Namjoon's eyes are dazed over, his head hanging heavily from where his neck connects to the rest of his body and hands grazing over every last bit of the keyboard right in front of him. He's been staying up late until the break of dawn every day for the past week to compose more songs. He wanted to do more than he was asked for by the company. He wanted to impress them, to impress everybody else with the determination and skills that he was willing to bring to the game. Even the thought of having a solo album scared the wits out of Namjoon but excited him at the same time. And in order to show that he's worthy of something like that Namjoon wanted recognition, he wanted to show that he's worth it and that he'll be more than capable of doing it. And when inspiration hits him, Namjoon's hand never stops writing and everything just pours out. He never holds anything in, not even one bit. Even bad lyrics are lyrics. You can always alternate them later on. It's the fact that an artist pours everything from his soul into their notepad that Namjoon thinks differ a real rapper from a fake one. But lately, inspiration's been running short on him and Namjoon found himself slumped in his chair, waiting for a sentence, a word, a syllable, just something. But it never comes. He sighed heavily and dug through his pencil case to find a sharpener. All the scribbles on the notepad were slowly turning into wiggles and worms running on the page mocking Namjoon about how he can't even come up with new ideas or concepts. Maybe he's becoming empty. Like a movie no one wants to go see anymore, a scratched record that keeps repeating itself over and over again, a dish made one too many times to the point that you're sick of it. Maybe Namjoon was getting old. He laughed into his hands at the silliness of his thoughts and crashed his head on the table. At this point Namjoon just wanted to go to sleep and forget about everything in the present.

A hand suddenly moved his shoulders back and forth and Namjoon looked up just to see Jimin’s face ridiculously close to his. The younger boy had this worried look in his eyes but the corners of his mouth still pulled up to reveal a smile.

“Hyung you shouldn’t fall asleep on the job like that.” he said with a mocking tone.

Namjoon quickly turned his face away from the boy to wipe the drool that was slowly sticking to his chin now.

“What are you doing here Jimin?” his hoarse voice carried throughout the tiny studio and Jimin backed away a little at the uninviting tone.

“J-just wanted to check on you hyung. I brought you dinner.” The boy smiled slightly and handed Namjoon a container full of sandwiches.

Namjoon hated sandwiches, everyone knew that.

“Thanks Jimin.” Namjoon looked over to the clock that says 2:04am.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping now? We’ve got a long schedule tomorrow.” He told Jimin and slowly opened the lid of the small container. Ugh tuna, why did it have to be tuna?

“I should say the same about you.” Jimin snickered as Namjoon tried to swallow the lump of food in his throat.

“I’m your hyung, don’t talk back to me you idiot.” He flicked Jimin’s forehead and tried not to grimace at the horrible taste of the sandwich.

“You shouldn’t overwork yourself like this…” Jimin said quietly as he flicked through Namjoon’s notes. The words were messy and smudged on the page, it looked like a battlefield on the yellow notepad but Jimin didn’t say anything. He looked up at the computer screen and saw various tunes and sounds opened. The squiggles of the audio wave made Jimin’s mind go dizzy. He had no idea how Namjoon and Yoongi could organise all those beats to create such miraculous backtracks for their songs. It made Jimin feel inferior that he could only express the music through his body but knew nothing about its origins. He knew that for a person in his early 20s, Namjoon’s knowledge could even be considered genius. Jimin always looked up to Namjoon for that. Even though it always seemed like he enjoyed teasing the leader and tricking him into doing random freestyle raps when he clearly wasn’t ready, Namjoon was the person Jimin idolised. He would never admit it though. And Namjoon was too dense to those kinds of feelings to even notice it.

“These sandwiches are great Jimin.” Namjoon said, trying not to make it sound too bitter. “You should go back to the dorms now anyways, it’s getting late.” Namjoon tried to shoo Jimin away but the younger just kept looking at him. “Ya, Park Jimin! Are you even listening? You’re not sleeping with your eyes open again are you?” Namjoon waved his hands in front of Jimin’s face and the younger finally snapped out of it.

“Huh? Oh! Sorry hyung.” Jimin laughed nervously and stood up a little too quickly, losing his balance. He grabbed onto the back of Namjoon’s chair and mumbled another apology. The elder looked at him with concern.

“You alright?” his voice still sounded stern despite his expression. Namjoon never let worry show through his voice.

“Yeah… probably just tired after dance practice that’s all.” Jimin gave Namjoon a small smile and grabbed his jacket to exit the small studio.

“I’ll be back later. Just need to finish this.” Namjoon assured him as the door clicked close and Jimin sighed heavily.

“Do you ever feel pressured hyung?”

“Aren’t you tired of all the deadlines?”

“Do you need any help?”

“Can I learn producing as well?”

These are the questions Jimin wanted to ask Namjoon but never has the guts to. He knows the leader always get stressed and ends up having headache patches glued to his forehead. He knows Namjoon doesn’t eat sometimes, not because he was worried about his weight but because of all the deadlines he was assigned, and ends up having to take tons of vitamins to revive his energy. He knows the famous Rap Monster would never admit to the fans that even after a year he was still having a hard time adapting to the idol image and would just like to have his personal space. Jimin knows Kim Namjoon is too proud to admit all these things and that’s why he feels helpless next to him. As a dongsaeng was there nothing he could do to help his hyung?

Jimin lets the cold night air hit his face as he walked back to their dorm. He barely managed to support himself on his shaking legs when he entered the stuffy apartment.

“Visiting Namjoon hyung again?” Taehyung asked him sleepily from their living room couch.

Apparently sleeping on the couch has been more comfortable for Taehyung than his own bed. Jimin wasn’t even going to ask.

“Hmm… he looked drained.”Jimin furrowed his eyebrows while thinking back to the image of Namjoon passed out on his desk.

“Don’t worry, he has his limits.” Taehyung yawned and his eyes lazily closed as he mumbled a little goodnight to Jimin.

That night Jimin lied awake in his bed staring up at the upper bunk. Namjoon never came back home like he promised. The sun was slowly rising, rays of yellow light trying to get past the curtains and invade their dorm. Jimin sighed inwardly.

“Yeah, but does he know his limits?”

I can honestly tell you that I have no memory of writing that first paragraph but it turned out the best thing I've written in this entire fanfic OTL