What I Like Most About You

Yoongi was running down the streets like a madman, the panic surging through his veins his only impulsion. He'd never been so afraid in his life. He'd just gone to bed in order to finally catch up on some sleep when he'd gotten the call, so he was still wearing his pajamas under his winter coat and his bead head was only hidden by a beanie. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken his time to make himself look presentable. He was an idol after all and had an image to uphold, but Namjoon had started crying midway through the unintelligible mess of words that came out of his mouth and that's how Yoongi knew something was seriously wrong. Namjoon didn't cry when facing a simple crisis, even if he sometimes wanted to. He was the leader after all and couldn't allow his emotions from hindering him to do a perfect job. When they first met, Namjoon had seemed like an enigma to Yoongi, who wasn't that good at reading people in the first place, but after years of living together and countless of late night talks he thought he had figured him out quite well.

Finally, the hospital came into sight. It was a grey block that didn't exactly look inviting, but Yoongi felt a wave of relief rushed through him. He jogged into the foyer, sure that if it wasn't for the adrenaline rush, he would have collapsed right there.

"Kim Seokjin?" Was all he was able to say to the receptionist between two pants. She looked him up and down and he thought there was something like recognition displayed in her expression, but he didn't care if she knew who he was or even if she was a fan. He just wanted to know what the hell was going on, needed to know that Seokjin would be okay.

She directed him towards a waiting room on the fourth floor. Seokjin was still in surgery, she said. Yoongi thanked her and fell into a fast jog. He was alive, Seokjin was alive, still alive. Those thoughts were dominating his mind. He tried to stay focused on them the whole ride up. Normally he wouldn't have taken the already crammed elevator and would have waited for another less packed one, but he really didn't care at the moment. His mind was elsewhere, trying to stay away from negative thoughts flooding his brain.

When he entered the waiting room, Jimin, Jungkook, and their manager were already there. While their manager paced the room up and down, his bandmates sat in the plastic chairs, a tangled mess of limbs while Jimin cried into Jungkook's shoulder. It should be the other way around, Yoongi thought, but then again Jimin had always been the more sensitive one, while Jungkook felt the need to protect him from everything bad in the world. It was kind of cute, Yoongi supposed, their relationship that is.

The youngest looked up at him and mouthed a "Hey," without stopping to pet Jimin's head with one hand, the other circled around his shoulder. Yoongi nodded in acknowledgment and then proceeded towards their manager. He was the one with the answers after all.

"Yoongi," his manager patted him on the shoulder in a greeting. "Good to see you're okay."

"Hyung?" Yoongi had so many questions in his mind, he didn't know which one to ask first. "Will he be okay?" Was the one he settled for.

His manager sighed and let his head hang low. A bad sign. Yoongi's mind went into alert modus, bracing himself for what he was going to hear. "The doctors say it doesn't look good. They're still doing their best in surgery right now. We can only pray for a miracle, I guess."

"What even happened?"

"There was an accident. You know you had some time off today and well, he went out. Got hit by a car while crossing the street. Witnesses said he didn't look properly."

Yoongi almost would have laughed at the irony of the whole thing. It was Seokjin after all, who regularly preached to them about being careful in traffic and always looking twice before crossing a street. But he didn't feel like laughing. Not at all.

He felt more angry at Seokjin. Didn't he know, that they all adored him, some of them more than they had ever let on? And now they would most likely never get the chance to tell him, how important he was for them. Well okay, Yoongi was thinking about himself there. He didn't know if anyone else had any suppressed feelings for Seokjin, so he could only speak for himself in that matter.

"Idiot," he muttered under his breath. Was it inappropriate to talk bad about someone on the verge of death? Judging by the shocked expression on their manager's face, yes. Would he go to hell for it? Who knows.

Anger was just his way of dealing with the tears he knew would spill if he let himself give up hope and be sad. "Where are the others?" He asked.

"Namjoon and Taehyung went to search for a vending machine, and Hoseok hasn't answered his phone yet. He's probably practicing the new choreography. You know how he can get sometimes," their manager said trying to smile as if to apologize for Hoseok's absence, though it looked more like a grimace. Oh yes, Yoongi knows those phases after they get a new choreography and Hoseok practically starts living in the dance studios, practicing until he has every little detail burned into his memory. Those times he became so inaccessible, you had to physically drag him outside to make him eat something. Yoongi didn't complain though or rather didn't feel like he had the right to. After all, he was just the same once he got really into the production of a song.

"Speaking of Hoseok I should probably try to call him again," their manager said. "If you excuse me."

Yoongi nodded and flopped down on one of the seats, not too far away from Jungkook and Jimin to seem like he was avoiding them, but also not near enough so he would be strung up in consoling duty.

When Namjoon and Taehyung entered the room not much later, he was shaking one of his legs and biting his fingernails, a habit he thought he had been able to abandon in his youth. But then again Seokjin had always been able to bring out sides of him, he didn't know existed.

The two newcomers shared a look, communicating wordlessly about who should take care of whom. Namjoon seemed to have lost the stare down. While Taehyung jumped Jimin, showering him with hugs and words of hope, Namjoon trotted over to Yoongi looking around the room helplessly. He sat down next to the elder and awkwardly intertwined his fingers with those Yoongi just had near his mouth. "Hey Hyung," he said, his voice hoarse from all the crying. Despite the puffy face he had put on a mask of professionalism, fully embracing his leader position. "You don't look good."

"Wow, thanks for the compliment," Yoongi countered with a sarcastic sneer. "I do feel like , though, if that satisfies you."

"Do you want to elaborate?" Namjoon's eyes were wide like he was scared of what Yoongi had to say. "It's good to talk about your feelings from time to time, you know. It's not healthy to bottle everything up."

Contrary to popular belief, Yoongi did talk about his feelings. It was just that he talked about them with Seokjin only. But if Seokjin really died in this, he supposed he had to look for someone different to vent out his feelings to, so why not consider Namjoon? His stomach turned just thinking about the possibility.

Yet he still let his walls down and opened up. "I'm so tired, I think I could fall asleep right here. That is if it weren't for these circumstances. They make me go crazy. I don't really cope well with uncertainty, you know. Believe it or not, I care about Hyung. Sometimes I even think I care about him way too much. It's probably not healthy to care about someone that much. Why did it have to be him?" He looked up at Namjoon questioningly and could see the panic in the younger's gaze. He probably thought Yoongi would start crying any minute. What he didn't know was that Yoongi's inhibition threshold for tears was a lot higher than this. He could still hold them back. "Not that I wish this to happen to any of you guys. But, you know ... Why Hyung? Why not some stranger instead, who we have no connections with? Is it bad to think like this?"

"No!" Namjoon vehemently shook his head and rested his hand on Yoongi's back, between his shoulder blades. "No, of course not. You're not a bad person. I understand that Jin-hyung means a lot to you. The two of you have ... a special relationship. Everyone who knows the two of you better can tell. It's kind of beautiful, you know, the way the two of you logically shouldn't fit so well and yet you do."

"Whatever," Yoongi sighed, redirecting his gaze to the floor. For a second he questioned how much Namjoon knew. But then again, did it really matter? "What do you think are the chances this is one of Hyung's jokes? I mean, they never were funny."

"You have no idea how much I wish for you to be right, but I guess the chances aren't that high. Sorry," Namjoon said. "There's still hope though. He can still get through this and continue to drive you crazy with his bad jokes."

Yoongi snorted. "That would be nice," he said. He didn't even want to begin thinking about just how much he would miss Seokjin if he really didn't make it.

They sat in silence for a while, their fingers still intertwined, getting consoled only by the presence of the other. It's Yoongi who finally spoke up. "It's my fault he's here," he said, not louder than a whisper. He almost thought Namjoon didn't hear him, but when he looked up, the younger was looking back at him, his head tilted with a confused expression on his face. What are you talking about? He could hear Namjoon asking in his mind.

"He wanted to watch a movie," Yoongi elaborated. "Some romantic tragedy. He asked me if I wanted to watch it with him. As kind of a ..., you know. We would have gone to the night show, because, well, I've been working on this song and I didn't really get that much sleep the last week. So he said I should rest and then we could go out later. But I didn't want to watch the movie. It didn't sound like something I'd enjoy. So he said he'd watch the movie while I rested and afterward we could spend some time together. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

"No, not really," Namjoon shook his head his eyebrows slightly furrowed. Yoongi knew what that meant. He did understand Yoongi, but he disagreed with him.

"It's my fault he's in the hospital," Yoongi repeated. "If I went with him to see that goddamned movie he wouldn't have went to the cinema yet and wouldn't have been hit by a car."

"Following that logic, you could also fault Jin-hyung's parents for procreating. So as long as you're not the person that hit Jin-hyung with his car you bear no guilt, so don't lose your head over it," Namjoon gave his fingers a comforting press and it helped to ease the pain of his bad consciousness. Not much, but it helped.

"How are you feeling?" Yoongi asked after a few moments of silence. "I'm talking time about myself the whole without even asking if you're okay."

"I'm ... coping would probably be the best word, to describe how I'm feeling," Namjoon laughed humorlessly. "It's like ... okay, bear with me. It's raining and I'm holing an extremely expensive porcelain vase and with every minute more water gets into the vase, making it heavier. I'm basically just waiting for the moment it slips out of my hands and breaks."

Yoongi nodded in sympathy. He understands how Namjoon feels. "If it's worth something, please know we'll be there to pick up the pieces with you," he can't help returning Namjoon's subdued smile. It made him feel almost okay for a moment, but as the smiles fell, his mood dropped too and a sudden exhaustion swept over him. Now that his adrenaline rush had ebbed away completely, he could feel the lack of sleep weighing him down. He didn't notice he fell asleep cuddling against Namjoon until Seokjin's parents came rushing into the waiting room, the sudden commotion making him wake with a start. Mrs. Kim was hysterically asking their manager with a shrill voice if her 'baby' was okay. Mr. Kim, on the other hand, was the definition of calm, listening attentively to what the manager had to say while holding onto his wife as if she'd collapse once he let her go.

"How long was I out?" Yoongi asked, his voice thick with sleep, blinking up at Namjoon.

"About an hour," the younger answered. "You looked like you really needed it. Feeling better now?"

"A bit," Yoongi cleared his throat, noticing Hoseok sitting next to Taehyung, talking to him in hushed voices. Jimin and Jungkook were nowhere to be found. "Any news?"

Namjoon shook his head. "No, none. Do you think it's a bad thing he's been in surgery for about two hours now?" He asked.

Yoongi shrugged his shoulders. "At least it means he's still alive. I always thought Hyung would outlive us all by a decade with his life-affirming attitude, so let's hope I'm not wrong." And that's what they really need right now. Hope. Seokjin always said that every outcome was improved by a positive mindset, so Yoongi would do as he said just this once and banish all of his usual negative thinking.

Thus the waiting began anew, spent with mindless chatter, Hoseok and Taehyung later chimed in too. Jimin and Jungkook also joined them, just shortly before the doctor took Seokjin's parents aside to talk to them his face completely expressionless, so you couldn't tell what kind of news he was delivering. Sadly, Mr. and Mrs. Kim, had their backs turned to them, therefore their faces didn't show any clues too. It wasn't before the doctor hurried away after a deep bow, that Mrs. Min broke down in tears. Her husband carried her towards one of the chairs and as he was met with seven clueless pairs of eyes, the shaking of his head displaying a deep sorrow was enough for Yoongi to know Seokjin was dead.

He suddenly felt an icy cold spread through his body, as he was used to from whenever Seokjin wriggled out of Yoongi's embrace, leaving Yoongi alone in bed in the middle of the night in order to go to the toilet. Something Seokjin would never do again. He always felt like he would never feel completely warm again, that was until the elder joined him in bed again, throwing his arms around Yoongi and giggling whenever Yoongi was complaining. But now the hope of Seokjin coming back and hugging him close, offering some of his body heat to the forever cold younger, wasn't a possibility anymore. He was dead, dead, dead. Yoongi would never wake up to him singing under his breath while playing some Mario game, would never get to hear one of his bad jokes, would never roll his eyes again whenever he was bragging about himself. There would be no more shared beds, no more coffee dates, no more concerned phone calls at o'clock in the morning, and no more of the best homecooked food beside his mother's Yoongi had ever tasted.

He didn't notice he was crying until Taehyung hugged him, almost timidly as if he feared Yoongi would break under his touch. That's what broke him down completely. He started sobbing, stopped caring what the other's thought about him, while he revisited as many memories of Seokjin as he could, trying to burn all of them into his brain so that he would never forget them.

Taehyung's hold tightened, giving him halt and bringing him back to reality. They stayed like this until Yoongi's sobs started to quiet and he noticed everyone around him was crying too. He put his arms around Taehyung, pressing the younger closer to him and, caressed his neck just the way he liked it.

"He's dead, Hyung," Taehyung sniffled. "How can he be dead?"

"Life is unfair," Yoongi answers into his shoulder his voice sounding thin from the way his throat felt like it would close up any moment.

"Gi?"

"I can almost still hear his voice," in every other situation Yoongi would have thought the world had finally managed to finish his psyche and drive him into madness. He still did, with the way he actually considered the possibility of ghosts existing.

"Yoongi?!"

"Okay, now I definitely heard him. Did you hear that too?"

"Yoongi please wake up, you're scaring me!"

Yoongi's eyes fluttered open, bringing him face to face with a concerned Seokjin bending over him. He blinked into the semi-darkness of their bedroom in confusion. The only source of light was a bedside lamp illuminating Seokjin from behind, making him look even more ethereal than usual and in the first seconds, Yoongi thought he really was a ghost. Then realization settled into him. It was just a dream. Everything had just been a bad dream. Relief washed over him in a wave and he couldn't help but fling his arms around Seokjin's neck, marveling at the fact that he really was solid.

"As nice as your affection is, you're kind of scaring me," Seokjin sounded a bit choked, so Yoongi loosened his hold on him. "You were crying in your sleep. I know nightmares are normal for you, but you never cried before. I had no idea how to react." Yoongi touched his cheeks and really, they were wet like Seokjin said.

"Sorry to scare you," he apologized with a hoarse voice and pressed his face into Seokjin's shoulder. He always hated when people worried about him as if he couldn't take good enough care of himself. But then there was this tiny voice in the back of his head, telling him that it was thanks to people like Seokjin, who constantly reminded him to take care of himself, he hadn't overworked himself yet.

"It was nothing, really," he added when he saw the concern still attached to the elder's face. "Just a particularly bad dream. I thought I lost ...," you, he wanted to say but couldn't quite bring up the courage to admit it. "Someone. I thought I lost someone dear to me."

Seokjin didn't ask any further, which was one of the things Yoongi liked most about him. He gave him room and time to figure stuff out and speak up whenever he knew what exactly was going on inside of him. Instead, the elder put out the light and crawled closer to the smaller spooning him up in an embrace. "We have to be up in about three hours. So, good night?" It sounds like a question whispered in the darkness. Yoongi knows he's asking if he either wants to talk about his dream or go to sleep so they were at least somewhat fit later on.

"Good night, Hyung," he answeres. "Sweet dreams."

Yoongi had always been able to see well in the dark, just another evidence for Taehyung's theory that he was basically a cat in human form, so he was able to watch Seokjin close his eyes to drift off into sleep. The elder's face was completely relaxed, which made it look even more handsome than normally, almost otherworldly. Yoongi pinched himself to see if he was still dreaming, though if he was he would give everything to not awake from this dream, where Seokjin, kind, beautiful Seokjin, was willingly spending time with him and actively searched for his proximity. Lying in his arms and feeling his steady breath brushing through his hair, was one of the best ways of passing time Yoongi could come up with.

If someone invented a time-machine and he'd go back and tell his pre-debut self that he would once have this ... whatever their relationship was with Seokjin, this soft and caring person, he would have laughed at himself. Justifiably so. He still had no idea what exactly Seokjin saw in him. Fans always joked that they were like day and night, like two different poles, and they were right. There was some force that just naturally made them gravitate towards one another, though they both had no idea what it was. Fate, the hopeless romantic Jimin would have told them if he knew about it and maybe Seokjin would have believed him. But Yoongi didn't. There was no such thing as fate. No, Yoongi was just an irrational self-destructive prick, so he decided he'd fall for someone so out of his league like Seokjin. He must have been a saint in his past life, really, because there was no other way to explain as to why Seokjin would at least seem to return his feelings.

In an interview, Yoongi had once said that the thing he liked most about Seokjin was that he was quiet and therefore the perfect roommate. That was neither exactly the truth nor was it all, but he'd been hesitant on how much he could tell the public without their relationship seeming weird or even scandalous. Everyone having once witnessed Seokjin goofing around with the maknae line (and Hoseok by extension) could tell you that he wasn't even a particularly quiet person. He could rather perfectly evaluate Yoongi's need for silence and then respect it. Adding to that, they didn't even need words anymore in order to communicate. A certain look or nod was usually enough to get the message across.

No, if Yoongi was blatantly honest, without being afraid to sound like a cliché, what came closest to the thing he liked most about Seokjin was simply his presence. The way just a touch of him made Yoongi forget all his worries and just being in the same room made even the tiest situation better. The way even on the toughest days he would be able to make Yoongi smile. The way he gave Yoongi space to sort out his feelings and the way he would listen to whatever he had to say when he was feeling like sharing them. The way he quietly took care of him, without ever expecting anything in return, be it in the form of a meal waiting for Yoongi in the fridge when he came home after hours in the studio of working on songs until they were perfect or in the form of his support in whatever step it was Yoongi was about to take. The way they completed each other and the way they made each other happy.

Yoongi couldn't imagine living another day without Seokjin in his life. He knew he'd regret it if he never said, what he was about to say and now was as good of a time as any other.

"Hyung," he whispered into the silence, oh so softly. Even if Seokjin was still awake, he doubted he would be able to hear him. "I love you."

Silence, then: "I love you too."