By Your Side

Taehyung looks at Hoseok marching away, and Yoongi looking at him confusedly, and understood everything in almost a second.

"Two jobs now," He shakes his head to himself, chuckling. "It's gonna be a lovers' park when you come back, Kookie"

He walks in the way Hoseok went, and finds him... pulling his hair out. Yup, he isn't seeing wrong.

"Are you going bald?" is the first thing he thinks to ask, just before Hoseok lets out another strangled cry.

"Huh?" Hoseok asks, hands still on his head. "What?"

"Or are you going insane? Should I call a psychiatrist?"

"Why are you here?" Hoseok asks instead. "I want to be alone"

"I'm here to give you advice! Because, obviously, you're all idiots without me or Kookie"

"What's your problem?"

"Your problem, is what we should be talking about," He sits on one of the chairs lined along the wall, pointing at Hoseok. He waves at him to sit next to him. "So, you like Jimin,"

"Wait- what? Who told you I like Jimin? Why the would you even think that way? We're--"

"Friends," Taehyung chuckles. "Kid yourself, hyung,"

"How did you even think of that?"

"Don't think I haven't seen you go haywire whenever Yoongi even comes close to him," Taehyung scoffs, and Hoseok's eyes widen.

"You knew?"

"I had to confirm it; I thought you were in one of your no-nonsense rut you had back in the days," Taehyung says. "You lashed out at everyone, but Yoongi? Never, you never got angry at Yoongi, because you knew him since you were kids, right?"

Hoseok gulps. He never really wanted to think about it again. He and Yoongi had been in the same neighborhood for a brief time, but since then, they had been good acquaintances, if not friends. True, Yoongi never had any normal friends, but Hoseok wasn't all that normal either.

He was alone, alone, godforsaken alone as his parents always went away to some foreign country for months straight, even years at times. They did say they missed him, heck, he missed them a whole lot too, but that couldn't suffice the void of loneliness surrounding him.

That was when Yoongi came. Looking at the playground blankly, from afar, but never coming inside to play, it had been Hoseok who had dragged himin and forced him to sit on the swings. The gummy smile that came from Yoongi was enough satisfaction to Hoseok.

They weren't exactly friends per se, but they were not just acquaintances either. Hoseok's father, being a literature lover, passed his interest down to Hoseok who would read many, many books and stories. If Hoseok were to compare their relationship, it would be of the two friends in one of Guy de Maupassant's stories. They knew nothing about each other, but they had a perfect understanding. A rhyme, a flow no one can ever recreate except for themselves, if that was even possible.

"But you're getting angry at Yoongi now, and whenever you do I see Jimin in the scene. What does that eventually mean?" Taehyung asks.

"... That Jimin was there by coincidence?" He raises an eyebrow, and Taehyung lean back hard against the wall.

"I can't-- I just cannot with you, oh my god!" Taehyung cries, facepalming himself repeatedly. "How are you ing oblivious?"

"If you're here to insult me, get lost--"

"Can't you see? You obviously like Jimin! You're just being jealous of Yoongi because you know he likes Jimin too!"

Hoseok is completely, utterly confused, and Taehyung cries out again at his look.

"I think what you need is a good sleep," Hoseok says, getting up. "Do a favor, go home and ing drown in sleeping pills, god, you're delirious"

"Will you even listen to me?" Taehyung asks, grabbing his wrist. "Whatever this is, don't keep it in. Saying it out makes you feel much better, believe me"

And there, that is when Hoseok feels something terribly wrong. "How do you know that?"

"I know the regret of not confessing, I know," Taehyung looks at the floor, eyes filled with grief but that is only for a split second before he looks up with his stupid smile again. "But don't make that mistake!"

Hoseok nods wordlessly, intrigued by the sudden change in atmosphere. Just how did Taehyung feel that regret? His Mother, maybe?

"Yeah," He says, sitting back down. He does not want to think about it now.

"Jimin?"

Jimin rouses, comfortably snuggled on someone's shoulder.

"At this rate my whole body's gonna sleep," Yoongi chuckles. "Can you get up, Jimin?"

Jimin shakes his head. "its comf'rt'ble here," He mutters, voice muffled into the crook of Yoongi's shoulder.

"Okay, whatever, sleep all you want, but you're carrying me home if my body sleeps away," Yoongi shrugs, and Jimin nods back.

It's nice, Yoongi thinks. What they have is nice.

The problem is, Yoongi doesn't know what they have. Was it just a platonic relationship? Was there anything inside their so-called closeness? Because Yoongi had never felt his heart go haywire just thinking of someone.

Maybe Jimin is some sort of a magician, or something, Yoongi thinks and laughs to himself. A magician who probably took his heart.

A few minutes pass, Yoongi is content with looking at the pictures in his phone when a whimper escapes Jimin's mouth. Yoongi sits up carefully, not wanting to wake Jimin up, but the frown on the younger's face bothers him.

"Jimin?" He calls out, a hand on the latter's shoulder. "Is something--"

"No," The boy mutters, and the frown deepens into his forehead. "Jeongguk..."

Yoongi freezes, looks around for someone because he doesn't have the courage to even think what Jimin was thinking-- dreaming about now.

Partly because he still feels guilty for making Jeongguk like this.

"Don't go," Jimin says yet again, his voice is breaking, and so is Yoongi's heart.

Jimin is clutching his t-shirt tightly, shaking his head repeatedly and Yoongi wants to say something to calm him down, maybe, but all that runs through his mind is Jimin is dreaming something and it isn't good. And it's about Jeongguk.

"Please," Jimin whimpers against his chest, but Yoongi feels utterly helpless. Every what if fills his mind, his thoughts, his senses and he can't do anything.

"Yoongi?" Seokjin calls, and that is when Yoongi snaps out to find him kneeling before them, looking at Jimin. "What happened to him? Why is he cry--"

"No!" Jimin falls off his chair, hitting his head against the edge and wakes up.

"Jimin! Are you-- What happened? Are you okay?"

"Jeongguk," is all he says before he scrambles up and runs into Jeongguk's room. Seokjin follows him, but Namjoon pulls him back.

"Let him," He says.

"He's crying and panicking and you're saying to let him be?"

"He just needs reassurance, before his eyes. Besides, as the doctor said, it could maybe help Jeongguk come back?"

Seokjin looks at the door, and back to the floor, silently walking away.

Namjoon, on the other hand, walks over to Yoongi who looks like he just saw a ghost. "Yoongi hyung," He says before he sits down, putting a hand over Yoongi's back.

"I-I couldn't do anything," Yoongi says, fiddling with his fingers. "Now, or then,"

"Hyung, you couldn't do anything. No one expected it to happen. If we did, if we could just go back in time, maybe we can change everything" Namjoon sighs. "But we know that isn't possible, so all we can do is--"

"Wait," Yoongi breathes out, nodding to himself. "We can only wait until something happens"

A/N: im sorry okay ive been toiling myself AND you guys with the depressive i write i know

and the story told is Guy de Maupassant's 'Two Friends'; seriously, when i read it all i could think was YOONSEOK