the kitchen.

Trash can is full of packages of instant noddles of all flavours and milk cartons. Namjoon forgot to take out the trash. The fridge was empty when he came to the apartment yesterday. He knew it'd be; that's why he stopped by the market near the metro station. He didn't buy much, some fruits and vegetables – things Namjoon usually avoids eating, things Hoseok nags him to eat.

A week has passed since he was home the last time; long enough to go to Busan and come back, short enough not to forget past. He's doing that again – coming back more often. A year has become few months, a month has been reduced to a week. Seven days to say “I'm sorry” and “I'm home”. Not enough time to move on, plenty of time to play hide and seek.

Lemon mixes with honey in chamomile tea, washing down his raw throat and Hoseok moves to the living room, turns on the TV. On mute – Namjoon's friend is still sleeping. He settles in a chair, pulls his knees up to his chest and watches some old black and white movie because it's too early for cartoons and vivid commercials. Around eight o'clock, Namjoon's friend stirs in his sleep and Hoseok tilts his head towards him.

“You awake?”

“Mhm,” comes as a muffled response. “What time is it?”

“Around eight.”

“Early.”

“Want some tea, Yoongi?” Hoseok asks and Yoongi turns around, blinks a few times before looking at Hoseok.

“How do you know my name?” he asks and Hoseok chuckles.

“Namjoon introduced us last night. Don't you remember?”

Yoongi frowns. “Not really. Sorry, man.”

“It's okay and it's Hoseok.”

For the next hour, they watch the movie. Hoseok doesn't turn the volume up, Yoongi doesn't ask him to. Traffic noise slips through the blinds, settles in the room. In the apartment above somebody is vacuuming while singing the latest trot hit off-key. Children are going down the stairs, screaming in the hallways about forgotten homework and lunch. Hoseok can hear a lady down the hallway cursing them. So, the old hag is still alive and healthy. Hoseok laughs. Memories flash behind closed eyelids, brush stroke of flamboyant red on black canvas, a reminder of one dreaded night when he was too young to be careful.

“What's so funny?” Namjoon says from the doorway while rubbing at his eyes, chasing sleep away. He's wearing an oversized washed-out grey tee, the same one he wore in high school, on performances and late night writing sessions when words refused to shut up inside his head. Wooden floor is cold under his bare feet.

“Nothing,” Hoseok says. There it is – the juvenile defiance and the certain transparency of adolescence glimmering in his eyes. It's like Hoseok will never grow old, forever stuck in the teenage search of great things and the desire to change the world – a superhero without a cape. Except Hoseok doesn't have powers, his feet are rooted to the ground and all he can do is to keep pretending things don't change and to run away. He does that, too often.

“Liar,” Namjoon says, moves to the couch where Yoongi makes him some room. He grabs the cup from the coffee table, takes a sip of Hoseok's tea and nearly spits it back in the cup.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Tea, and don't scrunch your nose like that,” Hoseok says, still smiling. There's no malice in his words when he adds, “or you'll end up with more lines on your face than the Moscow metro map.”

Namjoon makes a face and pushing the cup in Yoongi's hands, he says, “You try it and tell me that it doesn't taste like lemon-scented toxic waste.”

There, in a crowded living room of an apartment on the third floor of a building somewhere in Seoul suburbia, Yoongi gets caught in a crossfire between friends. Both of them are bickering, Namjoon too sleepy to fully process Hoseok's words, Hoseok in too good a mood to let any snarky remarks bother him. He feels out of place in this city made on glass foundations or maybe his knees are too weak to endure everything that life is throwing at him.

He should go – grab his bag, thank Namjoon for everything and search a room in one of those cheap hostels near the Central Station.

They made plans for working together; they could meet later in the studio and start recording. Personal life should remain personal; Yoongi has no desire in making friends for a lifetime. He's old enough to know that friends like that don't exist. He -

“I'll take that,” Hoseok's reaching for the cup. His fingers brush against Yoongi's - skin on skin. For a fleeting moment Yoongi looks in Hoseok's eyes, chocolate brown, warm and honest.

“Thanks,” he says and heads to the kitchen.

Namjoon's made himself comfortable on the couch, grabbed the remote control. He flips through the channels, stops for a moment on each; barely enough to get a grasp what the show is about.

“Don't mind him, Yoongi,” he says after a while. “Hoseok tends to bounce off the walls sometimes, but he never means the harsh words he says.”

Yoongi stares at the television screen. “He didn't say anything mean to me.”

“Really?” Namjoon breathes out. “Wow, that's something. So, you'll stay?”

“In Seoul? Yes,” Yoongi replies.

“No. Here.”

“You already have a flatmate.”

“Hoseok won't be here for much longer. Besides, we'll be working together. What if I need to talk to you in 3 am because I have this amazing idea for a song? It'd be rude to call in such an ungodly hour, and if you're here I could simply wake you up,” Namjoon says. Too much, too fast. He feels out of breath like his lungs are collapsing on themselves.

Hoseok will leave – that's a fact he hates facing. Hoseok will leave tomorrow morning without a goodbye. His bag is in the same place as last night. His shoes are the closest to the front door. The question is for how long. A month? A year or two or three or forever? If Namjoon were to be honest with himself, forever seems like the best option. That way he'd stop picking on scabs and the wound that only deepens every time Hoseok leaves, could finally start to heal.

“Which is less rude than calling me?” Yoongi's voice pulls him back to reality.

“Totally. So, what do you say?”

“I'll think about it.”

- - -

Yoongi's fourteen when he meets Jiho. In a back alley of their neighbourhood on the last day of school before summer break. His lips are busted, blood dripping to the dirty soil. His fingers are sticky with crimson red from the many times his wiped the blood from the corners of his lips. His school uniform is ruined. Luckily, he won't be wearing in for a few months.

There was a fight, between boys, ruled by the hate taught by adults. At times like this, Yoongi wishes that he could keep his mouth shut. Bite his tongue; swallow acidic sarcasm and provoking words. But his temper always gets the best of him and he fights, even when he's outnumbered, like now.

“Stupid son of a bitch,” one of the boys spits out.

Yoongi's ribs hurt, he's lost his breath.

“Bastard wants to defend his poor mummy. Cry, little bitch! That's the only thing you know how to do.”

The boys laugh, one of them kicks Yoongi in the stomach and he grits his teeth; taste of iron is strong in his mouth, his vision is blurred with pain and not tears. He won't cry.

“Let's go! C'mon,” Minseok says.

Yoongi can hear amusement in his voice. He feels superior ruling over a makeshift gang of boys, his dreams of being in charge coming true in a form of a hurt boy in front of him. But his victory isn't sweet. Action movies promised better fights, Crows Zero imprinted brutality in his dreams, violence in his mind. And all he got was an opponent who never begs for mercy no matter how many punches he gets. Minseok grabs his bag from the ground and turns around, the rest of the boys following him. With one last remark, curse words rolling of their tongues, they leave.

Noise from the nearby market fills his ears and Yoongi rolls on his back, closes his eyes and tries to come up with an explanation he could offer his mother. She'll fuss over him as always, put band-aids on shallow cuts while hot tears roll down her cheeks. She won't ask what happened but he'll try to come up with a believable excuse, promise her that this will be the last time. He'll lie.

“Handball game with no referee,” comes the voice somewhere behind him. “My mum always believes that.”

Yoongi opens his eyes, turns his head in the general direction of the voice. A boy is standing few feet away, one of the older boys Yoongi only ever saw in the neighbourhood, never at school. His uniform is navy blue, shirt pristine white, tie in place. A classic example of a good boy, if you ignore the smirk on his face.

“That was last week's excuse,” Yoongi says. He doesn't make an effort to get up, his limbs ache, the ground cold against his back. It rained last night; light summer rain to dissolve the humidity. “I need a new excuse.”

“Maybe I can help you. I'm good with hiding the truth,” the boy laughs.

“Lying, you mean.”

“That's harsh, man. What's your name?”

The boy moves closer, offers his hand. Yoongi grabs it and the boy pulls him up.

“Min Yoongi.”

“Oh... I know you. The old hags from my building don't seem to be able to get your family name out of their mouths.”

Yoongi tenses. Of course everybody knows. Some rumours never die. Even if they move from one part of the city to another, there will always be somebody spreading lies with a pinch of truth. Yoongi's supposed to bow his head, apologize for something he didn't do, walk around looking at the ground and not people's faces. But he can't do that.

“I guess it's even worse in your building,” the boy says and Yoongi spits on the ground. “But hey, in a few years you can move to Seoul. Nobody will know you there. Things can be really good in the capital.”

“As if...”

“What? You don't believe me, Yoongi?”

Yoongi kicks a stone with his foot. It flies in mid-air and hits the dumpster near the brick wall. “Not really. Besides, who do you think are you telling me what to do?“

“I'm Jiho,” the boy says throwing his arm around Yoongi's shoulders. “And soon I'll move up there and leave this shit place behind,” he grins as they walk out of the alley and back to the main street.

Yoongi is seventeen when Jiho packs his bags. With suitcases full of dreams and adolescent drive, he leaves Daegu. The only ones setting him off are his mother and Yoongi. She's holding Jiho's hands in hers, saying how proud she is, how he should call every week if he doesn't want her to come to Seoul and drag him back to Daegu by his ear. He smiles and promises that he'll make her proud.

Yoongi knows that Jiho will make it big; get his name out there, work hard and become a somebody. Jiho's talent is too big for Daegu; his lyrics are too brutal for peaceful neighbourhoods and people who only care for their well-being. Three years they spent together were enough for Yoongi to realize that his place will never be in academia - in a small cubicle of some worldwide corporation, white collar choking him, sucking the life out of him. Three years to fall in love with music; that reckless type of love when you ask for nothing in return.

Music mixed with his blood, bass lines a new heartbeat. Yoongi dived head first in production, in melodies, in synthetic beats and late night study sessions spent on writing music notes instead of math homework.

He turns twenty-one just as his world falls apart. He expected it to happen sooner than later, some dreams never last no matter how much effort you put into them.

His crew breaks apart, members are growing up, finally realizing that music career will only remain a sweet dream and that reality is a totally different thing, closer to an eight hour job in a factory in the outskirts of Daegu than to standing on big stages in front of the thousands of people.
The old studio they rented for few thousands won a month turns to a ghost house. Yoongi works on beats, knitting his dreams in soft melodies and deep bass as D Town decomposes. The only members left are him and Taehyung, who's sitting on the couch, playing with a basketball in his hands. At first he stays silent and just listens to Yoongi typing the lyrics of the last song they'll make together. Taehyung sighs and throws the basketball in the air. It's high enough to reach ceiling and fall back in his hands.

He says “My entrance exam is soon. I don't know how much free time I'll have once lectures start.”

“You're giving up,” Yoongi responds. A statement. Taehyung hears it as a question and bites his lower lip.

“I have other dreams besides becoming a rap star, even though that would be the best.”

“You think you can make them come true? Here? In Daegu?” Yoongi spins in his chair, turns away from the mixing pult to face Taehyung.

“Yeah, I guess. The uni isn't great, but it's not that bad either. Their music department is decent, I'll enrol there,” he shrugs. His indifference bothers Yoongi; his flat voice and weak words sting, like acid on fresh wounds, like million voices telling Yoongi that he'll end up the same. The next time he opens his mouth, Yoongi's voice is cold.

“You can have big dreams, Taehyung. I mean, really fucking big dreams. You can dream of the big houses on Hollywood Hills, the big cars like Porsche or Ferrari, the big rings made of gold and diamonds, but in the end you're here. In this fucking place with nothing but those unfulfilled dreams. Why? Because you're afraid to move away, you're afraid to fucking change, so you're telling yourself that you're great, you'll make it in that shitty music department. But Daegu is just a province. Nobody will recognize you as a real artist. Nobody from Seoul gives a shit about us, nobody will travel more than 100 miles just to hear your tracks and applaud you. You'll go nowhere. In four years, you'll get a low-paid job of a music teacher in some school, teach children to read notes and stuff your dreams in piles of homework and toss them in the garbage. In ten years, you'll have kids, tell them to dream big and follow their heart because you couldn't do it.”

Taehyung stands up, his cheeks are flushed, his hands are squeezing the ball until he snaps and throws it at Yoongi. He misses and the ball bounces of the wall and back in his arms. “What about you, Yoongi? You honestly think you'll make it big?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi smiles. “I'll leave this shit place and make it big. I won't be around here to play your best man and your kids' uncle Yoongi.”

When Taehyung leaves, Yoongi pulls his phone out of his pocket, scrolls through his contact list until he sees a familiar number.

After the third ring, Jiho picks up. Before he mumbles “Halo”, Yoongi says “Do you still want me to come?”

- - -

Hoseok paints a better life on the trains that pass through suburbia – tide of colour on a grey canvas, bold letters exposing injustice to the eye of a curious passer-by. His palms are nothing but a map of metro lines. His fingers are covered with paint, rust, and unspoken wishes of a lost generation that kills time by tagging high-speed trains – a smudge of neon yellow moving in the speed of light.

Many young artists come and go – graffiti as a cultural one-night stand, a dare. They're used to brushes, brightly lit studios, and vast galleries. Their future as a student of K-Arts is already set in stone. A letter of expulsion getting caught with the crime of graffiti is out of question, the dreams and hopes of the entire family weighing them down, high expectations anchoring them until they sink too deep to be saved. Or maybe, Hoseok is the one who needs saving.

After skipping cram school, in pressed school uniforms and backpacks hanging off narrow shoulders, they ride the bus line 27 to the last stop and pretend that they're holding the world in their hands for a few hours. Control breaks from the tips of his fingers through the nozzle of the paint bottle.

That's how it starts.

That's how they start – with a jaded wall, sleeves rolled up to elbows and a promise to come back.

And Hoseok does come back, over and over again. Long after Namjoon gave up on street art and replaced a spray paint can with a pen; long after he learned to bleed through words and not pictures. But memories remain. Like pieces of fine art conserved for future generations.

“We'll get caught,” Namjoon muses over a can of lukewarm beer. He's sitting on a low wall that was once in the foundations of the old train station and that is now waiting its turn to be demolished completely. Hoseok doesn't stop painting, but Namjoon can hear his laughter from where he's sitting. Loud and crystal clear in the silence of the night.

“I'm not joking, Hoseok. And then we'll be expelled-”

“And your ranking will hit rock bottom. Seoul's top student will face expulsion and the world will end with Kim Namjoon having bad grades,” Hoseok laughs.

“It's not funny.”

“It is,” he retorts. “You're so keen on keeping that stupid title even though you regularly skip classes.”

“A true genius doesn't need lectures,” Namjoon says as he takes another sip. The warm beer tastes awful on his tongue but he still swallows it down.

“Yeah, right. That's why Einstein's wife did all calculations for him,” Hoseok says.
Bottle of red in his hand is empty, few drops of paint drip from his fingers to the ground. He turns around looking for his duffel bag.

“Hey, how do you know that?” Namjoon asks and Hoseok opts in throwing the empty can at him.

“Average grades don't automatically make me an idiot,” he answers. He leans on the wall, plays with the empty can and observes what he's made.

It's far from perfect, the explosion of colours on the wall, an entangled mess of ideas and failures, a lot of maybe's and second guesses. It's his third graffiti on a real wall and not on the pages of his notebooks. There's insecurity in bleeding red and not enough white; shaky fingers and sloppy lines.

Hoseok snatches the drink from Namjoon and takes a sip. Namjoon's feet sway in the rhythm only he can hear, his fingers tapping the bass lines on his thighs.

“This is awful,” Hoseok says disgusted.

“What did you expect?” Namjoon asks. He sounds amused.

“Something better. If the minors are forbidden to drink it, I expected some fucking explosion of pleasure in my mouth and not this.”

At this Namjoon cracks up. Shoulder-shaking, whole-body laugh. Hoseok has no idea what Namjoon finds funny, even if he's wearing the same grin himself. He pushes the can back in Namjoon's hands and for a fleeting moment their fingers touch. Namjoon's hands are cold, Hoseok's are so warm that they leave burning sensations on Namjoon's skin. It's odd, this contrast.
Hoseok pulls away. Namjoon's fingers curl around the beer can.

“What's so funny?” Hoseok asks, eyes fixed on the sloppily drawn lines on the wall.

“The fact that you'd rather get arrested for drinking as a minor and not for vandalizing public property.”

- - -

In December, Seoul is cold, and cold, and cold. Snow has covered the streets by the time they leave the apartment and Namjoon curses winter under his breath as they wait at the bus stop. Yoongi types a message to Jiho saying that he's in Seoul and that everything went well. A reply comes minutes later when they've occupied the last empty seats in the bus.

13:25 zico is namjoon being a dick to you?
13:27 minsuga not yet. why?
13:28 zico nothing. have fun working
13:30 minsuga its something. hyung, tell me
13:33 zico its nothing, i swear. may my cat die if im lying
13:36 minsuga you dont have a cat
13:37 zico not the point

“Come on,” Namjoon says and Yoongi looks up from his phone. “It's our stop,” he stands up and heads to the doors. Without replying to the last message, Yoongi follows suit.

In daylight, Hongdae looks like any other Seoul neighbourhood. Stores selling everything from make-up to high-tech gadgets line the streets instead of trees. Everything's buried under concrete and snow; only during the night can milky lights give magical feeling to Hongdae that is seen in TV commercials.

Namjoon guides Yoongi through narrow streets, taking advantage of every shortcut he knows. It's freezing and he has no desire to stay outside any longer than it's needed.

Once they arrive at their destination, they find the studios empty. Namjoon guesses that everybody decided to spend their day lying around lazily on the couch instead of trudging through the snow. Maybe he should have done that that as well but Yoongi's tracks left a foreign feeling creeping up his spine that he couldn't shake off and he can already taste lyrics on his tongue.

“You can use studio 3,” Namjoon says and Yoongi nods. “Everything's at your disposal.”
Studio 3 has burgundy walls decorated with black and white photographs - replicas of popular street art. All furniture is black, equipment in tones of grey and white. It has no windows; the lights on the ceiling resemble the night sky.

Namjoon makes himself comfortable on the leather couch while Yoongi gets accustomed to the studio. His studio. Not the makeshift studio in the basement of a run-down building in Daegu where air is stale and walls grey; not his friend's bathroom with seemingly good acoustics.

“I'm all yours, producer Yoongi,” Namjoon says after Yoongi has sat down in a chair in front of the mixing pult. The controls feel odd under his fingers. Not foreign, simply odd.

“It's Min PD,” he responds with a hint of a smile on his lips.

- - -

In late afternoon, Hoseok comes to the studio. He struggles with the doors for few seconds balancing Chinese take-out and three cups of steaming hot coffee in his hands. It's still snowing, a few flakes melt on his eyelashes when he steps in the hallway and warmth envelopes him. He's not sure which studio Namjoon is in. Years have passed since the last time he was here, but he remembers Namjoon liking the odd numbers and so he decides to try his luck.

Studio 1 is locked. Through the glass doors of the studio 7 on the opposite wall he can see contours of the recording equipment in faint light.
He's lucky with studio 3 and when he pushes the door open, he startles Yoongi.

"Sorry, my bad," Hoseok sheepishly apologizes as he enters and slams the door shut behind him.

In the recording booth, Namjoon finishes his verse and takes off the headphones. Hoseok can hear the music as bass matches his heartbeat and higher tones pierce the stagnant air before Yoongi turns it off.

"Am I interrupting?" Hoseok asks when Namjoon returns to the studio. Namjoon's lips are pulled upwards, a smile.

"No, we were finishing up," he responds. "Why are you here though?"

"Did I miss the "Hoseok not allowed" sign somewhere?" Hoseok laughs, white teeth and heart shaped lips. His bangs are falling in his eyes; the snowflakes caught in the hood of his jacket have melted. Warmth is creeping up through his numb fingertips.

"No, it's just," he halts, scratches the back of his neck, "you never come here."

"I brought Chinese?" Hoseok lifts the white plastic bag in his hand. "And coffee. No sugar and extra cream for you, and a regular one for Yoongi since I didn't know how he likes it?" His smile falters, insecurity slips between syllables and turns his words to questions. Namjoon has no answers to unsaid questions still lingering at the tip of Hoseok's tongue.

Yoongi stands up, crosses the distance between him and Hoseok, takes the coffee container from him. He says, "Thanks, I really needed it, any would do."

"Yours is the one with-"

"- the green sticker?"

Hoseok nods.

The first sip Yoongi takes is hot and bitter; it burns his tongue before he swallows it. The coffee is strong; its scent fills the air when he lifts the lid to add some sugar to it. Luckily, Hoseok brought it with him from the coffee shop.

Namjoon clears the coffee table in front of the couch; throws last summer's magazines in the trash bin. Hoseok grabs a cushion and sits on the floor. He sheds off his jacket and asks, "How's coffee? I really didn't know what you like, Yoongi, so..."

"It's good. Thanks."

"You're welcome," he says diverting his attention to Namjoon.

It's awkward, the small talk. Politeness distorts his voice, reminds him of all formalities, dress codes, do's and dont's, of school and strict teachers, even worse parents. But the silence is deafening, heavy, pulling him down through floor board cracks.

"What were you recording?" Hoseok asks.

Namjoon looks up from his noodles, chewing slowly before answering. "Yoongi-hyung's track. It'll set HipHopPlaya on fire once we release it. We'll wipe the floor with those new rappers who think they're the next big thing, especially that B-something guy. I'll bury all of them, deep deep under."

"Yoongi-hyung?" Hoseok chuckles and Namjoon realizes that not a word of everything he said has been heard. "You're older than us?"

Yoongi points his chopsticks at Namjoon and says, "I'm older than him."

Hoseok doesn't stick around for much longer once they go back to recording. Yoongi is focused on the track; on every change of rhythm no matter how small. Namjoon's engrossed in his lyrics. his voice fills the studio, it rises and falls, cracks at right syllables, swallows some others.
When clock strikes 6 pm, Hoseok gets up, and puts on his jacket. He collects all garbage in the plastic bag leaving Namjoon's unfinished coffee and a napkin behind.

On the napkin, there's a monochrome drawing, done in leftover coffee, of Namjoon behind the mic and Yoongi monitoring him in deep brown. The lines are remarkably sloppy but set with the natural ease.

Sometimes Hoseok forgets and leaves things behind.

- - -

They were 13 when they met. Namjoon was something close to a local celebrity back then. Young and ambitious, top of his class. Every mother wanted a son like him, every father scolded his son for not being like him - in the top 1% of the nation's smartest kids. His parents sent him to Seoul for studies when he received the scholarship for a prestigious private school. Their dreams were coming true, their son would become a somebody. The place he moved in - a two bedroom apartment - was only few blocks away from where his aunt lived with her family and Namjoon was never lonely.

Hoseok was failing math back then. It was outrageous that the son of the principle of Seoul University and Korea's most beloved TV host had grades barely tipping on average.

The truth of the matter was that his mother only smiled on TV screens and magazine covers and that his father only cared for GPA of his students and the recognition his university was bound to get. It was pure luck that Namjoon was assigned as his tutor and not that girl who was a huge fan of his mother's show.

The first time Namjoon had come to Hoseok's house was the day Korea was playing Japan on TV. The small boy who opened the door had the Korean flag painted on his cheeks and a cheering slogan in his hands and before Namjoon had the chance to utter a single word, the boy screamed "hyung, your friend is here". He ran back inside leaving Namjoon at the doorstep. He waited for few moments before Hoseok appeared.

"Sorry about Jimin, the game just started," he said with a smile.

As he waited for Namjoon to take off his shoes, Hoseok said "Thank you for coming, but I don't think we'll be doing math today. You're welcome to stay and watch the game with us, though."

And Namjoon stayed. Maybe to get to know the boy whose name he kept on hearing since he came to the school, and maybe because all his friends were miles away.

They were fifteen when they kissed, in a back alley near the train station with the graffiti drying on the wall behind them. The summer night was humid, air heavy in their lungs. Sound of freight trains arriving in the station echoed in the night. Hoseok's wifebeater was covered with drops of paint; his cheeks had a trace of green and yellow on them, and mischief glistening in his eyes. Namjoon sat on the wall, talking on and on about trivial things until Hoseok decided it was enough.

It happened during Namjoon's obsession with Bukowski's poetry and everything that broken words carried. As imperfect as they were, they resounded in his mind over and over again.

“Find what you love and let it kill you,” the old man said. “Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.”

And Namjoon believed him. It was easier letting what you love kill you than finding your dreams under the starless sky.

And during this time, these turbulent years when identity slipped through thin fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass, Hoseok fell in love with typography and street art because it was unwritten rule that every spoiled child of successful parents needed to be a rebel, fight the system and do absolutely everything that was against the rules. Graffiti was a perfect way to pretend to be free in a concrete cage.

Their first kiss was not sweet, not filled with naive romanticism straight out of Meg Cabot's books. It was nothing like the teenage movies said it would be. Their noses bumped, their palms were sweaty. Namjoon's lips were chopped and dry, Hoseok's teeth sharp on his bottom lip.
Hoseok burst out laughing in the middle of the kiss.

"Shut up! You're ruining the moment," Namjoon hissed and Hoseok laughed even louder.

"What moment?" he asked.

"This!"

"Mosquitoes drinking all my blood?" Hoseok joked but Namjoon didn't find it funny.

"Shut up, Jung Hoseok."

"Never, Kim Namjoon," Hoseok shook his head but didn't protest when Namjoon pulled him closer and shut him up with a kiss.

Their sweet sixteen was just around the corner when they were caught making out.

The elevator in the building where Namjoon lived was out of function and all hallways were dimly lit. They stumbled up the stairs; Namjoon guiding Hoseok in the dark. Before they reached the apartment, Hoseok pulled him closer and kissed him under the faint lights. His hands were hot against Namjoon's skin, his lips tasted like the cake they ate on Donghyuk's birthday earlier that evening; sweet with a hint of chocolate. He pushed Namjoon against the wall before he managed to unlock the apartment door; kissed him with no traces of remorse or guilt. Namjoon gave in. He always gave in when it came to Hoseok.

Hoseok smiled into the kiss, nibbled on Namjoon's bottom lip. Namjoon tried to free himself; tried to reach his apartment. With Hoseok's body pressed against his own, he stumbled in the dark, nearly losing his balance and Hoseok couldn't help but laughing. His laughter echoed in the silence, bounced off the walls and before they could escape, the nearest door opened and an old lady came outside. No excuses they offered could convince her that what they were doing wasn't something she'd consider “amoral”.

One night, one slip, was enough for rumours to start spreading. From one mouth to another they travelled through suburbs until they reached Hoseok's mother.

"It's amazing how open-minded and accepting you are," said the make-up artist as she applied sky blue eye shadow to Mrs. Jung's eyelids. Her show was about to start in less than 5 minutes, the last check-ups were in progress. Her mind was clouded with a million questions she needed to ask today's guest.

"Thank you," she replied out of courtesy.

"If my son were gay, I don't know how I'd accept it," the make-up artist continued, her high voice louder than all noise surrounding them.

Hoseok's mother swatted away the brush and opened her eyes. "Excuse me?"

"Well, I've heard that your son is gay and I think that you're very brave-"

"Get out," she snapped and the make-up artist vanished from her sight.

One week later, Hoseok came back to a silent apartment.

It was weird, without Jimin welcoming him at the entrance, without that high-pitched voice and bubbly laughter Hoseok adored. He kicked off his sneakers; dropped his school bag next to the shoe rack. Nobody but Jimin was usually home at this hour and soft murmur of voices coming from the living room surprised Hoseok.

His father was sitting in the armchair in a pressed dark blue suit and a pristine white shirt, the thin rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. His eyes followed his wife as she paced around, mumbling something under her breath. Wrinkles formed around her eyes every time she frowned, revealing her real age. Gone was the bubbly TV host everybody adored.

She heard when the front door opened and knew that Hoseok was finally home. A wicked smile graced her features as she moved closer to the hallway. When he entered the living room, she slapped him.

"How dare you?" she hissed, venom in her words, despise in her eyes, "How dare you embarrass us like this?"

"Yoona, please, ..." his father tried to speak but he was cut off.

"Don't you 'Yoona' me. You're a disgrace to our family, Hoseok," she screamed.

"Mother, I don't understand," Hoseok said. His cheek was burning; his body felt odd. He saw rage, anger but not disappointment in his mother's eyes. To be disappointed in somebody, you have to love them. She never did that. She loved him on the covers of family magazines and in interviews about her life, while the cameras were still turned on.

"You don't understand?" she asked. "Why don't you ask your sweet little boyfriend?" she barked out. "Did you think that we wouldn't find out, Hoseok? Did you think that we're blind?"

"Mother, I can explain," he said desperately, taking a step closer to her, lifting his hands. His mother grabbed the vase from the coffee table, but before she could throw it, her husband stood up and grabbed her hands.

"That's enough. Go to your room, Hoseok," he ordered and Hoseok obliged.
Even with the door of his room shut, he could still hear his mother's screams telling him to disappear. And so he did.

When Hoseok appeared on Namjoon's doorstep that evening with red eyes and tears rolling down his cheeks, Namjoon didn't ask questions; he just pulled Hoseok in his embrace and closed the door.

Jung Yoona's scandal never happened.

The make-up artist was given a large sum of money to keep her mouth shut, the rumours died at the tip of idle housewives' tongue. Her older son still attended the elite private school, all his expenses were covered with the money from a bank account specially created for the purpose of Hoseok never having to meet his mother again. He was living with his friends, trying to get accustomed to the life he'd lead as a university student, was the answer she gave to every news reporter that had asked her about her son.

- - -

Yoongi didn't believe Namjoon when he said that Hoseok wouldn't be in the apartment for much longer, but they return home to dark rooms and washed dishes and Namjoon laughs, hallow and empty like the world is ending behind heavy curtains and walls surrounding them.

"Let's go somewhere to eat," he proposes at the doorstep, one foot in the apartment, the other in the hallway. Yoongi agrees; he's not much of a cook and Namjoon seems like the type to hard boil eggs in a microwave.

They end up in a nearby burger place. It's full of people, of endless chatter and laughter. Children are running between the tables, knocking half-full drinks as they go. The employee behind the counter shakes his head and calls somebody to clean the mess the kids have made. Teenagers have occupied the tables in the corners of the diner; their food is left intact. Their focus is on the phones in their hands, on group chats on Line and KakaoTalk. They're talking with each other, laughing at stupid jokes, but all of it is happening online, in a world they have control over, and their faces are blank, all emotions washed out in front of a computer or tablet screen.

Namjoon opts for drawing concentric circles with ketchup using fries as a paintbrush instead of eating. Yoongi takes his time to chew every bite.

"He'll be home when we come back," Yoongi says. He's not sure why, but he does.

Namjoon looks up from his masterpiece. His features are soft, his smile falters when he says, "He won't. At least not tonight. Right now," and he lets his mind wander. "He's on his way to Busan, or Daegu, or Jeju Island. I don't know."

There's something in the tone of his voice that drowns the noise. A bubble of silence is enveloping them as Namjoon stops speaking. It turns the chatter of other guests into white noise, barely audible, like a glimpse of static between channel flips. Everything slows down. Time drags just like the seconds before the detonation do. Everybody dreads that last second. It's a vacuum sucking everything in it and yet it seems fragile like a soap bubble. Does the light reflect off it, Yoongi doesn't care to find out; he just wants to burst it. He's never been the talkative one, but Namjoon is getting trapped in his own words, the bubble is shrinking, soon it'll be hard to breathe and Namjoon's lungs will collapse on themselves.

"If Hoseok won't be back soon, then I'll stay as your flatmate," Yoongi says.

The sound swells around them, carrying meaningless promises of Christmas presents and New Year Eve's parties and Namjoon smiles, genuinely this time.

"Will you marathon movies with me?"

"Anything but The Twilight Saga."

Time flows. December turns to January with a hurricane of red, silver and green ornaments, with fireworks above the frozen Han River and too much alcohol in the youth's veins. Millions of people count down the last minutes of the worst year of their lives and hope for a better one to come. It's false hope, but as the clock ticks away the last second, it's all they have.

It snows for days. News is full of information about car accidents on highways and the reporters warn all viewers to be careful with fireworks.

Yoongi gets used to Seoul winters; to wind that never truly stops blowing, to Namjoon who listens to everything from Beethoven to Kanye West. Namjoon who dresses like the death reaper on bad days and like a kid whose mum still buys him clothes on good days. Namjoon who hates mornings but still gets up early and drinks hot cocoa while watching the news. Namjoon who wakes Yoongi up in the middle of the night because he had an idea for a song.

Namjoon who is Seoul as much as Seoul is Korea with its flamboyant lights and dark corners, with its dreams and nightmares.

It doesn't take them long to fall in a routine of writing sessions, recordings and performances. Namjoon drags Yoongi to every gig, every club in Hongdae; introduces him to artists whose mixtapes Yoongi had on repeat for weeks.

They meet Jiho who buys them drinks to celebrate the release of his new single.

"I don't see any bruises or black eyes on either of you, so I'm assuming that you're still getting to know each other," Jiho laughs. The drink in his hand is alarmingly green; one of the cocktails Yoongi would only drink if it's dare and he can benefit from it.

Namjoon downs his vodka and says, "Nah, we're all good. You were right about Yoongi-hyung being a great producer. I owe you a favour."

"Don't sweat it. Just remember me when you reach the top and stop hanging out with mere mortals like us." Jiho bites down on his knuckles.

Namjoon shoves him aside. Yoongi laughs, slightly tipsy.

"Shut up, hyung. You'll reach the top before me."

Jiho shakes his head and moves closer to Yoongi. Throwing his arm over Yoongi's shoulders, he says "I don't have an amazing producer like Yoongi. Now that I think about it, introducing you two was the worst idea I ever had. I should've kept him for myself."

He fakes sadness, wipes false tears of his cheeks. Yoongi rolls his eyes; Jiho will never change.

"Don't be sad, hyung," Yoongi says. "You'll always be the one who pulled me from the gutter."

His words float above the music, syllables mixing with bass, vowels getting lost in ad-libs, but Namjoon still hears them. They resonate in his mind.

On their way home, he musters up the courage to ask “What did you mean by that?”

Yoongi walks carefully over thick ice covering the pavement; his hands are tucked in his pockets. The scarf around his neck doesn't stop his cheeks from turning red from the cold. “By what?” he asks in return.

“The gutter and Jiho-hyung. What'd you mean by that?”

It was wrong to expect Namjoon not to notice that. Yoongi just hoped that it take much longer for him to ask.

Yoongi takes a deep breath. The crisp air burns his lungs; winter still has the city in its embrace. It's freezing. Exhaling the words “My semi-tragic life story” he brushes past Namjoon and heads down the street. With his back turned to Namjoon, he opts how much he should tell him. Nothing would be the best option. Nothing is the only option he doesn't have.

Before he reaches the corner, Namjoon has caught up with him. He's expecting an answer but Yoongi just wants to laugh it off, God, he really does. But Namjoon isn't laughing with him, he's observing – the twitch of Yoongi's lips, the words he swallows, the way his shoulders drop like the weight of the world is pulling him down.

“I want to hear it,” Namjoon says firmly.

“So that you could pity me and play my saviour?” Yoongi snaps, voice acidic, burning the inside of his mouth.

“So that I could understand why every song you compose has a melancholic undertone,” Namjoon retorts and Yoongi stops in his tracks.

They're standing in the middle of the empty street, no one is passing by in the early hours of the day, when Seoul resembles a ghost city, a winter dystopia. Everything's frozen, buried under ice and snow, waiting for better days to come.

Namjoon turns around, locks eyes with Yoongi. It's fragile, the trust between them. With a single harsh word it could be broken and never restored again.

Namjoon waits, Yoongi counts to twenty before speaking.

“Do you love your father, Namjoon?” he asks.

“Yes, of course, but - ”

“I've never met mine. The asshole left after finding out that my mum was pregnant. He said that he wasn't ready for commitment and took off. Just like that,” Yoongi laughs, his voice breaks. “I'm a,” it snaps, reconnects at a different pitch, “bastard, Namjoon. And whatever I do, wherever I go, I carry that sign with me. When I was a kid, I was convinced that it was written on my forehead since the other kids always laughed at me. Hell, they even went as far as beating me up after school because I didn't allow them to call my mum a whore.”

Namjoon just listens. He has no words he could offer Yoongi. His parents always loved him, supported him even when he admitted he had no plans on going to university and becoming a doctor or a lawyer or whatever they wanted him to become. He admitted that music was what he wanted to do in life. It was a shock for them, his mother even cried, but they didn't try to convince him that his decision was wrong, that they knew better. They wished him luck, cheered him on.
He doesn't know what Yoongi is feeling. He won't even pretend.

“We moved a lot, my mum and me. From South to North, East to West, but the neighbours always found out, the kids as well. Some teachers looked at me with pity, the other were disgusted.”

“And Jiho?” Namjoon asks. His voice is small. Yet it echoes in the silence of the night.

In the distance stray dogs are barking, fighting over left-overs they found in the trash. The last train has left the station hours ago. Street lights flicker as if warning the lost souls roaming the streets of all dangers hidden in the dark corners of this metropolis.

Yoongi's freezing. Were winters always this cold?

“He was the first one who didn't judge me. He understood me, you know. His mum raised him, all alone. He got it. Everything. During those years, he got me into music and he thinks that he doesn't deserve all the credit I give him, but to be honest, if it weren't for him, I'd probably be behind the bars now.”

“For beating some poor asshole in high school?” Namjoon asks.

Yoongi smirks, his shoulders feel lighter. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I'll remember that for future reference. Not to make you mad and end up with a black eye.”

They're walking again, down pavements covered in snow, as the city wakes up. Namjoon can feel the string of trust pulling them closer as Yoongi becomes less rough around the edges, and he can almost see outlines of a new friendship.

- - -

On Valentine's Day, Namjoon releases a mixtape full of songs about break-up. Melancholy follows verses and rhymes; heartbreak present even on the cover art. Medicine for lonely souls.

Statistics say that many couples break up on the holiday of love. Namjoon laughed when he first heard this, but, as time passed, he stopped finding it funny.

In the credits, under every song, Yoongi's name is listed as the producer, just below Namjoon's as the lyricist.

They are in the studio working on a new song. Yoongi keeps refreshing the comments on their title song, drumming crazy rhythms with his fingers on the desk. Namjoon only rolls his eyes at him, he had long stopped wishing for praise from these self-proclaimed critics only try to rip apart every new artist, dissect their verses and twist the words in their mouths. They'll find a hundred meanings in every bar, and conclude their sweet report with the already infamous sentence “The young generation still lacks knowledge and this, ladies and gentlemen, was just a poor attempt to explain the feeling not even the wisest men could do.”

Namjoon's phone rings. He reaches for it, seeing an unfamiliar number calling. A few seconds he debates whether to pick it up. He's not in the mood for talking; for listening to people who just always happen to know better than him. So what if his mixtape flopped?

His fingers are tapping on the phone case as the ringing fills the space. Yoongi looks at his phone with disgust and commands, “Pick it up before your ring tone makes me throw up.” Namjoon shrugs his shoulders and complies.

There's traffic noise coming from the other end of the line. Along with it, comes Hoseok's voice, loud and excited.

“The new mixtape is awesome. I think that you and Yoongi-hyung are a good match.”

Namjoon leans back in his chair. He listens to Hoseok rambling on and on about the songs and lyrics. He's nothing but a disembodied voice on the other end of the line; the static is filling the space between his words, truck horns ripping syllables, Hoseok's laughter resonating deep within Namjoon's bones regardless of how many miles are separating them.

But before Namjoon can even utter a single word, the line gets cut off and the voice machine tells Namjoon that the caller has spent all his credit. Namjoon knows that if he called the number Hoseok used, he'd get a public phone in a busy street somewhere in Korea.

“What good news did you get since you're grinning like an idiot?” Yoongi asks after Namjoon puts away his phone.

“It's Hoseok,” he says. “He heard the songs and wanted to congratulate us for doing well.”

“Is he coming back?”

“I don't think so. He said something about us being a good match when it comes to music.”

But Hoseok does come back with first days of March just as cherry blossoms have started blooming. He didn't plan to, but meeting up with Hunchul in Gwangju had made him change his mind.

The Seoul Station is filled with passengers – people returning from work, families that planned visiting countryside on a warm spring day. All of them patiently wait as trains come and go; but somehow the trains never take them where they have to go. Information about time, date and temperature flies across large screens showing departures and arrivals of trains.

A train slows down to a stop. Metal doors slide open and the mass of people rushes forward, moving in every direction trying to find an exit and Hoseok is afraid of getting lost in this sea of people. But he knows this station like the back of his hand and his fear is nothing but a play of his nerves. It's been a while since he was here.
When he finally stumbles out of the station, he realises just how much the city has changed.

Seoul looks different without blackened piles of snow on its streets and ice on pavements. It seems less cruel in spring than it does in winter, but that's not enough for Hoseok to miss this concrete jungle. He never does.

As he rides the bus to what he hopes is the right neighbourhood, he fumbles with the apartment key in his pocket. It's the same one Namjoon gave him years ago. He's lost the keychain, the metal having been worn down through all his travels.

Hoseok holds the front door open for an older woman. Her hands are full of grocery bags but she declines his offer to help.

“It's okay, sweety,” she smiles. “I'm on the first floor. But thank you.”

The elevator is out of function. To be honest, Hoseok doesn't remember a time when it worked. That happens when neighbours don't get along and nobody cares for public property. He climbs the stairs to the third floor, turns right and goes down the hallway.

When he unlocks the front door, he sees that things have changed. Framed black and white photographs are hanging on the once bare walls, the collection of CDs has grown; he finds books about pop culture on the coffee table, new cushions on the couch. Music sheets and unfinished lyrics are scattered on the floor in the living room, two bowls in the kitchen sink, two mugs left on the table.

He stumbles backwards, almost losing his balance. It hits him hard, all of this, an ambush.

He can't stay, not now.

Hoseok barely makes it to the hallway, when the front door flies open. Yoongi is the first one who comes in, words “We'll order pizza, I won't let you burn the kitchen down” on his lips. Following him, Namjoon drags himself inside muttering something about instant ramen and microwaves.

The sudden realization has Hoseok gasping for air.

Yoongi drops his umbrella near the shoe rack and kicks off his sneakers. Namjoon sneezes; his clothes are wet, water drops falling on the floor. From the hallway Hoseok says “Bless you.”
They look in the direction of the voice and time stands still for a moment.

Yoongi watches as Hoseok shifts his weight from one foot to the other, as he tucks his hands in the pockets of his washed-out jeans. It seems like he's just passing by, not planning to stay. He doesn't remember Hoseok like this, with dark red hair and boyish features. It seems like he's wearing a face of a kid not older than fourteen – round cheeks and unblemished skin. Maybe time doesn't pass for him or maybe he's one of the Lost Boys. Yoongi doesn't know where Hoseok leaves to. It might as well be Neverland. Or maybe the truth is that Yoongi tried to erase Hoseok's face from his memory but failed at it, over and over again.

Namjoon says “Thanks” and a smile spreads across Hoseok's face, his cheekbones becoming more prominent.

Hoseok looks like he just returned from vacation – sun-kissed skin and a sleeveless top under his thin jacket and Namjoon can't take his eyes off him. Just like every time Hoseok comes back, just like the first time.

“So, you're flatmates now?”

Hoseok's voice shatters the silence to pieces and Yoongi says “Yes” as they move to the living room. There are things to be caught up with, things that should be asked and said, but the sound of the rain against the window panes overpowers everything.

That night Hoseok will find his way to Namjoon's bed just like many times before. He'll trace butterfly kisses on Namjoon's skin erasing all bruises he made when he left. Namjoon will welcome him in his arms and, inhaling Hoseok with every breath, he'll finally be able to breathe again.

As Namjoon's name escapes Hoseok's swollen lips and fingertips dance on bare skin, Namjoon will love again. Touches will burn; his kisses will be rough, his fingers bruising the skin of Hoseok's thighs. The sound of their clothes wrinkling, breaths quickening, bodies kneading into each other will fill the bedroom to the brim and over. Hoseok's skin will catch fire, Namjoon's tongue will paint promises across Hoseok's sharp collarbones, and together they'll fall. In the abyss of wishes that will never come true and sweet nothings they will never say.

Hoseok will squeeze his eyes shut and let Namjoon guide him on that starless night.

- - -

Yoongi wakes up to a knock on the door. He mumbles “Come in” before pulling the covers over his head. It's early, too damn early.

Hoseok comes in without bothering to close the door. He carries a tray with two cups of freshly brewed coffee with some toast and marmalade – a bribe. He sets it down on the night stand, on top of the latest issue of The Rolling Stone.

Sunlight pours in the bedroom when he opens the curtains. Behind the glass, there's Seoul bathing in spring light. Before his eyes, there's a lump on the bed and few strands of black hair sticking out. Gently, he peals the blankets away but Yoongi isn't willing to give up on his sleep that easily so he rolls on his stomach and buries his head under the pillow. Hoseok can hear him saying “Jesus Christ, Namjoon. Leave me alone!” and he chuckles.

“It's not Namjoon,” Hoseok says and Yoongi tosses the pillow on the other side of the bed. Resting his cheek on the mattress, he looks in Hoseok's direction. There's too much light; Hoseok resembles a saint with a false halo around his head.

“What the hell do you want?” Yoongi demands. His voice is hoarse, hair a mess.

“Come shopping with me,” Hoseok responds, enthusiastic and bright just like the light hurting Yoongi's eyes.

“No,” Yoongi says and Hoseok's expression falls.

“I thought you'd say that, so I prepared something to bribe you – breakfast is on your right. I hope you'll change your mind after a cup of coffee.”

Yoongi realizes that there is no silence with Hoseok around.

After some convincing and breakfast in bed, which has just shaken up Yoongi's resolved “no”, they leave the apartment before nine o'clock. Hoseok leaves a note for Namjoon on the fridge saying that he doesn't need to call the police and that they just went to the market.

If Yoongi was the one who planned this trip, they would have ended up in the first supermarket their way. But Hoseok has his mind set and they pass by many stores before reaching one of the older market stalls. Old ladies working on the stands chit chat with Hoseok as he picks fruits and vegetables. Yoongi follows him through colourful passageways carrying bags that Hoseok pushed in his hands. He regrets allowing Hoseok to drag him from bed, it's too early for his liking and surprisingly cold but Hoseok is cheerful and in a great mood, and maybe Yoongi doesn't mind too much being dragged around the market.

“Does Namjoon do this as well? I mean, the bag carrying.”

Hoseok laughs as he hands the right amount of money to the lady selling lettuce. “No,” he says. “Namjoon gets a headache or toothache or any kind of ache when I mention grocery shopping.”

“So that's the reason why you picked me as the victim this morning,” Yoongi says and Hoseok turns around to face him, pouting.

“Don't say that, hyung. You make me seem like a super villain. I swear, I'm not mean.”

By the time they return to the apartment, Namjoon has traded his bed for the couch and the remote control. Hoseok hears a cacophony of voices when he opens the door.

“How was shopping?” Namjoon throws his head back to look at them and Hoseok beams at him.

“It would've been better if you came along,” he says heading to the kitchen. Yoongi drops the bags on the counter and joins Namjoon.

“Move,” Yoongi demands and he collapses on the cushions when Namjoon moves aside.

“I see you survived,” Namjoon chuckles and Yoongi side-eyes him.

“Shut up.”

They spend Sunday doing nothing.

Hoseok dances around the kitchen singing pop songs off-key and occasionally asking for some help. When Namjoon almost chops off his fingers while cutting onions, Hoseok patches him up using more than half of the band-aids in the first aid kit.

Yoongi comments on Namjoon's obvious lack of skills and Namjoon dares him to do better. Never in his life has Yoongi refused a dare and he gets up from the couch, pushes Namjoon aside on his way to the kitchen. Hoseok hands him an apron with a grin so wide Yoongi could swear that it stretches from one ear to the other.

“Give me that onion,” Yoongi demands and Hoseok tosses him the biggest one from the grocery bag.

To Namjoon's surprise, Yoongi doesn't end up crying. He sniffs from time to time, drinking large gulps of cold water while he works. By the time the ice cubes in his glass have melted, onion is chopped and added to the dish cooking on the stove.

Yoongi takes off the apron and throws it at Namjoon. “Praise me, peasant.”

Namjoon rolls his eyes and says “Oh great onion chopper!”

Hoseok sticks around longer than Yoongi expected. Sometimes he visits them in the studio, commenting on lack of happiness in his songs; asking if Namjoon is making an album for funerals. He's the first one to get up, open all the windows, even on rainy days, to get the fresh air in.

Yoongi wakes up cranky in the morning, feet dragging against hardwood floor, hair a mess, eyelids heavy. He collapses on the chair next to Namjoon and watches as Hoseok hums some unfamiliar melody while making breakfast.

“Is he always this cheerful?” he asks.

Namjoon swallows a mouthful of cereal.

“You finally noticed?” he chuckles. “Don't worry, you'll get used to it.”

And he does, eventually, get used to Hoseok; Hoseok, whose laughter bounces off the walls, whose voice rings in Yoongi's ears. Hoseok who doesn't seem to understand the concept of personal space and the many times he rests his head on Yoongi's shoulder.

Hoseok who is too clingy and too loud for Yoongi's taste, but there's something about him that stops Yoongi from snapping at him when he is tired and in bad mood.

- - -

Namjoon's name finds its way in the line-up for the Speak Show. On the black promotional poster, it's written in white bold font and the organizer calls him up for rehearsal few days before the event. The venue is huge; the stage bigger than any other on which Namjoon stood before. On stage, he feels like on the top of the world. It's home away from home, a piece of paradise in the ninth circle of Hell. It's ecstasy, artificial happiness in few songs and deep bass. It's everything he's ever dreamed of.

The venue opens its doors hours too early. The performers gather shortly before the show starts. Namjoon sees familiar faces - old friends. Ikje wishes him good luck before heading to the stage and Namjoon is left with his nerves. He plays with the mic in his hands, mutters lyrics over and over again. His mouth is dry and he gulps down some lukewarm water from his bottle. He knows Yoongi and Hoseok are somewhere in the crowd. Donghyuk's with the production team making sure that everything goes well.

As he steps on the stage, the audience welcomes him with applause and Namjoon forgets everything but his lyrics.

Hoseok and Yoongi don't make it to the performance. Tickets are still lying on the coffee table in the living room; forgotten among magazines with glossy pages. All lights are turned off, only shadows from the TV screen dance on walls, furniture. The volume is low.

They should have gone, they planned to. Hoseok even joked about making a poster with Namjoon's name on it in neon pink or orange.

It didn't happen.

- - -

Hoseok makes mistakes. Sometimes he manages to fix them, on other times he simply hopes for the best. He stays with Namjoon and Yoongi; watches as they click together like pieces of a puzzle. Edges are rough, but friction is minimal and they slide together. A perfect match.
There's something that keeps him in the small apartment. He sleeps in Namjoon's bed, their feet tangled. After showering Namjoon's hair smells like ocean and summer and Hoseok finds himself missing the beach.

“You're still here,” Namjoon says as he towel dries his hair.

“Do you want me to go?” Hoseok smiles, but it's artificial. Namjoon sees it in the twitch of his lips.

“No,” he says. “But I know that you will,” he adds as he plants a kiss to Hoseok's cheek. “And tonight is the perfect chance.”

Hoseok moves away, opening the closet. “I won't. Tonight is your big night. I have to be here and see you slay.”

Namjoon drops the towel on the bed and watches Hoseok rummaging through his closet.
“Don't you have something that's not black and baggy?” he asks and Namjoon laughs.

Namjoon leaves early.
Yoongi looks up from his laptop and the song he's composing to wish him good luck.
“See you in a few hours. Don't chicken out,” he jokes but Namjoon's already out the door.

Yoongi's fingers fly over the keyboard. He's working on a slow paced R'n'B song. He's been adding and deleting fractions for hours now. Whenever he thinks of a melody, it seems too much. When he strips it of all the unnecessary notes, it seems too bare.

Hoseok taps him on the shoulder when the clock shows 9 pm. “We should get ready,” he says. Yoongi hasn't noticed when it became so dark, lights in the apartment dim, shadows soft. Hoseok's voice sinks in his bones.

“Do you want to hear this?” Yoongi asks. He usually doesn't like showing his work until it's done and he's satisfied with it, but there's something about the way Hoseok's eyes light up when they talk about music that makes Yoongi click the play button.

Hoseok moves closer, sits beside him. As the first notes fill the air, Yoongi holds his breath. Hoseok listens tentatively to the voice of fragile feelings vowed in melodies. Rhythm matches his breathing and Hoseok lets himself be carried away to another world; a world Yoongi built on glass foundations and crystal clear notes.

As the last tones linger in the room, Yoongi looks at Hoseok, wanting to see his reaction. He's slightly nervous, teeth sinking in his bottom lip. For once Hoseok isn't smiling. His eyes are closed, breathing regular.

Yoongi leans in closer, kisses the corner of Hoseok's lips. He forgets all questions he planned on asking. He expects Hoseok to push him away, to stand up and leave. But he doesn't. He tilts his head slightly, and kisses him back.

The space between them becomes smaller, centimetres turning into millimetres. As they disappear and blood slowly starts to boil, a set of luscious lips replaces sharp teeth on Yoongi's bottom lip and kisses gently, almost timidly. There's artificial innocence blooming behind every touch and Yoongi feels Hoseok slowly standing up.

They stumble towards Yoongi's bedroom; faint glow from the window being their only guide. Shaky hands get rid of clothes scattering them on the hardwood floor. Cushions are soft like feathers and welcome Hoseok when his back meets with the bed. He inhales deeply. Smell of vanilla mixed with something unfamiliar, something that tickles his nose. The scent is mild and reminds him of sunsets, warm orange and red. He can feel Yoongi’s lips on his neck, his hands exploring.

Hoseok’s skin feels like silk under Yoongi’s fingertips, sun-kissed and smooth. His collarbones are untouched, unmarked, sinfully pure and inviting - oh so inviting. Yoongi bites down, sharp teeth on equally sharp bones, and a trail of crimson roses follows his lips. One by one, they decorate unblemished skin with dark red petals and start a fire that consumes them both, eating them alive. Hoseok hisses, pain blinding him, but it's already too late to back down. He's already decided to follow his desires, he just hopes they won't lead him to a dead end.

At this point, he’s too deep in this game of sweet yet false promises and touches that burn - fire in his veins, on his skin, on his lips - when he plants kisses on Yoongi’s jaw line a few moments later; it’s just a few moments that they need to fully escape, disappear under the sheets, into the familiar unknown that has never been within their reach.

This isn't a love story for the new age. Neither of them is sure what this is; how should they call skipped heartbeats and touches that don't seem to last long enough.

There's no alcohol in their veins; no drugs in their bloodstream. Excuses are forgotten, roads not travelled are in front of them. All they can do is try, painfully try, to mask passion with unspoken wishes upon a falling star, to hide physical and animalistic behind a few sweet moments and tender touches that have no real purpose.

Yoongi whispers sweet nothings in Hoseok's ear, his lips moving down his neck. It’s always the same, unnecessary words spoken – an illusion that love is behind every touch, a mere excuse to justify the pain, the suffering because what is love if not pain and bones that ache, broken muscles and hearts that bleed blue ink instead of red.

Roses are bloody and Hoseok’s skin is a blank canvas in the hands of a skilled artist, waiting to be filled by rough hands and lean muscles.

Heavy breaths and short seconds, Yoongi reaching for the drawer in his nightstand, his fingers searching around a bit before they find a condom and lube.

Hoseok is small details and warm smiles, dusty pink cheeks and sheepishly spoken apologies for things he didn't do. Full of contrasts, sinful yet pure, known but never really touched, hunter and prey at the same time - traps covered by soft moans resonating between four walls and mussed hair in the morning, hickeys on his neck. Yoongi never planned to notice but he did. And there's no way back. He’s helpless, his knees are weak. Hoseok will be his biggest mistake, the one he shouldn't make, but the one he won't regret in the morning.

The small tube of lube is half-empty, light even, between Yoongi’s knobby fingers. He opens it quickly because time is ticking away; midnight is approaching; somewhere people are loving, praying for another day, for better tomorrow; somewhere music is pounding out of the large speakers, bodies moving in sync, bass deep and beats intoxicating.

They’re ready, as ready forbidden lovers can be. Hoseok is watching him, little smile playing on his plump lips, almost unnoticeable but Yoongi sees it.

One question before their world ends.

One question before everything breaks and shards of glass cut their skin.

One question before Yoongi loves again, before he will feel unbroken, finally not alone, before they become one, sharp bones and flexed muscles, pale and tanned skin, opposites meeting halfway.

“Are you ready?” somebody whispers, voice cracking on every syllable. Somebody nods because words won't be enough tonight.

Heated skin on skin; nails digging into Yoongi’s shoulders.

Warm, tight, inviting, painfully delicate and fragile – crystal shattering with every thrust.
Hoseok shuts his eyes, few tears rolling down his cheeks. He lied, he always has and always will. He’s never fully ready but his pride doesn’t allow him to admit the truth, never will. The teardrops burn his skin, acid and salt on fresh wounds. It’s never easy and his nails are cutting deeper, drawing blood, pulling Yoongi closer until he can feel a pair of lips on his own, lips that heal the wounds, erasing evidences of salt.

Yoongi’s slowly picking up pace, closer to the edge with every thrust, every contact. Hoseok can feel it in the core of his being; pleasure mixed by pain travelling through his veins. Mixing with blood and passion, sweet addiction and the taste of poison on his tongue, the taste of oxygen when he screams and the taste of chocolate when Yoongi closes his mouth with his own, trying to turn mere seconds into minutes, minutes into hours, but their time is running out.

Memories dissolve in thin air, past is forgotten, future uncertain. The only thing that counts is now, the present; skin on skin and hot sensations as they come.

Everything hurts and nothing is right, stars turn to explosions and tears are the reminder of sleepless nights. The faint sound of music melts with heavy breaths and the remains of pleasure, passion; purple marks on Hoseok’s collarbones and red scratches on Yoongi’s shoulders.

Satin and silk, sheets that are no longer white, decorated with red drops of liquid that strangely resemble paint.

Lips on lips, one last time, sugar and poison mixed with guilt and words murmured between kisses, words that nobody hears because they carry hopes and dreams and things that they are not prepared to hear, not now, not ever.
Words like “I love you” and “I’m sorry I hurt you”.

- - -

In late February, Hoseok remembers many things that he'd buried deep. They whisper nonsense to him, a conglomeration of voices echoes in his mind.

Memories are strange, full of colour yet achromatic, dead, but with a pulse. They catch him off guard and he ends up painting phoenixes rising from the ashes instead of monochrome mosaics. An explosion of red and orange slips through his fingertips and bleeds onto the jaded wall.

In Gwangju, he meets with Hunchul in front of a convenience store that works 24/7. Hunchul's wearing an expensive suit. His pockets are full of business cars cut thin enough to slice open unskilled hands. But he still wears the same reckless grin. A black and white tattoo peaks under his dress shirt when he loosens his tie. They sit on the pavement in the dead hour of the night. Hunchul's shift has long ended.

“Do you like it?” Hoseok asks. “The job.”

Hunchul smiles. “Yeah, I went to university for this, didn't I? My grandma is proud. The wage is good as well.”

“Do you miss Seoul? The stage?” Hoseok asks again.

“Not really. I miss you guys. How's Namjoon?”

“Fine, I guess. He works with a new producer now, they're a good match,” Hoseok replies and takes another sip of his drink.

“And you feel out of place so you'll never go back?”

Hoseok shrugs. That did use to be his plan. Make sure Namjoon has somebody and leave, for good. There's only one thing Hoseok didn't count on. When he puts Yoongi in the equation, he doesn't get the desired result. Yoongi throws things out of balance.

“I guess,” he finds himself saying. “Namjoon will go great places with Yoongi. They're different but still very alike. They just don't see it.”

“But you do,” Hunchul says. No reservations, no gentle words. Hunchul's always brutally honest, even though it hurts.

“Hyung, that's not how things work.”

“Why not? Just because someone said so? You can keep on running, Hoseok, but we both know that you'll come back. You always do. And Namjoon knows it too. That's why he has had the same phone number for years, the same address. You always left without saying anything, you never saw him on the following day. But I did and, Hoseok, no matter how great this new guy is, Namjoon will always love you.”

During the first week after his arrival, Hoseok finds himself enjoying Yoongi's company. It starts with grocery shopping, something Namjoon would always find an excuse not to do, and it continues with small things.

A few days are all it takes to establish something close to a routine. It comes naturally, with movies (even though Hoseok hates horror movies and grabs both Namjoon and Yoongi's hand when the scary parts begin) and music recordings which he finds boring, but the passion in their voices when they discuss their songs stops Hoseok from leaving.

Yoongi's rough around the edges, sharp even. He gets easily annoyed and Hoseok finds it amusing how much he and Namjoon bicker over trivial things.
When that happens, Hoseok can't help but laughing and Namjoon throws the nearest pillow at him.

“Shut up, you're not helping!” Namjoon says.

“But he is. He's laughing at how unreasonable you sound,” Yoongi retorts.

- - -

Namjoon comes home to the muffled laughter and the voice of Jim Carrey coming from the TV. He kicks off his sneakers, hanging his jacket. Going down the hallway, he lets his fingers draw lines on the white wall. It's a childhood habit he never managed to shake off. The hardwood floor is cold under his feet. When he comes in the living room, he expects to find Yoongi on the couch entertaining himself with bad comedy and beer. But all he sees are figures on the TV screen and soft shadows. The comedian does something stupid and the audience laughs. Namjoon's lips tremble.
He reaches for the remote control and turns off the TV. The apartment sinks in darkness. Through the curtains comes the milky light from the street lamps, it falls on carpet, on furniture, on cushions carelessly thrown to the floor. Hoseok's silhouette clings to the edges dividing the darkness from the faint light, but he is probably gone by now. A week has become almost two months, that's the longest he's been home for years.

Namjoon stumbles into the hallway, his hand searching the light switch in the dark. After turning on the lights, he heads towards his room. On his way there, the open door of Yoongi's room catches his attention. He reaches for the doorknob to close it, eyes drifting from one piece of furniture to the other, until they land on people lying in bed.

Even with dim light coming from the hallway, Namjoon can recognize Hoseok in Yoongi's embrace, a small smile gracing his features. Yoongi stirs in his sleep, Namjoon's hand stills on the doorknob. He holds his breath, doesn't move, in case Yoongi wakes up. But he doesn't and Namjoon carefully closes the door.

He spends the rest of the night sitting on the kitchen tiles drinking beer. It washes down his raw throat, cold and bitter.

His thoughts are a mess; words won't shut up inside his head. They're whispering everything he doesn't wish to hear. They're mocking him and all he wants is to drown them in alcohol, that golden liquid that is too often the only friend left.

Namjoon could do with some instructions, but sadly, there is no manual for life. He knows the essentials, but no one's ever told him how to convince your heart to stop loving.

He pulls his knees up, rests his elbows on them, lowers his head. The can in his hand is half-empty. And yet he feels no change. Just emptiness. He should be mad, punching blood into the walls, breaking things, fragile things, like his heart, but he can't. There's no anger, no disappointment, just a feeling that he's not enough, that he was never enough. The realisation hits him hard.

He sits there, back against the wall. The black and white tiles create a mosaic underneath him. Pattern stretches across the floor, disappearing in the darkness of the hallway. Namjoon drinks can after can; until the beer turns lukewarm and light peers through the window.

Around dawn, he hears a door in the hallway being opened followed by footsteps. They're closer with every second but Namjoon lacks the strength to move. A moment later, Yoongi enters the kitchen in nothing but his boxers and an oversized t-shirt.

“Shit,” he hisses when he sees Namjoon on the floor. Empty cans are scattered on the tiles. “Are you okay?” Yoongi asks, kneeling beside Namjoon.

Namjoon lifts his head, looks him in the eyes and says, “You're probably feeling better, since you got laid last night.” His words are venomous and accusing. They pierce Yoongi's skin like needles and he winces. “But,” and he continues, “if that's what he wants, who am I to stop him, right? He deserves to be happy, after all the shit he went through. I just,” Namjoon's voice snaps. When he speaks again, he can barely hide the pain. “I hoped that it could be with me.”

“Namjoon-”

“It's fine if it's you, totally okay,” he wants to laugh, God, he really does, but Yoongi's looking at him with concern, guilt in his eyes, and Namjoon can't do it.

“But he's your boyfriend and I messed up.”

“Don't,” Namjoon says simply. “Hoseok can do whatever makes him happy and if you're making him happy, that's great. I want him to be happy. Did you ever have a bird as a pet when you were younger, hyung?”

Yoongi shakes his head. Namjoon takes the last sip of his beer.

“Good,” he says, “because you shouldn't cage birds, hyung. When you do, they only sing sad songs about the sky that you took away from them. They despise you as much as they love the sky. And maybe in another life, Hoseok was a bird. I can't cage him; you shouldn't either.”

Yoongi stands up, opens the fridge and takes out a water bottle. He sits cross-legged on the tiles opposite of Namjoon. As he unscrews his bottle, he asks “What do we do now?”

Namjoon tries to smile. “We let things be.”

Hoseok wakes up with a headache. The other side of the bed is empty, cold. Sheets are heavy on his skin. When he opens his eyes, the white ceiling is staring back at him. Constellations of empty promises are written on it in transparent ink.
He can't stay here, in this bed that feels like a prison cell. He crawls up, grabs his clothes from the floor. With every move he makes, his mind is screaming at him louder and louder and louder. His hands are shaking.

Hoseok drags himself to the bathroom, looks in the mirror. Crimson roses are blooming on his collarbones, at places Yoongi sucked and nibbled his skin.

Images flash before his eyes. A fusion of red and black. White bleeds on still frames, creating bittersweet memories. Hoseok gasps for air. He's drowning in his mistakes, bony hands pulling him in the abyss.

He turns on the tap. As the cold water fills the sink, he splashes some on his face.
He looks awful, he feels even worse. Why did he have to test the ground under his feet; to taste Yoongi's lips? He should have known better. He gambled with Namjoon's trust and lost it. His grip on the sink is tight, knuckles white, fingers digging in ceramic.

When he looks in the mirror again, consequences are staring back at him; ghostly fingers of guilt around his throat choking him, sucking his breath until his lungs collapse on themselves.

Water fills the sink to the brim and over. Drops fall on the tiles.

Coming back was the wrong decision. Staying was the wrong decision.

He falls to his knees, pushing his head into the cold water.

Seconds tick away painfully slow and it's Namjoon's voice that pulls him back to the surface. When Hoseok opens his eyes, he sees Yoongi hovering over him, feels Namjoon's hands on his shoulders. His head is in Namjoon's lap.

“Christ, Hoseok,” Yoongi mutters.

Namjoon lowers his head until his forehead is touching Hoseok's and whispers, “You idiot, don't ever do that again.”

Hoseok takes a deep breath and listens to the rhythm of his heart. He is, he is, he is.

- - -

Thunder storms come in April.

Heavy clouds open above the city; celestial tears soak every part of the glass metropolis. Wind blows, carrying the last cherry blossoms down wide avenues.

Hoseok spends the days staring at the TV screen, not remembering what he just saw. The volume is low. Drumming of rain against the window panes provides comfort that words can't. It's white noise, static sound. He swallows down a million questions. They're bitter in his mouth. Acidic almost.

His mind wanders – back to his childhood, to teenage years, to Namjoon's hand in his, to sloppy kisses and skipped heartbeats, to run-down buildings and vivid colours he sprayed on the walls of their past, to every time he left without saying goodbye.
When Hoseok closes his eyes, still frames of memories flash behind his eyelids. They lack the colour he desperately needs in his life. They're achromatic and sharp, brutally detailed. He sees the way light reflects in Yoongi's irises, the way the veins branch on his wrists.

Mindlessly, he taps his fingers on the remote control. He's nervous, caught in a concrete cage. The walls will close in on him.

His duffel bag sits half-open in the hallway, ready for him to grab it and leave, just like many times before. But this time, things are different. Running away won't solve things.

So Hoseok stays; with no solution and no explanation for Namjoon acting like everything is okay, for Yoongi leaving the door of his room open.

He can hear footsteps in the hallway. The sound of running water comes from the small kitchen. Both Namjoon and Yoongi are home.

Yoongi enters the living room and sighs. On the couch, there's Hoseok staring at a blank spot just above the TV. There are no photographs on the wall, absolutely nothing that could possibly hold his attention for hours to no end.

As he collapses on the couch next to Hoseok, Yoongi says “You're an idiot, Jung Hoseok. Are you aware of that?”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Hoseok tense. The volume of the TV gets higher and foreign voices fill the space between them. Yoongi reaches for the remote control. He turns off the TV to force Hoseok to listen to him.

“I was watching that,” Hoseok protests but doesn't look in Yoongi's direction.

“You weren't,” Yoongi says with a certain finality and Hoseok bites his lips. The tone of Yoongi's voice leaves no room for protest and Hoseok unwillingly admits defeat.

For a few minutes they do nothing until Namjoon comes from the kitchen, glass of water in his hand. As he takes the first sip, he says “You're such a child, Hoseok.”

Yoongi throws his head back to look at him. Things fall out of sync, get turned upside-down. Namjoon offers him a smile before speaking again.

“You're acting irrational,” Namjoon adds.

Hoseok has his back turned to him but Namjoon can see the slight shake of his head. “I'm not. I'm confused. Both of you are acting like best friends, like nothing happened.” His voice snaps at the last syllable. This is his battle to fight and yet he doesn't have the strength for it.

“Well, if you expect us to yell at you, we won't. We won't fight each other to the death either. This isn't a drama,” Namjoon says and Yoongi laughs.

Lightning strikes outside, illuminating the night. Streets are empty save for a few stray dogs. Owners are closing their shops, restaurants are bidding farewell to their guests. Somewhere students are studying for the incoming exams, trying to memorize formulas they'll probably never use again. Somewhere lovers are trying to say goodbye and convince the other to hang up first.

“Besides, we are good friends who just happen to like the same person. Simple as that,” Yoongi adds. “And if we're lucky, this person might like us back.”

When Hoseok says “I do”, his voice is small, barely audible. He's looking in front of him but he can't prevent the blush creeping up his cheeks and he doesn't know what to blame it on. He feels like he's fifteen again, young and reckless and utterly clueless about life. His feelings are out in the open, ready to be crushed, broken. They're fragile, like the wings of a butterfly.

Hoseok squeezes his eyes shut and prepares for the worst.

“He doesn't get it, does he?” Yoongi says annoyed. Namjoon bursts out laughing.

“Nope. Try drawing it,” he proposes and Yoongi glares at him.

“Hoseok, listen,” Yoongi tries again. “Me and Namjoon -”

“Namjoon and I,” Namjoon interrupts him.

“Fine, whatever.” Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Namjoon and I have talked and we won't force you to do anything you don't want. And if you want to be more than friends with both of us, we're okay with that.”

- - -

Rain stops with Hoseok's smile.

He kisses Yoongi good morning, who grumbles “Go bug Namjoon” before pulling the covers over his head. Hoseok laughs. His voice is hoarse from sleeping, lower than usual.
He crawls up, runs his hand through his messy hair.

A month has passed, nothing changed. A part of him expected the world to be turned upside-down, to crush and burn. It didn't.

Namjoon still writes, Yoongi still produces; they still laugh and bicker and occasionally get drunk to celebrate finishing a new song. Namjoon performs every weekend. They mingle with the audience and cheer him on. That is, Hoseok yells and claps while Yoongi stays near the bar to talk to other producers. He and Donghyuk immediately click and in no time, making Namjoon miserable one way or another becomes their favourite hobby.

Hoseok balances them – he pulls Yoongi up when melancholy finds its way in his songs, pulls Namjoon down when he gets too cocky and confident and only fills his spiral notebook with diss raps. He still draws on the trains passing through suburbia. He quotes Bukowski and Plath in bold letters scribbled on the walls, paints phoenixes on the sides of the warehouses.

He kisses Yoongi hungrily, pressing himself closer, closer until the distance between them melts to nothing and he can feel Yoongi's heartbeat under his palm. He kisses Namjoon like the world is ending, no questions asked and explanations needed, drawing constellations on Namjoon's collarbones.

The truth is that love is an equation that can't be solved. There are too many variables and conditions that you never really take into consideration.

Every day you fall in love with a stranger on the bus, a boy in the library, a girl waiting for somebody in front of the theatre. You love them for few fleeting seconds until the next bus stop. You make plans and dream about what could happen.

You love a million people in a single day without knowing their name, their favourite colour or what flavour of ice-cream they like.

Maybe none of them is right for you; maybe all of them are.

And if you're lucky, some of them will love you back, as the snow falls in front of the library, as wind plays with long scarves down the boulevards.

But you wouldn't know that, and that's perfectly fine because love is like drops of paint seconds before they hit the canvas. You never know what picture they'll paint, but there will always be somebody who will appreciate it.

Comments

[seonwoong]

This was a gorgeous read. I enjoyed this immensely! Your recipient is so lucky to have received this awesome work. Thank you for writing this!

SiobhanDeStele

[(Anonymous)]

Wow I'm just...... still in awe honestly. I'm so privileged to have received this. Your writing has this beautiful dreamy quality, it was pure art. I won't go through and pick out all my favorite parts bc there are too many, but the opening passage was definitely up their. I loved the Alice In Wonderland imagery.

My favorite part about this is just the way the three of them fell together so seamlessly. The deep friendship sugamon have was so nice, and I loved how they're not tying Hoseok down... just anchoring him. Hoseok is such a free spirit in this but they don't stifle him, they let him come back when he's ready.

Anyways, what I really mean to say is thank you thank you thank you so much. This fic is so well done and I cannot thank you enough for it!

Re: SiobhanDeStele

[(Anonymous)]

*there

lmao

[(Anonymous)]

Gosh this is... wonderful... O_O

Author you have all my respect. And I think I fell in love with Hoseok.