Chapter Text
Standing before Jimin and Hoseok again–for the third time this year– was about more than Taehyung could bear. Their apartment was already cold–his boyfriends were cold because of him. It was less nice than their last apartment because of him. The walls here were thin and everything was clean but so old, so worn down, like Taehyung could tell his boyfriends were growing.
He wiped pained tears, trying to hide his face with his arm. Jimin stood to hold him immediately, not even waiting for the news. They didn’t have to, probably already knew. He could see that in Hoseok’s face.
“I’m sorry.” The words were tight and choked, sincere. “I–they asked me not to come back.”
Jimin hushed him and squeezed him, and he wanted nothing more than to hide in him forever. But he needed to see how Hoseok was taking the news, and peeked his eyes over Jimin’s shoulder.
What Taehyung saw made him cry harder. Hoseok’s lips were tight, and Taehyung knew he was holding something back.
“Just say it,” Taehyung begged. The dining room table sat in the middle of the small living room, tucked away from the sofa, and Taehyung stared at the stained wood while the quiet ate him alive.
Hoseok’s fist slammed on the table, breaking the silence like a tension deep inside him had finally snapped. Taehyung cried out and flinched, memories of his abeoji–but Jimin held him tighter, protective. He flinched too, but he moved his body in front of Taehyung’s right after. Yeontan’s collar jingled, running into the room to bark at whatever had disturbed the peace.
“Hoseo–” he started, but Hoseok ran his hand over his face.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have–but fucking hell Taehyung. What was wrong with this one? We need you to be working–”
“I said I’m sorry!” Taehyung couldn’t take the disappointment. He pushed Jimin away, body heaving, and ran to the smaller bedroom, the one they had in case someone needed space for whatever reason–work calls, sickness, emotional. He collapsed on the twin bed, nails digging into his hands until he could feel the pain of something peeling. Tannie appeared beside him, licking, and he tried to love on him; he didn’t know what was happening.
How could he be so fucking useless? His boyfriends took care of him, and he truly offered nothing, and now he had to listen to the vague sounds of their arguing about him.
Jimin closed his eyes, frustrated too. When he opened them, tears welled at the corners. Hoseok didn’t understand, but he had to try. Jimin got on his knees and took Hoseok’s hands, looking up at his darling’s face staring down at him, already saddened by whatever was going to happen.
“Darling,” he started, begging. “There are–there are things our Tae Tae just…can’t do. Do you understand that?” He tried to speak gently, could tell how upset Hoseok was–he’d made so many sacrifices for them both. He had a right to be upset, and Jimin knew he was replaying Taehyung flinching in his mind, too.
“He can hold a job. It doesn’t even have to be a good one. Just anything–”
“No, yeobo. That’s just it,” Jimin interrupted. “He can’t. He can’t do it.
“Hyung, please listen. He’s–he can’t try any harder. It’s making him miserable. He can’t do some things. He wants to. You saw him–” Hoseok’s palm hit the table more halfheartedly, but Jimin didn’t flinch this time. Hoseok was at his breaking point, that was all: his own tears made that apparent.
“We can’t afford this, Jimin. We can’t. We have nothing saved.” Jimin took his escaped hands again and squeezed them.
“I know. I know. It’s okay.” He waited a moment before suggesting what he did next, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hoseok would hate him for it.
“We can ask Jin hyung for help,” Jimin said, voice quiet.
“We are not asking hyung for more money.” Jimin had expected refusal, at least at first, but the way he snarled it took Jimin by surprise and, more importantly, hurt him.
“Well, what’s your solution?” Jimin asked, voice raised to speaking volume as his patience wore down.
“My solution is for one of the three people living here to pull his weight and–”
“Don’t talk about him like that.” Jimin stood, the grey carpet worn under his bare feet. Hoseok held his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what else we can do and keep living.”
Jimin held his arm, tears finally escaping. Everyone else got to cry. Why not him?
“I can look into…other work. I’d do that.” The shame in his voice betrayed what he meant, and Hoseok’s eyes widened.
“Jimin, Jesus–absolutely not. How could–”
“I’m that confident, hyung.” The pleading tone returned. “He can’t. I thought you understood–it’s like Soobin. He’s wonderful and I love him, but he can’t work.”
And we have to get it together, because we’ll be taking care of Soobin one day, he silently added. His little brother would not be treated like a burden in his own hyung’s home. Jimin was adamant. And neither would his Tae Tae.
Hoseok stayed quiet, thinking, and Jimin looked around. He missed the old apartment. He really did. But that was nothing compared to Taehyung’s well-being.
“I was an asshole. I’m sorry.” Hoseok’s voice was so small, so ashamed. Jimin sat in his lap and held him, a firm hand on the back of his neck, everything so instantly forgiven. Hoseok’s arms found Jimin’s waist, and his face Jimin’s shoulder.
“I know you’re under a lot of stress,” Jimin soothed, kissing his hair. “But you do owe him an apology.”
“I know. But what are we going to do?” When Hoseok lifted his face for a sign, Jimin’s assumptions were confirmed in an instant: there was no lack of love in Hoseok’s eyes. As long as they all loved each other, Jimin could work with anything. He smiled kindly and pinched Hoseok’s chin lovingly, wiggling it until he received a small smile in return.
“I’ll sell my laptop if we need to this month. I can use yours. I think I need to be on the job hunt again.” Hoseok had the best job of them all, but also the most demanding scheduling wise: he choreographed performances and gave dance instruction for idol groups at a company that might go bankrupt at any moment.
Truthfully, it was Hoseok’s money that kept them afloat, but the hours were terrible. When it came down to it, he probably made less than Jimin hourly and worked harder besides. Jimin taught beginner’s contemporary dance classes, and honestly he’d only gotten that job as a favor from Hyunki from college, whose sister’s friend co-owned the studio.
Besides that, he did freelance dancing. Sometimes that took up every second of his time, but other times there was no work for months, and it was hard to keep finding waitering jobs that would take him when he kept quitting the moment a dancing opportunity came.
But Hoseok never said anything to him when those blank months remained empty, and that’s how he knew that Hoseok supported his dream–their dreams. His poor darling was just so tired.
Jimin cupped Hoseok’s cheek and smiled sadly.
“We’ll talk more later,” he said, ending it for the night. He didn’t like to argue late into the night, and Taehyung should be part of the discussion.
“Move with Taehyung to the bedroom and sleep just the two of you tonight. Well, the three of you. I doubt Tannie will want to leave him.
“Apologize. I want to think in the spare room.” Jimin knew that he would be giving up his dancing projects for a while–and at his age, possibly forever–so he could work a steady second job.
He wanted to sit with that alone, to grieve privately so he could be strong when he told them what he’d decided.
***
Jin had never been so flattered and so sad all at once–Jungkook screamed when he walked through the door, a bunny smile lighting up his face in an instant, as easy as a light switch. He bolted to Jin and hugged him so hard that Jin fell laughing back into the door, hugging him back.
Jungkook never felt unfamiliar in his arms, no matter how long he’d been gone.
“I thought you were away two more weeks,” Jungkook said, squeezing him. Jin choked. He’d missed his home, too, their beautiful apartment with Doyoung hyung’s grand piano finally moved in. He hoped Jungkook had played it.
“I realized I had about three days, and I thought instead of spending it in Europe sleeping, I’d come home and sleep next to you.” Jin kissed his temple.
Jungkook frowned. He still looked so wrong with short hair. Fuck that orchestra, Jin thought for the thousandth time.
“You’re going to be jet lagged as hell for me. You should have gone early and adjusted. That’s what the empty time is for.”
Jin hushed him dramatically, pulled him closer and kissed his neck, chaste and desperate to breathe in his smell, to taste him.
“I miss you like hell, too, you know,” he mumbled. Being away from Jungkook while he toured fucking killed him, like being separated from the essential part that fit with him, that finally made him whole.
“And how’s the “World’s Most Handsome Violinist” getting on these days?” Jungkook grinned again, like he wanted to lighten the mood for Jin. Jin groaned, ears turning red while Jungkook giggled.
“I told you to stop,” Jin whined, knowing none of his friends or Koo would ever stop teasing him about his title in the media. His manager Sunghee had run with it, using it for marketing the hot new soloist. He had to make videos for the internet to see his face and unstuffy personality more often. God Jin hated shooting videos.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m just so honored by your presence.” Jungkook kissed him again, then took his bag and led Jin back into his apartment.
Sunset drifted in lazily through the huge window wall that led to their balcony, hitting the dark green of the plants and Jungkook’s recent paintings just right. But–
Jin frowned. The room opened up into a huge kitchen–a must when they’d been apartment searching–and every cup, plate, bowl, every utensil lay on the countertops and island. Jungkook followed his gaze and bounced nervously.
“Don’t be mad. I’m sorry. I was just cleaning the cabinets.” Jungkook was a bad liar, and the cabinets definitely weren’t being aired out, because they were all closed. Jin reached for his hand and kissed it, stroking it.
“I’m not mad, honey. Are you okay?” His chest tightened like someone had slapped a rubber band on it.
“I’m fine but–please don’t put them back,” Jungkook begged, knowing the lie hadn’t worked and giving up immediately. Jin honestly couldn’t do that to him, couldn’t force him to separate himself from a compulsion that was important to him and then leave him alone to deal with those awful feelings for another two weeks.
So he nodded and kissed his hand again.
“Okay,” he acquiesced. “But when I get back for real, we’re going to have to put them away.” He didn’t like the way that made Jungkook squirm. He was sick right now. Jin had gotten good at telling, but his symptoms had definitely gotten worse recently after a period of almost none at all.
“Do you want to order out tonight?” Jungkook asked. Jin smiled. He loved food, but right now?
“Honey, I’m so fucking tired from that flight that I want to collapse. They were so fucking rude in New York. People kept asking me to speak English when I posed for photos. Like, fucking why?”
He scrunched up his face in annoyance to make Jungkook laugh.
“Let’s get you to bed, ajeossi.” Jin fake whacked him.
“You’ll be thirty soon enough and I won’t let it go,” he threatened. Jungkook beamed.
“But then you’ll be pushing forty–”
“I will not–”
The horrible, rushed flight schedule and double the jetlag were all worth lying in his big, beautiful bed and falling into his first deep sleep in weeks, held by the man he loved more than anything.
***
“Hyung?” Namjoon asked. Yoongi grunted in acknowledgment, walking around picking up around the apartment, dusting and tidying. Namjoon was even busier than him, and even messier, and Yoongi himself was guilty of drinking energy drinks and coffee all day and leaving the cups and cans around. He didn’t judge.
“Hyung, can you–we really need to talk.” Yoongi looked up for the first time, and Namjoon’s pale, concerned face made him pause.
“Okay–yeah. I’m sorry.” He put down all the crap he was holding in a pile on the coffee table and sat on their dark, soft couch. They’d picked it to cuddle on and read together when they moved in last year, but they’d only done it about twice. There was no time. Namjoon sat next to him and looked down at his lap, then faced Yoongi with searching eyes.
“I was at rehearsal today, and–Dohyun kissed me.” Namjoon’s stare continued to bore into Yoongi’s soul while his words were still punching him in the gut. He’d met that fucking prick, several times. The thought of Joonie’s pianist who he saw nearly every day meeting him and deciding Namjoon could do better–it was fucking unbearable.
He took a deep shaky breath.
“And what did–what did you do?” Yoongi tried not to sound as scared shitless, as heartbroken as he was. Namjoon didn’t say this casually. It wasn’t a joke. Dohyun is rich and young and beautiful and talented. He’s all of those things, and I’m not.
“I told him to stop and that I love you very much.” Joonie’s voice–it was like he was begging for Yoongi to understand something, but he couldn’t. He pictured Dohyun and Joonie at rehearsal, Dohyun in such nice clothes, his body healthy, his eyes bright, and he started to suffocate.
“H-hyung? Hyung breathe.” Yoongi really looked at him for the first time, and Namjoon’s searching gaze faltered.
“There’s a ‘but.’ Give me the ‘but.’ You left out the hard part.” He practically wheezed it out. After a decade living with Joonie, loving him, he could read him as easily as anything, and Namjoon’s teary eyes gave up the truth of Yoongi’s observation.
“I liked the kiss,” he whispered, the shame almost more audible than the words. Yoongi closed his eyes, but it didn’t do anything to hold back the tears. He hadn’t cried in so long, and they all came so suddenly. It overwhelmed him, it–
“Hyung, I–do you understand what I’m trying to–” Namjoon didn’t finish his own sentence, just gave up and pulled Yoongi to him and watched his hyung sob on him, cling to him for dear life. It was clear that Yoongi understood.
“I’m trying. I’m trying. I love you.” They didn’t spend all that much time together, but it’s because they were both busy. Yoongi technically worked three jobs, even though some were vaguely flexible. Namjoon himself was in a small chamber orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic, and was writing a fucking book, not to mention that he was busy with PhD applications.
“I’m not blaming you,” Namjoon clarified, holding him close. Yoongi knew him so well he could tell by the way he kissed Yoongi’s head that he was crying too.
“But something has to change. I don’t want to–I don’t like to feel so far apart from you that I dream of someone else. It makes me feel–” His throat caught and Yoongi hushed him quickly, rising from the comfort of Namjoon’s chest to comfort him.
His Joonie needed to be held and cared for, too. Yoongi knew how this had made him think of himself–as someone evil, essentially. The last thing Joonie ever wanted was to hurt him, and when he did, he tended to be quite melancholy about it for a while even after they made up.
“It’s okay. We’ve–we’ve been together so long. You’ve never even slept with anyone else. I-I understand if–”
Namjoon took him by the shoulders and shook him so desperately it almost hurt, looking into his eyes, something that was still hard for Yoongi after ten years.
“Please. Please understand. That’s not what–I don’t want anyone else. I want you. I just don’t have you.” The final words shattered Namjoon into tiny fragments, and Yoongi hushed him, kissed his dry lips desperately trying to put him together again.
“I’m yours. I’m yours,” he reassured softly, soothing. He shifted and Joonie understood what he wanted, shifting to curl into Yoongi now, small and kind and his. Yoongi stroked his hair, pretty curtain bangs already tousled by the emotions. He thought carefully before he spoke.
“I want to make it work. You want to make it work. We’ve gotten through hardships before. We can do it again. It’s just hard now because the thing we don’t have is time, but if we get time, we’ll be broke and antsy.”
They were okay now. Joonie’s parents had never let up, so there was no fortune coming in like they’d hoped. But they were comfortable–very comfortable, even–even if Yoongi had to remind himself of that multiple times a day, every single day. If something went wrong, it wouldn’t just be him going hungry this time. The looming fear of Namjoon’s empty stomach was unbearable.
“I’ll make a spreadsheet of our time, one for our finances, link anything I can, and make some charts for us to talk about what can be cut.” Namjoon was always so relieved to have something he could do, but it was only after a few years of living with him that Yoongi realized just how unnaturally that came to Namjoon–more of a panic response than anything.
Joonie preferred not to think about those practical tasks at all. When he did, he’d follow through and do a good job–Yoongi didn’t mean that he wasn’t competent–but Namjoon definitely would prefer to be thinking about ideas, not to be pulled back into the material world. Yoongi kissed his head again, stroking his hair with extra love to try and show that he appreciated the sacrifice.
Yoongi, on the other hand, loved practical solutions and was desperate to leave his own head, but fuck if he knew how to use a damn spreadsheet. This one was a job for Joonie for sure.
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” Namjoon curled into him like that was all he needed to hear, but his grip tightened.
“There’s something else–hyung, we haven’t fucked in months,” he said plainly, a concerned frown. Yoongi blushed. It wasn’t strictly true–he’d blown Namjoon once or twice, quickly in the dark–but he took the point.
It was quiet while he thought.
“We could schedule it for Saturday afternoon. We usually both have a blank few hours.” They stared at each other in silence before erupting in comfortable laughter.
“That’s the lamest thing you’ve ever said,” Namjoon said with his dimples tempting Yoongi to pounce on him right then.
“So you approve?” Yoongi grinned. Namjoon sat up and kissed him like he’d had the same thoughts but couldn’t resist them.
“Obviously. So every Saturday, I’m going to rail you.” Namjoon kissed him smiling, the two of them still all giggles, and reached for Yoongi’s ass for a squeeze. Yoongi froze.
“Um. I guess that’s the other problem,” he admitted when Namjoon looked up to see what was wrong. “I’m not exactly feeling hot right now.”
He was safe to admit that here. His weight cycled so often that his body had a hard time catching up.
When he was relaxed or just feeling better about life, he ate freely–too freely–and gained weight. When he was stressed and busy, he simply didn’t eat at all, and his body deflated. Over and over again, it had left him feeling flabby and, honestly, both physically and mentally pathetic. He was almost never at what he would consider his ideal weight, always too chubby or too thin.
Now, he was too thin, and all he saw was sagging skin over sharp bone. When he had the time to think about it at all, looking at himself was fucking humiliating, and it was humiliating when he thought of what people must think when he couldn’t stop cycling, how much they must judge him.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Namjoon kissed his cheek, nuzzled his jaw.
“I know. But it’s–don’t be mad. But it’s hard to believe that when you have guys like Dohyun wanting you and I’m just–comfortable.”
Namjoon frowned, unhappy but not angry.
“You’re perfect and I love you. But hyung, to me, comfortable is good. I’m stressed. I want to come home and make love to my hot boyfriend who I know like my own self, and who knows me like I’m a part of him, too.”
Yoongi blushed. Namjoon was always saying things like “make love” that made Yoongi squirm, but he took the point.
“Just–if you hate it, I need you to tell me,” he mumbled. Namjoon frowned much more deeply, eyebrows pressed together.
“Don’t call yourself it.”
Yoongi was about to reply that it wasn’t him, it was just his body, before he realized his body was him, or at least a part of him.
“Sorry I’ve been cockblocking us both with my insecurities,” he deadpanned. Namjoon’s grin returned, a win.
God, Yoongi was relieved to see him looking so much less upset than they’d started this conversation, instead of more. Things like this could go either way depending on which direction either of their anxiety was acting up any given day. The two of them being anxious at the same time was a nightmare.
“It’s okay. We’ve both been cockblocking us with these fucking schedules.” He kissed Yoongi again, and Yoongi broke it with a yawn, which cracked Namjoon up so much that Yoongi blushed.
“We can go to bed.” Namjoon’s smile was kind and bright, comforted and fully trusting in Yoongi. He just had to not fuck things up.
The problem was, Yoongi had never not fucked things up in some way a day in his fucking life.
***
Jungkook called each of their friends–the only real friends he’d ever had–and not one of them picked up. No shit, he thought. It’s 1:43 pm. They’re all at work.
He looked around his spacious apartment, decorated to his own preferences, but all he saw was that Jin hyung wasn’t there, that he hadn’t been there in weeks after stopping by a few days.
He held hyung’s hoodie to his face and inhaled deeply, breathing in that perfect smell of clean soap and the cologne Jin liked the best, the weak one with the sandalwood. He choked out a sob and gripped it tighter and tried not to think about how hyung was on a plane from somewhere far away to somewhere even further away right now, or any of the things that could go wrong on a plane.
Something ancestrally bodily urged him to help, to tap something for as long as his flight was. You can’t help. The plane will do what it will do. It was the same thing he told himself every time, but this time he couldn’t fight the urge, rushed to their beautiful, spacious bedroom with midday sunlight streaming in through the picturesque windows.
His eyes searched the room for the right tools to set things right, like performing a spell to keep hyung safe. First, his gaze settled on the picture of Doyoung, the pretty little box of the lock of his hair right under it. An omen. Shit.
He breathed heavily–he’d looked at the wrong thing, and now Jin was going to be dead like his hyung. He had to fix that now, too. Everything just kept stacking in his mind, dizzying.
Jungkook’s phone buzzed in his pocket–the worst time. It was Tae, so he answered.
“Hey, sorry. I was napping–”
“I can’t talk. I have to do so much shit,” Jungkook told him, frazzled and searching for something that would help this problem. Punishment would probably undo it. He started to hit his thigh in the same place, over and over again, counting quietly. It wasn’t enough but speed was important.
“Koo, Koo,” Taehyung said gently. “You called me. Tell me what’s up.”
Jungkook waited until he counted to eighty hits to reply, his thigh a strange mixture of pained and numb. Taehyung waited patiently like he knew exactly what was happening and knew there was no point in stopping it, which pissed Jungkook off.
“Jin’s on his way to Canada and he’s not safe on that fucking plane.” His teary voice sounded so childish to himself. He’d never wanted to be Jin hyung’s loser boyfriend. He never wanted–
“Hyung has flown lots before. He knows what he’s doing, and the plane is safe. I’m more worried about you.
“I’m going to level with you: I’m calling Appa when I hang up.” Jungkook sniffled. His parents worried about him too fucking much. He was twenty-eight years old, and he could handle himself.
“I’m so alone,” he sobbed out instead. Taehyung sighed.
“Me too, baby. But hyung’s coming back. He’s safe and he loves you. He’s just busy being admired by old people all around the world.”
“Are you on your lunch break? I’m sorry to waste your time,” Jungkook said. He was a little more gathered, and just wanted to change the subject before he lost it again.
Tae sighed again.
“Did I not update you guys? I got fired again. Like a month ago.” Normally, he sounded sad, but he sounded crushed this time, and Jungkook was curious. And, he couldn’t help, a little relieved to pass the ball to hyung.
“Shit, why?” Jungkook regretted asking when he heard the sniffling.
“It was so loud in the back that I lost it and cut my finger by accident. I got blood everywhere and then I couldn’t get back together. It was still the first week so they just dropped me.”
Jungkook hadn’t thought food prep was a great choice for Taehyung truth be told, but he also knew that he’d been fucking desperate for work at that point.
“I’m sorry, Tae. You know my offer stands.” He regretted that, too.
“Hoseok would kill me.”
It pissed Jungkook the fuck off, and he welcomed the wave of anger, the most distracting emotion at his disposal.
“Hobi hyung can suck my dick, Tae. Maybe he should care more that you–”
“Don’t. Don’t talk about him like that,” Tae spat, always eager to defend him. “He’s looking out for you two. He doesn’t want it to get to a point where you wonder who your friends are.
“Hobi hyung loves me–and you–more than you could ever fucking know, so shut up. He’s just tired.” The vitriol was gone by the time he got to telling Jungkook to close his mouth, but instead of falling flat, it hurt more.
Silence sat between them on the line. “Sad” is also pretty distracting, Jungkook mused.
“I’m sorry. I should go. I love you even though I yelled at you. Everything will be okay.”
Jungkook sighed. No it fucking wouldn’t.
“I love you, too. Don’t call Appa.”
“I love you more. I’m sorry. I’m calling Appa.”
Jungkook closed his eyes when they hung up. At least Tae hyung never lied to him about what he was about to do. He let himself drift into another dimension while he waited for the phone call he knew was coming. The ring came later than expected–about half an hour later. Tae must have complained to Appa about his own problems, too.
“Hi, sweetheart.” Appa’s voice was as kind and patient and loving as ever, and Jungkook didn’t want to hear it for exactly those reasons. It broke him instantly. All the stability he’d gained in the past hour flew out the window, and he cried pathetically to his fucking dad.
“Appa, I’m so lonely. I’m so lonely and I can’t help and–” Jungkook had forgotten his mission, and now if something happened, he’d have no one to blame but himself. No. That was helpless, and helpless wasn’t him. He stood up and looked around, reinvigorated.
“Kookie, sh–breathe with me.”
“There’s no time. There’s–” Perfect. Jin’s ancient stuffed koala, Koya. He never brought it abroad, too afraid to lose it when he probably needed it most.
“Honey, why don’t you stay here until Jinnie comes back?” It was a gentle suggestion, but it didn’t feel like a choice. He took Koya, already poor and battered looking, and tried to find where he belonged. Maybe on Jin’s pillow he’d cried on earlier? No, it should be somewhere untainted by him.
“Eomma is worried about you. Does Jinnie know you’re–”
“Sorry. I’m kind of busy right now. I’ll call you later.” Jungkook hung up quickly, knowing his dad was already on his way and that he had a key to the apartment. But he had to keep up with his mission until Jin called to say he was safe.
***
Namjoon didn’t want to go back to rehearsal, wanted to just fucking quit, but Yoongi hyung had insisted he didn’t quit so close to the concerts. They’d be performing Poulenc’s Cello Sonata.
Namjoon loved playing the piece–it was technically and musically interesting, challenging to get the phrasing just right, not to mention something he’d never gotten to play–but he’d immediately known that the chaos portended some sort of structure falling to pieces in his life.
Dohyun was that chaos. Of that, Namjoon was certain. But as for what would shatter, he wasn’t entirely sure. Hyung had been understanding of the shameful kiss they’d shared in the warm practice studio with its creaking floors, so maybe it wouldn’t be his relationship after all.
But comforting as hyung’s steadfastness was, the uncertainty that followed that loyalty haunted him like something stuck in his heart unbeknownst to him that would, one day, result in a fatal aneurysm.
He walked into the room and saw, to his horror, Dohyun already at the piano. Dohyun looked so clean in the way Namjoon had always thought he would by the time he was thirty, not realizing back then that that aesthetic was a result of money. Still, Dohyun looked good in his belted corduroys and black turtleneck, with his soft, fresh perm. Denying that would only make him more anxious. It was better to acknowledge it and let it go.
“Don’t be so nervous, Joon,” Dohyun smiled with perfectly straight teeth, eyes kind but lacking in something that Yoongi hyung’s were abundant in, something he couldn’t place. Stop comparing him with hyung. He blushed, the thought instantly spiking his nerves.
“Sorry. You know how I am.” Dohyun did. They’d worked together, though not closely until now, for two years, entering a chamber orchestra around the same time. Dohyun, as a pianist, wasn’t around for every show.
“I do,” he replied with amused superiority that Namjoon didn’t like because he knew it was true.
“What have you been reading since last rehearsal?” Dohyun asked amicably, a try at distracting Namjoon from their kiss, except that thinking about the fact that it was a distraction distraction made him think about the kiss. He tuned as he spoke.
“I was reading a biography about Keats told through his poems, one poem a chapter in the biography and, of course, in Keats’ life. It’s a little hard because it’s in English and it references really old English translations of Homer and things like that, but other than that it’s really fascinating to get a sense of how much his life changed in so many ways, and how that affected his poetry–I mean, being a former medical student and contracting tuberculosis from caring for his brother, he must have understood how little time he could really have.”
Namjoon had more to say–about “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” about how impersonal the fairy’s call was, how she used the earth itself to bring death like magic, how erotic the knight’s death was, and maybe even that he felt a bit like the knight–but Dohyun spoke while he breathed in to tell him what he needed to.
“Sounds good. Are you ready?” His slender fingers were positioned over the keys already. Namjoon nodded, embarrassed to have spoken, wondering if the point had been to embarrass him about something different.
“I think we’re ready to really focus on the end,” he said, scrolling to the parts in his music on his iPad that he’d annotated last time. Yoongi hyung was right: he’d have to get on with his life if either of them were to have a moment’s peace.
After practice, hyung came to pick him up, walking in casually, dressed exactly the same as he always was–slacks and his teaching uniform, a light blue polo shirt with the school’s logo embroidered on the breast. Namjoon tried not to frown at him, didn’t want to give the wrong impression, but it stabbed him in the throat to see Yoongi and know for a fact that he hadn’t had a bite to eat all fucking day. His clothes were starting to hang on him in that particular way.
“Hey Dohyun-ssi,” Yoongi said with a nod, the same drawl as always. He turned to Namjoon.
“Ready?” Namjoon blushed at the question, blinking back tears. He nodded and moved to put the cello on his back, but Yoongi clucked at him disapprovingly.
“Hyung’s got it.” Hyung put it on his back and was so thin that the huge case looked ridiculous on him, and it must have hurt. The carbon fiber case was heavy even for Namjoon.
Yoongi carried it to the car and put it in the backseat with a grunt. It was too long for the trunk of the car.
“How was work?” Namjoon asked as he buckled up. Yoongi buckled himself in too and smiled, and Namjoon couldn’t help but smile, too. Seeing Yoongi happy was really its own joy.
“The kids were great today. Jiho talked to me for the first time. She smiled so sweet, ugh.” He squinted up his face remembering how cute she’d been, and Namjoon got a little cuteness aggression of his own.
“That’s incredible. The kids all love you,” Namjoon said, unable to stop his voice from dripping with adoration that Yoongi blushed under like a porcelain doll.
“Her eomeoni was really happy, too. How was rehearsal?”
“It was fine. I–hyung, can I tell you something?” His eyebrows furrowed together seriously, and his heart pounded threateningly in his chest. Yoongi nodded with acceptance, face falling to match the mood.
“Anything.”
Namjoon took a deep breath.
“I haven’t gotten to this part in the book yet, maybe the author talks about it–but I can’t help but wonder if Keats was influenced by watching his younger brother die of tuberculosis when he wrote ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci.’ He wrote–hold on.”
Namjoon took his little Kokuyo notebook with SKETCH BOOK written on the cover out of his pocket.
“He wrote:
‘I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheek a fading rose,
Fast withereth too.’
“Now, doesn’t that sound like TB? It’s so emotionally charged–imagine coming across someone in the meadow who looked like a ghost? Is it more or less frightening than seeing someone you love fade away like that, in anguish?”
He furrowed his brows and stared at Yoongi desperately while he looked ahead at the road, not really sure what he was getting at or why he was so frightened when he said it, unable to stop talking, voice too quick.
Namjoon knew that hyung was considering everything by the way he held his face more tightly when he thought, so he didn’t continue even though he wanted to.
“I think it would be scarier to see your brother like that,” he finally said. “A ghost is scary, and might make you wonder if you’re about to meet the same fate as the guy the ghost used to be.
“But seeing your brother–someone you really love–that would be awful. You’d wish it was your fate instead, maybe wouldn’t even mind if you had the same end.
“I think that’s how you know which is scarier for sure–anytime you’re frightened for yourself, something could get worse. When you’re frightened for someone else, you’re helpless, and so are they.”
Yoongi turned to face him as he pulled into their parking garage, his face blankly accepting, more worried that Namjoon was disappointed with his answer. Namjoon smiled through his own feelings, his soul anchored back in reality by the mumbling rhythm of Yoongi’s voice.
“I think so too,” he said. Yoongi smiled at him with a kindness that Namjoon wasn’t sure he understood in this context.
“Let’s get inside. I’m beat.”
“Let’s order dinner,” Namjoon begged. “Don’t say you aren’t hungry.” Yoongi was quiet a moment, unsure.
“I really am beat–you order and wake me up when it’s here?” Namjoon would take it this time, nodded. And hyung really did look beat.