Chapter Text
Namjoon met Yoongi when they were both children.
Yoongi had just moved into the neighborhood, taking up residence in what the shorter boy called a house but what Namjoon was sure could technically be classified as a castle - turns out, as he learned many years later, castles can be houses too if you're filthy fucking rich.
Yoongi's family also happened to own lots of beautiful, white horses, and that's how it all started - with the horse incident.
To this day, Namjoon remembers it so clearly - the animal's cries could be heard all the way from where he had been playing at a river nearby.
Without thinking, he had run towards the source of distress as fast as his little legs could carry him, out of breath when he reached the top of the hill, and as he scanned the field before him, he saw it - the magnificent white horse, lying on the ground where it was tied to a post, trashing head pulled taut by the rope. Only it had no longer been as snow-white as it must have once been - angry red marks running across it's body, visible even from where he'd been standing, the horse attempting to stand up, struggling pathetically.
And - two figures a few feet away. An older woman, holding a small, frail-looking boy with strange, almost orange hair - who had in turn been holding a whip in his tiny hand.
And when Namjoon had made his way over to them hurriedly, he noticed the woman's face was stained with tears, but the boy's eyes had been dry. He remembers vividly how the woman let go of the boy suddenly and pushed him away with so much force, sending him tumbling to the ground as she ran to the injured horse. And Namjoon, stupidly, without a thought, had hurried over to the boy, offering his hand to the kid despite the small blood splats that covered his hands and clothes.
When Namjoon's mother came looking for him more than an hour later, the two kids had been playing in a tall field of wheat. She'd promptly dragged him away from the still blood-covered boy, and when they got home, she sat him down and told him to never, ever go near that boy ever again. Your father saw it, she had told him. That boy beat the horse half to death.
But as soon as Namjoon finished his cereal the next morning though, he wasted no time before heading over to where he last saw the boy, and found him not far off.
"I'm gonna follow you forever and make sure you never hurt another horse!" he had screamed at the other, and proceeded to do just that.
He followed him around the entire day.
Yoongi rarely spoke and was just so, so strange, Namjoon thought, not at all like his other friends, but there were so many fun things to do in the castle Yoongi lived in that Namjoon had soon forgotten all about it.
And maybe his parents were wrong, anyway - he was old enough, he had thought, stupidly, to know parents weren't always right about everything.
Little did he know, he would be keeping his word for nearly twenty years.
Yoongi would never hurt another horse again, but he would still be... Yoongi. He would still be that same boy, with that sometimes unnervingly empty look in his eyes, those eyes that only seemed to come to life at the wrong time and in all the wrong ways.
Despite all that, Yoongi would grow to genuinely care about Namjoon, and even go so far as to tell him he loved him every now and then. Namjoon would take those confessions with a grain of salt and wouldn't particularly enjoy hearing them in the first place - he'd learn that love meant something very different for Yoongi, and wouldn't be too sure he wanted to be on the receiving end of it.
But Yoongi - Yoongi would want to "be good" - would tell him so often and as far as Namjoon could tell, he'd mean it, too, and he'd trust Namjoon to teach him what that meant. And Namjoon - Namjoon would try, for years and years, would keep Yoongi close and try so hard - because Yoongi was his friend, would become his best friend, really, but more importantly, his responsibility.
So this would become his life. Probably forever.
Because although it would sometimes seem like Yoongi was improving, even managing to feel something good every now and then, Namjoon would never really be sure, could never really be able to know, because maybe, maybe it was nothing more than Yoongi simply becoming better at what the older had dramatically dubbed 'the performance'.
The performance. Namjoon would hate it, hate it so fucking much, and Yoongi would swear he only ever did it for other people, not him, never him. And indeed, perhaps regrettably, Yoongi would learn not to pretend with Namjoon. Oh no.
Namjoon would get the absolute mis-fucking-fortune of really, truly - knowing Yoongi.
"Always tell me the truth, always always always," Namjoon had told him many years ago, after finding a girl Yoongi had sworn he had no interest in, passed out from drinking and locked in Yoongi's college dorm closet. "You told me you didn't want to hurt her. Now tell me the truth, Yoongi, all of it."
And Yoongi did as he was told - told him the truth, all of it, uncensored, with none of the usual sugar-coating.
Namjoon watched him as he spoke, Yoongi's face as neutral and dead-looking as ever as he described... awful things, unspeakable things in that deep, monotone voice of his, and it wasn't long before Namjoon was kneeling in front of a trash can, emptying his stomach before Yoongi even managed to get to the juicy parts.
"You said the truth," Yoongi said from behind him, maybe a little defensively. "And I wasn't going to do any of it."
Namjoon stared at his half-digested lunch in the trashcan. He didn't want to turn around, couldn't face him, not yet.
"I know," he said. Lied. Because he didn't know, not at all. How could he possibly trust this man wouldn't do the things he'd described when he was capable of thinking them in the first place? A normal, healthy person wasn't capable of coming up with that sort of shit and - and - fuck, Namjoon cursed under his breath. He couldn't let Yoongi see him right now or he'd know, he'd know Namjoon was thinking those hurtful things about him. Though the fact that he just vomited merely from hearing his friend's unfiltered thoughts might have tipped him off.
( Every now and then, Namjoon swore he could sense the dark energy radiating from him, sinister and malevolent and unpredictable, and then he'd hear those... godawful screams of the white-and-red horse in his head and remember the blood-stained hands on that little boy, and it would all just be... too much, just too much for such a young man to bear all on his own, and he'd be unable to stop the frustration and fear and hatred and disgust that he sometimes felt for his best friend from overpowering his love for him and becoming visible on his face. In those moments, when it all became too much, he'd just go by instinct, curl his lips in disgust, slam his fists against the other's chest, hurl objects in his direction, scream hateful accusations at him or do any number of things he'd later regret but dammit, sometimes he just wanted to hurt this- this vile thing in front of him. Not the way Yoongi wanted to hurt others - no, Namjoon's need felt... righteous, like something he had to do, like it was good. Like pouring holy water on a demon or cutting a poisonous serpent's head off with the sharp edge of a shovel. And when he succeeded in hurting him, when it seemed as if his cruel words managed to shake up that shell of a soul enough for Yoongi to feel it, it would be only moments before Namjoon was apologizing and telling him he didn't mean any of it, 'but at least it made you feel something, right, this is good, it's a good thing, Yoongi' and Yoongi would nod and Namjoon would be forgiven, and they would both promise each other to try their best to do better until one of them failed again and the cycle repeated. )
His thoughts were interrupted by a light touch on his shoulder then and he jerked violently, jumping forward and away from the touch, spilling the contents of the trashcan as he scrambled over it before turning around.
Now facing Yoongi, he saw something that - perhaps - looked vaguely like hurt on his face. It was too strange, too Yoongi for it to be his performance - he knew Yoongi could do better than that.
"Sorry, sorry, it's fine, I'm fine," Namjoon said, trying his best to hide the fear and anger and revulsion he still felt throbbing in his chest.
Yoongi looked unconvinced. "You're a bad liar," he told Namjoon, who held his gaze.
"Yeah... You aren't though, are you?" he returned somewhat unkindly, more of a statement than a question, and Yoongi was the first to look away.
"I don't lie to you," Yoongi said quietly at his feet, keeping his body limp and slow as he shuffled slightly back and away from his friend, trying to appear harmless - just the way Namjoon had taught him throughout the years.
Ah shit, thought Namjoon, he saw it. He's gonna crawl back into his shell and send out some... some hologram and play a recording of some emotion he saw somewhere, on someone else.
He finally got up from the floor, standing to face him.
"Right," he sighed as he cleaned some of the sick off his shirt and pants. "You don't lie, you just don't tell me things."
"Well I can't tell you every single thought that crosses my mind, can I? How would that work?"
Namjoon felt a spark of anger. "Don't play stupid, Yoongi. You know exactly what sort of things I'm talking about."
Yoongi's eyes darted away again, and he was clearly trying to think of a way to get out of this and ah, here we go, he thought, wily fucking bastard. Namjoon felt like punching him for the millionth time since they've known each other.
"You know I can't always tell," Yoongi said with a pout, looking at him now, eyes big and vulnerable and voice soft and innocent. "That's why I need you, Joonie."
Motherfucker, he thought, his hands forming tight fists. "Don't pull that shit with me, Yoongi, or I swear to god I'm gonna walk away right now and fucking disappear."
Whatever emotion Yoongi was attempting to simulate on his face was gone with a blink, and Namjoon was too fucking pissed off to shiver. That wicked energy of his was suddenly pouring off Yoongi in waves.
"You're not going to leave me," he said, quietly, calmly - confidently, the fucking bastard - and Namjoon could hear the threat behind it. He pressed his lips into a thin line, pushing down the spark of fear.
"You sound mighty sure of yourself there, hyung," he hissed, and Yoongi's flinch was so minuscule no one but Namjoon could have noticed it. "And you're gonna make sure of that, are you?"
They stood there, watching each other, neither willing to admit to the other that they were afraid.
"Yes," Yoongi replied, finally.
Namjoon's nostrils flared, face contorting in anger. "And how you gonna do that, Yoongi?"
He was almost like a statue, unmoving and silent, not even blinking.
"You gonna lock me up in that closet? Huh? Gonna keep me like a fucking pet?"
Yoongi said nothing, but the words coming from Namjoon were having an effect. Snake - meet shovel.
"Yeah, you've thought about that, haven't you? Any other sick fantasies involving me I should be aware of? All that - all that - fucking - psycho shit you wanted to do to that girl? What's stopping you from doing that shit to me, huh? Why don't you just bash my fucking head in right now and-"
For what seemed like the longest moment of his life, Namjoon actually thought he was going to die. So many thoughts ran through his head in those few seconds that they seemed like a fucking eternity as he stood trembling in his friend's strong hold. And on the question of fight or flight, he was, it would seem, in favour of the third option - freeze in complete terror. It didn't matter that he was bigger than Yoongi, taller than him, stronger than him. None of that had ever mattered with Yoongi. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think.
He opened his eyes when he felt a warm palm slowly and softly drawing large circles on his back. Air rushed into his lungs again, kick-starting his brain. The circles on his back continued, and slowly but surely began to relax his taut muscles. He's hugging me, he thought in a moment of disbelief.
He heard Yoongi whisper something but he couldn't make it out though the loud drumming of his heart.
"What?" he managed.
"I'm sorry."
"Oh."
Yoongi squeezed him harder then, pressing him closer, only to loosen the embrace again when Namjoon tensed, but kept moving his hand across his back.
"You said to tell you the truth. All of it," he said, sounding a little desperate.
"Yeah. I did, didn't I," Namjoon returned, trying to chuckle but it sounded more like a sob.
Christ. This was life with Yoongi. The man who felt barely anything but made you feel so intensely a mix of emotions that did not belong together. Like affection and disgust. Love and fear.
Namjoon swore to himself he would be more prepared next time, he wouldn't get this hysterical again when Yoongi was honest with him - which is what he told himself every time.
'I can't control what crosses my mind,' Yoongi had said to him once, and Namjoon told him that sounded like a lazy excuse. Yoongi agreed.
But it was Namjoon's responsibility to know his hyung's thoughts, wasn't it? Somewhere along the way, or maybe even on that very first day when he'd helped the bloodied boy stand from the muddy ground, he had made it his responsibility. And that meant he had to be able to handle hearing him speak about these things, and, more importantly, Yoongi had to be willing to speak of them, and that meant Namjoon had to do better. He had to stop punishing Yoongi for thinking.
He felt the hold tighten again, only slightly.
"I won't ever hurt you. Not you. I swear it."
Despite everything, Namjoon found himself believing the words.
That was the last time Yoongi would threaten him for a long, long time.
But then...
Then that man came along.