|present|

For some reason once Yoongi makes himself visible to Jimin he becomes almost human. He can touch Jimin, feel human warmth and even starts yawning and sneezing just like any other normal person would. His chest rises and falls, his nose twitches, and occasionally he gets the hiccups.

One thing he can’t do is speak.

“Hyung!” Jimin chirps as he kicks the front door close with one foot, hands full with three loaded shopping bags. “What do you want for dinner? I wasn’t too sure so I bought a bit of everything. I’ve got the kimchi you love though!”

Yoongi greets him with a nod and takes the plastic bags off him, giving Jimin the chance to kick of his shoes and change into comfier sweatpants and a shirt. 

Things Yoongi can do: eat.

Despite not actually being a living and breathing human with pumping blood and a working gastrointestinal system, Yoongi can somehow ingest stuff. Nothing comes out of the other end (which is slightly disturbing), and everything just seems to vanish into a void that is his stomach, which is a little strange but adjustable if Yoongi stops thinking about the intricacies of it all.

Things Yoongi can’t do: get hungry.

There’s the cheerful rustling off plastic bags as Jimin rushes about their tiny kitchenette, boiling water and banging around saucepans. A strong smell of instant noodles and MSG fills the air almost instantly, but it doesn’t trigger the basal instinct of hunger in Yoongi. Once upon a time this was the only thing that could lure him away from the computer screen when he was deeply engrossed in music and work. Now, it’s nothing more than another smell in the air.

Things Yoongi can do: make Jimin happy.

Ever since that rainy night, Jimin has cheered up immensely. He takes showers on time, eats without being prompted, and even leaves the house voluntarily. He doesn’t seem to care that Yoongi is a ghost or that their situation is completely out of whack or anything. All that matters to him is that Yoongi is back and that is enough to make him smile.

Brat. Yoongi smacks Jimin on the back of his head with the thick end of a pair of chopsticks and feels completely justified.

“What was that for hyung?” Jimin whines, turning and pouting. Yoongi shoves him to one side and begins stirring the ramen. He still doesn’t trust Jimin with the stove.

Jimin instead turns to one of the plastic bags, digging out an ungodly amount of kimchi.

“Open up hyung,” he says and Yoongi automatically does so, more out of habit than hunger. “Is it good hyung?” he asks with a bright gleam in his eyes.

Yoongi chews on the kimchi and nods. Jimin gives him a bright smile and starts humming to himself as he dishes out more kimchi into a bowl. Yoongi returns to stirring the noodles and keeps his head down.

Things Yoongi can’t do: make himself happy.

To be happy he would have to tell the truth. And to tell the truth would be to make Jimin unhappy. So he keeps quiet and stirs the contents of the pot and inhales the smells that no longer mean anything to him. Picks up a strand of noodle and just for the act of doing so, puts it in his mouth.

Yoongi doesn’t have the heart to tell Jimin that he can’t taste anything anymore.

*

They’re lying in bed together; Jimin completely curled around Yoongi’s frame, when Yoongi discovers that he cannot sleep either.

He lies there with one hand raised to the ceiling and wonders, for as many things that he can do, just how many more things are there that he cannot do?

*

It’s a fine sunny day when they hit their first hurdle since Yoongi’s return. It’s rare to have such a day when the year is encroaching on winter, September sun giving way to October’s colder clutch. Yoongi is out with Jimin at the park. It’s early morning and no one is around.

Jimin’s doing laps, something about not exercising for a while and so he needs to build back up his stamina. Yoongi stands there in jeans and a jacket and watches him go at it.

One of the better benefits of being a ghost is that Yoongi doesn’t feel the cold anymore, so he can get away with wearing thin layers. In addition, he’s also discovered that other than Jimin, no one else seems to be able to see him, so his dress sense goes unbothered by public eyes. Whether it’s because Yoongi doesn’t want them to see him or that they just can’t, he’ll never really know. Regardless he’s thankful of the privacy ghosthood gives him.

As long as Jimin can see him, then that’s enough.

Yoongi watches as Jimin stops at the other end of the tiny park to catch his breath, his hands falling to his knees for support. Through habit he looks up and catches sight of Yoongi watching him. He breaks into a broad grin and jumps, waving crazily, yelling “Hyung!” as loud as he can so that his voice carries across. It makes a woman walking her dog jump and stare at him like he’s lost his marbles. Yoongi can’t help but laugh and take a step forwards, intending to walk over and meet Jimin halfway.

But then Jimin’s expression melts. Yoongi’s halts. Sunlight shines down brightly where he stands and Yoongi has to squint to make out Jimin’s look of panic.

Jimin meets him at more than the halfway mark.  “Hyung? Yoongi-hyung?” he gasps, hands flying about, nearly running past Yoongi in his state “Where are you?”

I’m right here idiot, Yoongi wants to say. But he can’t. Instead he lunges out and grabs Jimin’s passing arm, yanking him to a stop before he runs right past Yoongi.

“Hyung?” Jimin’s eyes are wild, pupils huge with fear. His head jerks back and forth. His free hand comes up to clasp around Yoongi’s wrist. “I can feel you hyung. Why can’t I see you?”

Eh? What? Jimin can’t see him?

“Hyung?” Jimin looks like he’s going into a state of shock, chest heaving in increasing frequency and pupils that are starting to dilate. “Don’t go hyung. Don’t disappear. Please.”

I’m here! Yoongi wants to shout. Right here. You can feel me right? You can touch me right? So why can’t you see me?

Sweat trickles down Jimin’s temple and it has nothing to do with the simple physical exertion.

“Hyu-“

Yoongi surges forwards and presses his lips to Jimin’s cold and chapped ones. They haven’t done this since Yoongi’s return. Kissing, touching, none of that has mattered in light of Yoongi’s return. But if the slide of his lips over Jimin’s is enough to convince him that he is going nowhere then he will damn well do it without a second thought of the divide between the living and the dead.

It feels like it’s been years, not just three weeks since Yoongi last did this. Last dragged his tongue over Jimin’s bottom lip and relished in the way it springs back up against his lips. Last kissed him without worrying about if a Ghost has the right to kiss.

 “Hyung,” Jimin pants into his mouth as he stumbles under the weight of Yoongi’s frantic pushing, falling back into the bark of a tree. It grates fine white lines into his wrists, just above the jut of his bone and his biceps flex in response, forcing Yoongi’s fingers to mould around their shape.

 “Hyung!” Jimin says again, more urgently this time and Yoongi pauses. There’s an ache in his chest and it has nothing to do with physical pain. “I can see you again,” Jimin says and holds Yoongi away at arm’s length.

Yoongi pauses and looks to his hands. They don’t look any different than they were a few kisses ago.

“What happened hyung,” Jimin whispers, despair written all over. “Are you…are you vanishing?”

Vanishing? Yoongi mouths back.

“I mean,” Jimin hedges, “You know all those stories about ghosts and such. That they only hang around because they’ve got unfinished business. And that when it’s all said and done they just…disappear…” His body tenses, like he’s imaging it happening and simultaneously trying to reject the possibility.

Yoongi takes a step backwards – to give Jimin space, to give himself space – and Namjoon’s words ring eerily in his head: You can’t stay here forever.

Jimin makes a choking noise again.

“Hyung,” Jimin says in small, staggered phrases. “You’ve vanished again.”

What? No? I haven’t- Yoongi steps forwards, his intent to reach out for Jimin’s arm again, and as he does so he comes under the shade of the tree and Jimin’s eyes round with relief.

“Hyung,” Jimin says slowly, slightly calmer this time, though his hand still wraps firmly around Yoongi’s wrist. “Take a step back again. Into the sunlight.”

Yoongi does, puzzled.

He watches as Jimin pales again the minute he steps into the full glare of the sun’s rays. He stares down at his hands. They look no different. Maybe slightly more translucent than usual, but is that something to be worried about? He is a ghost after all.

“Now step forwards,” Jimin continues in a trembling voice.

Yoongi does so and the exhale Jimin gives in relief speaks volumes. “Sunlight hyung,” Jimin breathes. His hands tug Yoongi forwards into the safety of the shadows. “You vanish under direct sunlight.”

Yoongi is dumbfounded. Is that even possible? That under the too strong glare of the sun above he cannot be seen, not even by Jimin?

Jimin buries his face into Yoongi’s neck as if he’s trying to slip right into Yoongi’s skin and anchor the two of them together. “Please don’t disappear on me again,” he begs, arms wrapping tightly about Yoongi’s waist like he never wants to let him go again.

Yoongi folds his arms around Jimin’s back and presses his nose into the base of Jimin’s hair where he imagines he can still smell that scent that is wholly Park Jimin. It’s warm and fuzzy and cleansing and it reminds Yoongi of the sun and the sky.

“Please don’t leave me behind,” Jimin whispers into his skin and Yoongi closes his eyes and wishes he could tell him, I won’t, I promise.

*

The next few days are either cloudy or raining and Yoongi has shown no signs of disappearing since.

Yoongi has discovered that he vanishes not only under strong sunlight, but under bright artificial lights as well. Conversely he stands out the clearest in shadows where light is at its weakest. The best is when it’s just the two of them at home with the living room lights on low and their bodies tangled together on the sofa, some old sappy drama on the TV that neither of them are paying attention to.

Jimin sleeps well knowing that Yoongi is simply there.

Yoongi does not.

Jimin’s sunlight/vanishing theory may be correct, but Yoongi doesn’t think that automatically makes things okay. Jimin’s a bright kid, but but he’s never been the one to see the pit holes in his way. Yoongi on the other hand spots them from a mile away.

It’s October now. Winter is setting in – days of grey and rain and snow. But it won’t always be that way. Yoongi stares at the calendar above his old work desk that used to be filled with scribbles of when Jimin had a basketball match, or when his next paper was due. Now it’s empty. White spaces. Blank voids. Jimin has no reason to leave the house and neither does he.

It will be November in five days. December in a month. A seasonal shift in two or three. And when spring comes, Yoongi may have to go.

*

There’s a rap on the door that wakes Jimin from his light doze. He peers around and his heart does a little shocked flip when he doesn’t see Yoongi at first. Then, there he is. Yoongi is tucked away in the corner behind the sofa. It’s his favorite place, a solid wall behind his back and a world beyond the window at his fingertips. Right now Yoongi has his laptop balanced on stretched out legs and headphones loud. His eyes are closed and he’s bobbing to some beat which prevents him from hearing the knock at the door.

Jimin however does. He shifts off his bed just in time to see Seokjin enter.

“Hey hyung,” he greets Seokjin.

Seokjin stares at him and drops his plastic bag to the floor with a loud thump.

“Jimin!” he says and rushes forwards, hands gripping his shoulder as if he doesn’t believe this is the real Jimin and not some doppleganger. “Are you okay? Why are you out of bed?”

“You want me to go back in?” Jimin asks with a raised brow. His hyung is always confusing.

“Well no,” Seokjin fumbles and takes his hands off Jimin, using them instead to smoothen down the front of his shirt that he’s just rumpled up.  He’s flustered, and he’s thoroughly bewildered. Both show.

“Are you okay?” he decides on asking in the end. He peers at Jimin like he already doubts Jimin’s answer.  

“I’m fine hyung,” Jimin says energetically as he steals a glance at Yoongi’s tapping foot. “Perfect even.”

Seokjin makes a noncommittal sound and looks absolutely unconvinced. But Seokjin can’t deny that smile. It’s wide and cheerful and it throws him off completely. Well, um, that’s great?”

Jimin tilts his head, puzzled. “What’s wrong hyung?”

Seokjin jumps. He scratches his head. How should he explain this? “It’s just,” he says hesitantly. “Are you really okay? I mean I know what happened was tough…and it’s not even been a month, but Jimin, you- you don’t need to act strong for us.”

Jimin beams. It’s just like Seokjin to worry, even when given straightforward, blunt answers. “I’m fine hyung. I really am.”

Seokjin stares. “But…how..?” he says, sounding completely floored. “How can you be so…upbeat?”

Jimin frowns, puzzled. “Why can’t I hyung?”

Sweat trickles down Seokjin’s temple. “Because Yoongi’s dead Jimin. And somehow you’re okay with that?”

Jimin stumbles. “You’re wrong,” he shakes his head, anger growing thick like storm clouds. “Hyung’s not gone. He’s still here!”

Fear floods Seokjin’s face and Jimin can read it on every wrinkle in his brow, in the widened white expanse of his iris. Seokjin doesn’t believe him. Thunder pours throughout Jimin’s bloodstream. How dare Seokjin deny Yoongi’s existence?

Jimin grabs Seokjin’s wrist in a vice-like grip so tight that his fingernails will leave behind crescent claw marks that Seokjin will later rub as he bites his lower lip and tries to calm his sprinting heart. But right now Jimin drags Seokjin forwards and around the sofa.

“There!” he points, letting go of Seokjin. “Look!”

He points to the laptop floating just off the ground and the headphones in mid-air. Seokjin’s eyes round and Jimin has the grim satisfaction that he has proved his point.

“What is this Jimin?” Seokjin whispers, taking half a step backwards.

Yoongi stares at Seokjin, his hand paused above the touch pad on the laptop. The music rings out relentlessly from his slipped headphones, looping again and again, unaware of the sudden tension in the air.

“Jimin?” Seokjin says again, voice trembling. “Explain this.”

“Hyung isn’t dead,” Jimin says flatly. “He’s right there. You can’t see him, but he’s here. So don’t you dare say that I’m happy because I’ve gotten over him. That’s impossible. I’m happy because hyung came back to me.”

Seokjin shakes his head, slowly at first, then harder, like the one he’s trying to convince is not Jimin but himself. “Jimin, I think you should come stay with me for the weekend,” he says in a stony voice. Authoritative almost.

Jimin’s breath hitches. “What?” his eyes narrow. “I’m not leaving Yoongi-hyung.”

Seokjin jerks his head as the headphones clatter loudly to the floor. The tension in the air is so heavy that this singular sound feels magnified. Jimin looks to see Yoongi rise to one knee, eyes fixed onto Seokjin’s figure.

Seokjin, he mouths.

Seokjin reacts by turning away, towards Jimin instead. “You’re hallucinating,” he says firmly. “Yoongi is dead and you need to get out of this house.” His words are cold and harsh, a blade cutting straight to the heart of it, through muscle and sinew and spurting blood.

Jimin withdraws away from Seokjin. “I’m not hallucinating,” he says confidently “I can see him. I know you can’t hyung, but you can see the laptop and the headphones and you know that something is there. Yoongi may be dead but he is not gone.”

Seokjin slaps him hard. Jimin rocks back with the force of it and Yoongi is half off the ground, running to him as he falls, the laptop discarded to one side and the tinny sound of the music looping again, faint beats in the background.

Seokjin chest heaves, laboring for breath. He rarely gets this worked up and Yoongi is scared. He doesn’t want to admit it but an angry Seokjin scares the hell out of him.

Jimin however doesn’t look scared. He looks the opposite. Angry. Defiant. Betrayed.

“Get out of here hyung,” he growls in a tone that is wholly un-Jimin-like and Yoongi feels fear ripple through him again, a cold stone that sinks to the bottom of his stomach. Jimin should not be snarling. Seokjin should not be violent. Something is wrong here. Something is wrong with this world that they stand in.

“No,” Seokjin responds flatly. “Not unless you come with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jimin snarls, one hand clasped to the bruise blossoming on his cheek. “I’m not leaving Yoongi-hyung behind.”

Fury fills Seokjin’s eyes, so uncharacteristic of him. Yoongi tenses, frightened that Seokjin is going to lose all control. His mind instinctively rolls through a hundred ways of how to defend Jimin bodily. But then a thought overruns the current, electric and wild. Can he even defend Jimin? Sure he can touch Jimin, but what about Seokjin? If no one other than Jimin can see then, then can no one other than Jimin touch him?

The door beeps and opens. Hoseok enters and promptly freezes.

“What’s going on here guys?” he asks in a wavering voice, eyes taking in the scene of Jimin on the ground with his hand to his cheek and Seokjin towering over him, eyes dark and guns blazing.

“Hyung? Jimin?”

Seokjin lets his shoulders drop. He turns away and walks towards Hoseok. “Do me a favor Hoseok,” he says quietly, his hands fisted at his sides. “Take Jimin out for a walk.”

“Eh?”

“Hyung!” Jimin yells and pushes himself off the ground, jerking Yoongi to one side. Yoongi stumbles and falls.

“Go Jimin,” Seokjin orders, not looking at him. “I’m not going to make you stay with me tonight, so in exchange give me ten minutes.”

Jimin pauses. “Ten minutes?”

Hoseok too is confused. “Ten minutes to do what hyung?”

Seokjin doesn’t look at either of them. “Ten minutes please,” he says. “I need to have a little chat with someone here.”

Jimin and Yoongi simultaneously freeze. Could he…?

Hoseok gives a tight little nod and uses Jimin’s momentary lapse to take him by the shoulders and steer him out the door. Jimin doesn’t go quietly, but Hoseok is wiry strength hidden in a lean body.

Seokjin gives him a grateful look and Hoseok just closes the door behind them. He knows that there is no trying with Seokjin when he is like this. Better to do as he asks now and grill him on the details later.

Seokjin is the most unselfish person he has met in his life and therefore Hoseok trusts Seokjin with his life.

The door closes, cutting out Jimin’s protests, and Yoongi stares at Seokjin who looks right back at him. Right in the eye.

You see me, Yoongi says even though no words come out, but if it did, it would be in a tone of horror.

Seokjin gives one grave nod. “Yeah,” he says. “I see you Yoongi.”

*

Yoongi is so stunned that his mind goes completely blank.

How? How can Seokjin see him? Does that mean his theory that only Jimin can see and touch him is wrong? He reaches out with one trembling hand for Seokjin’s arm that is right in front of him, pale wrists hidden by the long sweaters he favors when the weather show the first sign of winter’s chill. As he touches it his hand slips and goes right through.  

Seokjin watches his experiment with unchanging eyes.

Yoongi is shaking as he retracts his hand. His fingers seem to vanish as they go through Seokjin, as if the very molecules that make up his composition refuse to hold him together in the face of something greater. Something more real.

Something alive.

Yoongi’s non-existence heart thuds, a dead bass beat that signals a grittier undertone, a stony retreat towards the end of a song.

“You’re not alive Yoongi,” Seokjin says gently. “And that’s why you can’t stay here.”

Yoongi falls backwards against the wall, and that feels solid enough. But then the minute he starts thinking about ‘solidity’ and ‘aliveness’, the wall seems to shudder and the heel of his hand slips through the wall.

Seokjin watches impassively, neither holding out a helping hand nor making it any worse.

“You’re here because Jimin couldn’t bear to let you go. But Yoongi,” Seokjin’s eyes soften though his words do not, “This can’t last forever. The longer you stay, the more you hold him back. You can’t do that to Jimin.”

Yoongi’s whole body is practically vibrating now. He’s shaking so much that he feels the bones in his body rattle. What is Seokjin saying? That Yoongi is in the way? That he’s an obstacle to Jimin? That he should go?

“I love you Yoongi,” Seokjin says softly and Yoongi snaps his head up to stare at Seokjin. The look he gives Yoongi is painfully pitying. “But I love Jimin too. And since I can do nothing more you, I will have to do everything for Jimin instead.”

Yoongi takes another step backwards and his entire leg disappears through the wall. He jerks down and stares at him and then it hits him. He’s fading. He looks paler than usual, almost transparent.

“Just do us all a favor Yoongi and move on.”

Horror pours all over Yoongi like paint dripping from his head to his toes. It’s cold and it feels like raw egg, slimy and smooth all at once. His muscles are locked and there is cold sweat.

Except he’s dead. He shouldn’t be feeling anything remotely like sweat or eggs or cold fear. He’s dead. And he’s holding Jimin back.

Nothing comes well from meddling with the living.

Yoongi takes a proper look at Seokjin’s expression. He’s not angry or sad. His lips are painted downturn with sympathy and his eyes shine with honesty. He truly thinks it is in the best interest of everyone if Yoongi is gone. And that’s scary. Really, really scary.

It means that like Namjoon said, his interference is not doing anyone a favor.

White leaks in and Yoongi doesn’t know what he should be doing anymore. His mind is a cold winter space with Namjoon’s words echoing and Seokjin’s eyes staring. Yoongi doesn’t know what’s wrong and what’s right anymore.

He chokes on a silent sob and folds in on himself.

He has no idea what to do. So he flees.

*

Yoongi has no idea where he is, nor how he got here. All he knows is that the air is filled with the scent of dead leaves and peat and Jimin is not there. 

“I told you before, didn’t I?” he says, and Yoongi doesn’t have to turn to know it is Namjoon who is speaking. His tone isn’t one of self-satisfaction, just sadness that he could not prevent this from happening. There is a taste of failure on his lips and Yoongi wants to cry. Only he can’t.

Crying is for the living.

“You could come with me,” Namjoon says quietly, a gentle offer with feathered wings. Yoongi turns, surprised.

“Go with you to where?” Yoongi echoes.

Namjoon looks up, head tilted back, the sharp line of his jaw prominent. “Where else do ghosts go?”

Yoongi follows the train of his gaze. It’s a long way up and all he can see is white. He looks down and realizes that the world around him is white as well. White cloud or fog, whatever it is, it cloaks his vision so that he can see is Namjoon and his offer.

“Move on yourself if you’re so scared,” Yoongi snaps cockily, the words voiced before he even realizes what he’s just said.

Namjoon looks mildly surprised. “What?”

 “I-“ Yoongi halts before his mouth can spurt anything else offensive

“You want to stay by that boy’s side so badly?” Namjoon asks out of pure curiosity.

Yoongi closes his mouth and nods. There are no words to express the emotions that well up and overflow. He wants to stay. He wants to hold Jimin. Be by his side. Hug him. Kiss him. Grow up with him. Encourage him. Watch over him. Die with him.

Except that last one is already a moot point.

“I felt that way once,” Namjoon confesses. “There was this guy I loved – still love – and he meant everything to me. One day I died and his feelings brought me back to this world.”

“Just like me,” Yoongi says softly.

Namjoon nods. “Just like you.” He heaves a sigh. “And just like you two we thought it would work out. That even though I was dead, I came back, and just from that little miracle we could make things work.”

 “What happened?” Yoongi can’t help but ask, can’t help but nudge open the creaky door to a story that he knows does not have a happy ending.

They rarely do.

“We were wrong of course. The dead aren’t meant to co-exist with the living. He was moving on and I was stuck still. My very existence was hurting him.”

Yoongi’s voice cracks as he asks the red hot question. “What did you do?”

Namjoon gives him that sad smile, lips pressed together and uplifted ends that don’t quite reach his eyes. It’s a forced smile and it makes Yoongi’s heart sink like a ten ton weight. “I left him of course.”

*

Jimin kicks the ground rebelliously. He knows he is acting like a five year old but there’s petulant anger still roiling in his chest and he has to vent it out.

Hoseok watches him quietly, hands tucked deep into jean pockets. He doesn’t know what is going between Seokjin and Jimin, but he knows that the only thing that would break Jimin out of his month long stupor and make Seokjin raise his voice is Yoongi.

With both of them, anger is rare, tiny embers that require a large storm to fan into fire. And when they do get angry, it’s the sort of fierce ignition that makes everyone back off immediately.

The truth is that Hoseok doesn’t know Seokjin or Jimin quite as well as he knows Yoongi. Once upon a time they were thick as thieves, childhood friends buried deep into the realm of music. They had made a solemn swear to make it big, and once mandatory high school was over they moved to the big city to make it real.

Then things changed.

It was nothing movie sort dramatic. It was just that as time passed Hoseok realized his passion lay in dance whereas Yoongi found himself falling into the thickly layered world of composition.

Hoseok made friends with a local dance crew. Yoongi immersed himself into production.

Hoseok moved out. Yoongi stayed.

Slowly they were being tugged into two opposite directions.

They still met up from time to time and had dinner and laughed about the old times, but things were subtly different now. It was like they stood on two separate planes, one just a fraction higher than the other. They could still see eye to eye, but the difference was just enough to mean that they no longer connected in the same way that they used to.

Then Yoongi met Jimin at some basketball court and Hoseok bumped into Seokjin and the two levels diverged further.

Yoongi and Jimin have always danced on the same level. It doesn’t show easily to a stranger who cannot understand the finer tunings of Yoongi’s every expression and habits, but it shines as clear as day to Hoseok. Yoongi likes to make fun of Jimin with his satori drawl but Hoseok knows that is something exclusive to the one private to his heart. Yoongi frequently pretends to revoke skinship with the younger but it just makes Hoseok smile because he knows it’s simply Yoongi trying not to get too touchy feely else he never stop touching.

Hoseok can see the way Yoongi is intuitively bound to Jimin. Jimin moves and Yoongi follows. He’s a moon to Jimin’s gravity and it’s beautiful to watch their interplay.

Seokjin on the other hand is a solitary planet. He revolves around no one and no one moves to his beat.

Hoseok had learnt that quickly the moment he had first met Seokjin at a cemetery, Seokjin dressed all in black for his dead lover. He hadn’t brought flowers. Only himself. Hoseok had thought it fitting. The dead after all have no need for aesthetic values.

“Hello,” Hoseok had said, the words flowing from his mouth unwittingly. Seokjin had been a stranger back then, marble cut and stone smooth and Hoseok had no idea what possessed him to speak to this mysterious stranger.

Seokjin had looked up, tear stains on his cheeks. “H-hello?” he had said, taken aback back the sudden conversation.

“I’m Hoseok,” Hoseok had pushed through despite all the misgivings he had. “Jung Hoseok.”

“I’m…Kim Seokjin,” Seokjin had replied, stifling another sniff. “Can I…help you?”

Hoseok had given him an encouraging smile, the sort he knew people who had just lost someone they had loved needed. “Not really. It’s just…I saw you and thought, that maybe I could help you?”

Seokjin had stared.

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok had apologized almost immediately, giving a nervous little chuckle. “It probably sounds really weird but it’s just… I saw you, and you looked really sad, and I kind of understand what you’re going through so…” He faltered.

“So?” Seokjin said encouragingly.  

Hoseok had swallowed and summoned up the courage to finish. “So I just wondered if there was anything I could do for you to make you feel better?”

Seokjin had given a small little laugh. It had burst out from his lips unbidden. Hoseok hadn’t been quite sure how to respond.

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin had said, wiping away the tears and standing up. “It’s just been a while since I’ve last talked to someone whose first words weren’t ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ or anything of the sort.”

Hoseok had given a bemused smile. “Those words tend to , don’t they?”

Seokjin nodded, smiling a little wider. “You know what?” he said suddenly. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“Eh? What offer?” Hoseok had backtracked, suddenly at loss with their thread of conversation.

Seokjin had laughed. Full bodied and warm. “The one where you asked if you could help me,” he said chortling. “And yeah, you can. Take me out for dinner. All I’ve had for weeks is my mom’s super healthy home cooking. I’m tired of being babied and expected to cry. I want something so greasy and unhealthy it’s going to make my hair fall out.”

Hoseok had choked on his laughter. “I can’t promise making your hair fall out, but I can suggest a really spicy place that will make you cry tears of defeat.”

Seokjin had smiled, so wide that it had hurt. “You’re on,” he had said, and had followed Hoseok out and away from the tombstones of grey.

So maybe it had started with the notion of romantic attraction, but unlike Jimin and Yoongi who were living in the present, Hoseok had quickly learnt that Seokjin still had one foot stuck in the past.

One month after Seokjin had moved in with Hoseok – Seokjin’s suggestion – and that had become as clear as day.

Things that Hoseok learnt about Seokjin: he had a hundred different faces, each equally a part of Kim Seokjin, each equally not.

There was the Seokjin who had smiled and taken up his offer for dinner. Then there was the Seokjin who was as sharp as winter’s chill, closed in and cold. And when snow melted there came a different Seokjin who would smile a smile that didn’t feel quite like a smile.

Other things that Hoseok learnt about Seokjin: his moods were as fluctuating as the wind.

At times Seokjin would be bright and bubbly, scolding Hoseok for not cleaning up or attending his classes on time. At other times he would be quieter, more pensive and cagey. Hoseok had caught Seokjin more than once staring into the distance as if he could see something no one else could. And when Hoseok would tap his shoulder he would turn, eyes wide and a sharp tongue ready to lash out until he had realized it was just Hoseok and deflated.

Hoseok has brought this up one or twice with Seokjin, worried for his hyung’s wellbeing. Seokjin’s response had been to ask if Hoseok believed in ghosts.

Hoseok had said, I’m not sure, but I don’t think so, and that had killed the conversation there and then.

It’s at times like these when Jimin is quiet and Seokjin is loud that he wonders if he should have said something different, just so he could hear what Seokjin could have said instead.

But time has passed since their first meeting. Spring has slipped into summer and evaporated into fall, and throughout the course of three seasons Hoseok has easily learnt that he is but a passing asterioid, fated to never make contact. All he can do is watch and worry.

“Hyung!” is all the warning he gets as a chestnut haired blur cannon balls into his side and Hoseok goes flying.

“Taehyung!” Hoseok moans from the floor and opens his eyes to see a hazelnut pair blink right back at him.

“Hey hyung,” Taehyung grins crazily from atop him.

“You’re heavy. Move.” Hoseok shoves him off and Taehyung goes rolling, continuing his momentum for a few more meters across the grass and fallen leaves. Hoseok can’t help but grin at his antics. Sometime he wonders what goes on in the head of that kid.

Taehyung doesn’t get up from the floor, but rolls in the reverse direction until he’s at Hoseok’s feet. He looks up and makes a face. “You look like a giant from here hyung.”

“That’s because you’re lying on the ground Taehyung,” Hoseok banters back good naturedly.

“Do you eat beans? Because my mom says they make you grow tall. I hate beans though. Does that mean I’ll stay short forever?”

Hoseok stifles a laugh. “You’re tall enough as it is Taehyung. Please don’t grow anymore.”

“Ah, I see,” Taehyung make a mournful sound. “You’re ganging up with the Gods of Food Preferences to make sure I don’t grow any taller.”

“The Gods of what?”

“Of Food Preferences. They made a deal with the Gods of Heights that if the Gods of Heights gave them a bountiful banquet this year then they would make sure I stay short. And you’ve ganged up with them against me, haven’t you hyung.”

Hoseok’s lips twitch. “No I haven’t Taehyung. I think if you stand up you’ll find that you are nearly the same height as me.”

That gets Taehyung springing up instantly. “Eh? Really? Oh. It’s true. Maybe the God of Height didn’t want to grant the Gods of Food Preferences a wealthy banquet this year.”

Hoseok snorts.

“So who’s that moody guy over there with his own personal black cloud?” Taehyung asks, his attention as erratic as the wind as he catches sight of Jimin kicking up autumn leaves.

“Park Jimin,” Hoseok supplies. “He’s my friend’s, um, boyfriend?”

He guesses that’s still technically the right definition.

“Is that so?” Taehyung blinks. “I’ll go say hi then.”

“Ah, wait Taehyung-“ Hoseok lets his hand drop as Taehyung prances off to jump on Jimin, wrestle him to the floor and then introduce himself. Hoseok sighs and wanders over to yank Taehyung off his position in straddling Jimin to the ground before someone calls the police.

“Taehyung, haven’t I told you a hundred times that this isn’t the way to greet someone?”

“Eh? But that’s boring.” Taehyung hangs limp in Hoseok’s grip, forcing Hoseok to suddenly dig in his heels in order to support his weight.

Jimin watches them from the ground with something akin to muted amusement, the edges of his lips curling up.  

“Jimin,” Hoseok says. “This is Taehyung, one of the younger members in my dance crew. He lives close to you actually, which is why he’s here?” He addresses the latter half of his sentence to Taehyung.

Taehyung nods. “Yup. Jungkook sent me to go do shopping…which…”

“Which you haven’t done,” Hoseok finishes for him.

Taehyung gives him a guilty grin.

Hoseok sighs. “Let’s go shopping then,” he says and Taehyung’s eyes light up like a Christmas tree.

“You’re the best hyung!” he beams and wriggles out of Hoseok’s grip to do a little victory dance. You would’ve thought the kid had planned it all along.

“Coming Jimin?” Hoseok says as he dusts off his knees. He holds out a hand to help Jimin up and Jimin takes it, startled, for he hadn’t been paying attention.

“Coming where?”

“Shopping,” Hoseok repeats, enunciating the word. “I mean you don’t have anything better to do, do you?”

Jimin chews his bottom lip. Oh he has plenty of better things he could be doing, namely Yoongi, though he can’t exactly tell Hoseok that.  

“C’mon, a change of scenery will be good for you,” Hoseok says and Jimin knows he’s made a mistake by looking at Hoseok’s puppy dog eyes because dammit, now he can’t refuse Hoseok.

“Fine,” he says, wrapping his arms around his waist to keep warm and to shield off Hoseok and his damn happy-go-lucky grin. Hoseok ignores the warding and wraps one arm around Jimin’s shoulder, leaning into him. Jimin sighs because Hoseok’s always like this. He shows his emotions through touch and movement and sound. He’s only seen him perform once or twice when Yoongi has asked him to tag along, but it’s enough for Jimin’s novice eyes to tell that Hoseok is brilliant. Honestly, it makes him want to try out dance himself.

But that was way back before Yoongi had passed away and time had dulled it to an unremarkable thought. But now, with Hoseok at his side and sharing his thrumming energy, the idea doesn’t seem too farfetched. Jimin has technically taken a year out of university, but it’s not like he was ever doing something he was passionate about. He’s still free to switch degrees and maybe make a few different choices.

But that’s all in the future and right now he’s living in the present.

Hoseok may just be a passing asteroid, but the gravity he exerts is enough to tempt Jimin to follow. So Jimin lets Hoseok lean into him and link arms and lead him away from his house and his worries and Yoongi.

*

The silence between Namjoon and Yoongi stretches like sticky sugar, long and golden until it reaches its limit and gravity claims it in glutinous strands.

Namjoon breaks it first by moving. He sits down, stretching his long legs, and some invisible props seems to support him up. He wears a heavy jean jacket and tucks his hands deep into its pocket. He looks unearthly, like he has some sort of internal smoldering sun which lightens the blond quality of his hair and brings out the darker tones of his skin. If Yoongi could translate him to music then he would put down a hard heavy beat with a lighter melody transposed atop.

Yoongi shakes his head to rid his ever-present thoughts of music.

Namjoon doesn’t seem to notice. He is still sunk deep in his thoughts. So Yoongi walks over and cautiously sits down opposite him. Incredibly as he lowers himself down, he feels something solid appear beneath him as if his will has manifested into something real.

“Namjoon,” Yoongi starts, not really knowing where he wants to begin, but knowing that Namjoon is better versed in this world than he is so whatever he asks will be valuable regardless.

Namjoon breaks out of his reverie, eyes refocusing on Yoongi. “Yeah?”

“Why are so adamant in thinking that Jimin and I won’t work. I know you and your…lover didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean the same will happen to us, no?”

Namjoon purses his lips thoughtfully. “And what makes you so adamant in thinking you two will work?” he shoots back. “You’re dead Yoongi. You need to differentiate the fact that you are a ghost and Jimin is not.”

Yoongi’s eyes flash. “Do we really?”

Namjoon exhales, his patience tried. “Yoongi, we Ghosts are brought back by strong feeling from the living. They chain us to this world and temporarily we can bring them relief. Temporarily we can turn back time and pretend we haven’t died. But it doesn’t last forever. The living will move on. Look to Jimin. Look and see if he really needs you.”

He points into the distance and Yoongi turns to see. The fog dissipates and they are in a tiny café, Namjoon gesturing through the wide glass window and out onto the streets where Jimin has linked arms with some chestnut haired boy and Hoseok.

They stumble, the downside to trying to chain three people, but they’re laughing.

Jimin is laughing.

It’s been so long since Yoongi has seen a smile on Jimin’s face that is wrought not by hugs or kisses or intimate touches, but by laughing so hard that your sides hurt and your cheeks ache.

A very different sort of ache pounds in Yoongi’s chest, vivid and void at the same time.

“You are stuck in the past,” Namjoon says, his words quiet, but they ring clear like a bell. “And Jimin lives in the present.”

In the distance the chestnut haired boy falls flat on his face and Jimin yelps and rushes to help him up. He and Hoseok burst out laughing when they see a perfect red mark on the brown haired boy’s nose, making him look like an early Christmas reindeer.

The boy pouts and Jimin gives him a mock kiss on the nose to make it all better.

Yoongi’s non-existence heart does a little backflip and tumble. It feels ten times too big for his chest.

Namjoon tone is sad as he watches them play, as if he too is remembering the past he no longer belongs to. “Yoongi,” he says softly, the words echoing and reverberating in the tiny white space around them. “How much longer do you two think you can play pretend?”

*

Yoongi is sprawled out on the sofa when Jimin gets home, his socked feet dangling off the ends. He’s not wearing headphones but he doesn’t respond when Jimin shuts close the door.

“Hyung?”

Yoongi shifts his head minutely. Jimin’s gaze goes immediately to Yoongi’s eyes. They’re cold. Flat. Emotionless. Expressionless.

“Hyung?” he rushes to Yoongi’s side, falling to his knees and cupping Yoongi’s face between his two hands. “What’s wrong? What happened? Could Seokjin-hyung really…?”

Yoongi gives a tiny nod.

“You mean…Seokjin-hyung could really see you? And speak to you?”

Yoongi nods again.

Jimin leans back on his heels. “What did he say to you?”

Yoongi’s expression darkens and he turns his head away. Jimin knows this means that Yoongi doesn’t want to speak about. Whilst Yoongi doesn’t usually express his feelings straightforwardly, Jimin knows that an outright refusal to answer means things are bad.

“Hyung,” Jimin says levelly. “Tell me what’s wrong. Let me help.”

Yoongi looks at him, surprising pooling. Since when has Jimin been this mature? Wanting to sit down and talk about feelings. Or maybe he’s always been this way and Yoongi just hasn’t noticed before.

Maybe Namjoon is right. Without him realizing it Jimin has grown up into someone who doesn’t need to lean on Yoongi in order to stand.

“Hyung.” Jimin is begging for him to open up, to tell him what’s wrong. But Yoongi doesn’t want to do that. Yoongi doesn’t really know what he wants anymore.

“Hyu-“

Yoongi rolls over and off the couch, shutting Jimin up as he presses against his lips. Jimin makes a surprised noise as Yoongi kisses him desperately, hands roaming and gripping the hem of his shirt tightly.

There’s something off with Yoongi. Jimin can sense it, but before he can even say any words Yoongi’s hands are tugging off his outer jacket and slipping under his shirt. He into Jimin’s mouth and bites down on his lower lip, erasing any coherent thought of Jimin’s. 

“Hyung,” Jimin breathes, breaking away from the intoxicating kiss. “Now?”  

Jimin feels one hand creep up in answer, fingers pushing aside the material of his shirt with it and when Yoongi moves his mouth down to encircle his right he can’t help but let out a breathy moan. It’s been too long and Yoongi has always known which buttons to press with Jimin.

Yoongi pushes Jimin down onto the rug, and Jimin lets him do it.

*

They end up on the couch, Yoongi sliding deep into Jimin and ing him so hard that Jimin comes with cry and Yoongi draws blood when his teeth breaks skin.

They are both breathing hard but it is only Yoongi who is not covered in perspiration.

He curls himself up between the back of the couch and Jimin’s body afterwards, one arm s out to curl around Jimin’s chest.

“Hyung?” Jimin whispers, pushing his nose into the cold touch of Yoongi’s .

Yoongi curls into him more tightly.

“What are you upset about?” Jimin asks and Yoongi stills, an answer unto itself. “Hyung, answer me.”

Yoongi lifts the arm slung over Jimin’s chest and moves it slowly so that his hand pauses right over Jimin’s chest. Jimin waits patiently as Yoongi makes up his mind. He places the finger down and traces one character. And then another. And another.

Do.

You.

Still.

Need.

Me

?

Jimin’s eyes flicker towards Yoongi with surprise. “This is what is bothering you hyung?” he says incredulously. “Of course I do. I always will! How could you think I wouldn’t?”

Yoongi turns his head downwards so that Jimin cannot see what sort of face he is making. He himself doesn’t know what sort of expression it is, but Yoongi’s certain it’s ugly. He can’t speak. He can’t cry. What sort of face then would despair come out as?

Yoongi’s body shudders with silent sobs and Jimin immediately wraps his arms and legs around Yoongi, pulling him in close and whispering soft promises into his ear.

“It’s okay hyung. I love you, I’ll always love you. Don’t worry about this. We’ll make this work. We will somehow.”

It’s soothing and Yoongi lets his eyelids droop close and the words wash over him until they turn into nonsensical mumbles and Jimin falls asleep. Dawn will inevitably come, and spring take another step closer, and Yoongi knows he has next to no idea on how they will make things work, but for now he’ll close his eyes and pretend he can sleep by listening to the rhythmic beat of Jimin’s heart. Time is short and he will savor what he can.

Morning will come, and they’ll deal with it then.

*

Jimin sneezes for the fifth time.

It’s snowing hard, forcing Jimin to bundle up with three layers, a ridiculously fluffy beanie and calf high boots. Not for the first time that night does he shoot Yoongi an envious look. Yoongi stands there in a simple hoodie and jeans, not minding the chill one bit.

“Hyung hurry up,” Jimin sniffles as he hops up and down on the spot, trying to warm up the best he can.

Yoongi however is entranced with snow as of late. He holds up one hand and watches as a flake floats down and comes into contact with his hand. It doesn’t melt or go right through as he has first thought it might. Instead it hovers right above his skin, resisting gravity. To any other sharp eyed passerby it would look like the snowflake had paused in midair.

It’s fascinating and Yoongi has been doing this over and over again out of sheer amusement.

“Hyung,” Jimin whines and sneezes again.

Yoongi decides to give Jimin a break and lets the snowflake go. He returns to his side with a small smile at Jimin’s ridiculously red cheeks.

When he points it out and cracks up in soundless laughter, Jimin protests and pouts, which only makes Yoongi laugh even more.

“Jimin?”

Both turn to look at the newcomer.

“Taehyung?” Jimin breaks into a cheerful smile. Taehyung returns it and trapezes over, draping his body over Jimin’s back and weighing him down. He grabs the ends of Jimin’s too-long hair that really needs a trim and tickles his cheek with it.

Yoongi recognizes him as the orange-chestnut haired kid from the café, though he seems to have dyed it a slick sheen of purple.

“Hey Jiminnie,” Taehyung chirps. “What are you doing out all alone?”

Jimin jumps a little. He’s forgotten that Taehyung can’t see Yoongi.

“Or were you with someone? I saw you talking, but to who?”

 “I, uh, was talking to my friend,” Jimin says hesitantly.

Taehyung’s eyes light up. “Ooh! Who? I want to meet your friends.”

“Um,” Jimin backs up and trips. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

Taehyung’s whole body droops. “Why not? Do you not want me meeting him?”

Jimin scratches his head. “It’s not that. It’s just…it’s not possible.”

Taehyung spins Jimin round and sticks his face right up close so that his nose is almost touching Jimin’s. Taehyung’s eyes flash defiantly. Yoongi watches with a half amused, half wary expression.

“Why can’t I?”

Dammit. Jimin should’ve just kept his mouth closed from the very beginning.

He sighs. “Because my friend is invisible,” he says, somewhat truthfully.

Taehyung’s eyes grow as round as the moon and Jimin shrinks back away from it. “That’s so cool!” he beams. Yoongi snickers silently. Everything is going in the opposite direction than Jimin is hoping and to Yoongi, this is hilarious.

“Uh, uh, um,” Jimin hedges and Taehyung just keeps coming in closer.

“Where is he? Can I talk to him? I mean if he’s invisible, can he still speak? Or do you two talk on a different wavelength, like aliens or something? Is he an alien? That would be so cool! What planet does he come from? Did his spaceship crash?!”

Jimin does his best to keep up with Taehyung’s relentless wave of questions. “Umm he’s here, but he can’t speak. But I can see him. So um, it’s okay if we can’t talk to one another. And he’s not an alien…not really.”

Yoongi shoots him a meaningful look that has Jimin backing up again. How dare the kid call him a ‘not really alien’.

Jimin feels like he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Taehyung however decides to back off from Jimin. “Hello Mr. Invisible Friend of Jimin’s,” he calls out in all random directions, completely ignoring the weird stares he gets in return from passerbys.

“He’s um, over there.” Jimin points to the opposite direction that Taehyung is yelling in, and Taehyung spins and jumps and holds out a hand to Yoongi. He nearly sticks it right through Yoongi’s chest.

“Hello!” he says brightly. “My name is Kim Taehyung. 18. 176 cm. I weigh 58kg. I’m currently studying for my college entrance exams right now. I haven’t decided on what I want to do though so I’m just entering a general college course.”

Yoongi stares at the outstretched hand. Um… what should he do? He can’t exactly shake it back. Nor can he introduce himself. He turns to Jimin for help.

“His name is Min Yoongi. He’s um, 21 this year I guess. 176 cm thereabouts. Uhh, I forgot what he weighs, and well, he’s invisible so he doesn’t attend college and-“

“We’re the same height!” Taehyung gasps. ”That’s so cool!”

Yoongi stares. That’s what he gathered out of that exchange?

Then, the sensation that surges through him is one akin to an ice bucketing having been chucked on top of him. It cuts through him, cold and brutal. It threatens to shake apart his very structure.

Yoongi clutches his chest and stumbles as someone passes through him.

It’s never happened before, but Yoongi wasn’t paying attention, and it’s clear that this boy’s intention is to talk to Taehyung.

“Hyung,” the raven haired kid says in a feather soft voice. Yoongi reels from the pain. He falls to his knees. Jimin is at his side in an instant.

“Jungkook?” Taehyung sounds surprised to see him. “Ah, Jimin? What are you doing? Is Yoongi-hyung okay?!”

Nausea rips through Yoongi and the ground spins.

“Hyung? Yoongi?” Jimin shakes him roughly by the shoulders and Yoongi wants to tell him not to because he’s doing his best to not throw up. But Jimin’s scared. Yoongi is starting to look incredibly transparent and then Yoongi makes a sharp movement, as if he’s gasping, his shoulders hunching and his chest caving in.

“Hyung!” Jimin panics and grips tighter and-

-and his hands go right through.

It’s broad daylight but the sky is dim with clouds and the afternoon setting sun. And before even though he couldn’t see Yoongi he could still touch him.

Jimin feels like his heart has stopped.

“Jimin?” Taehyung kneels beside him. “What’s wrong? What happened to Yoongi-hyung?”

Jimin’s voice shakes as he tries to explain it. “He-he’s vanishing. I- I can’t touch him.”

“But you usually can?”

Jimin nods, a quick shaky bob.

“Then what happened just now? Right before he started vanishing?”

“Um,” Jimin points to Jungkook. “He walked right through Yoongi-hyung…”

“Jungkook!” Taehyung scolds, turning and berating the younger boy who looks hopelessly confused at the situation.

Then he turns back to Jimin, puzzled. “But I thought he was invisible. That’s all.”

Yoongi’s feels like his blood is freezing, coagulating, stiffening him into a statue. Time seems to slow as he manages to look up and see realization write itself across Jimin’s face.

“It’s not that he’s invisible…” Jimin says slowly. It sounds like each word is being wrenched out from him, a tooth taken out unceremoniously by a dentist. “It’s that…he’s a ghost…so you can’t see him.”  

Taehyung’s mouth falls open into a tiny ‘o’ shape.

Surprisingly it’s Jungkook who says it, in a blunt and no nonsense voice. “So isn’t it normal that he’s disappearing?”

Yoongi feels another wave of ice pass through, a hailstorm that makes him see white spots in his vision.

“Hyung!” Jimin’s heart is beating so fast that he feels like it’s going to explode. “Hyung! No! Don’t disappear. You said you wouldn’t!”

It’s getting hard to hear Jimin now. All he can feel is this soft chill spreading out, fingers of ice crawling along skin. He shivers and the white slowly creeps in closer.

“Hyung, please don’t go.” Jimin is begging now, on his knees, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Don’t leave me alone…”

Yoongi is drawn to that droplet, the silver glint of it under the faint sunlight, and the way it shimmers as it rolls down, catches on the end of his chin and falls. It takes a very long time to fall, almost as if it is suspended and Yoongi holds onto that image as the white encroaches in and swallows him whole.

*

Words echo in the white space of his mind. There’s no Namjoon here this time. Just Yoongi and Yoongi alone. His body feels suspended, floating, hanging by some invisible string.

It’s peaceful. Is this heaven? Or the world beyond the living?

“Just do us all a favor Yoongi and move on.”

Yoongi experimentally moves one hand a fraction. It feels heavy, waterlogged. It would be so easy to just close his eyes and let it all go. 

“You are stuck in the past. And Jimin lives in the present.”

A teardrop.

But there is Jimin and Yoongi cannot leave Jimin behind. Especially not when he cries.

“Look to Jimin. Look and see if he really needs you.”

Maybe Jimin doesn’t need him. But then again, maybe he does. He told Yoongi not to leave, and now he’s begging for the very same thing. To give up now is to give up on Jimin.  Yoongi opens his eyes and fights the water, pushes back the resistance and reaches out with one clawed hand.

 “Do you still need me? “

With tooth and claw, Yoongi fights. His body bobs with the flow of the water but he pushes and rights himself and kicks out with his legs. He can reach it. He can escape this world of whiteness. He needs to. He has to.

 “I love you. I’ll always love you. We can make this work. We’ll make it work somehow.”

Jimin’s is waiting.

The whiteness invades, pushing him back, an unsurpassable barrier. Yoongi gasps for breath but the sheer pressure is overwhelming. He falters.

“How much longer do you two think you can play pretend?”

He falls.  

*

The world is no longer white when Yoongi regains a semblance of consciousness. There’s a gentle rhythmic pressure to his left and he turns his head a fraction to see Jimin curled up next to him, a soft snore emitting from his body.

His hand curled around Yoongi’s wrist suggests that they can touch again.

Yoongi closes his eyes and savors the peace and quiet of the moment. When he opens it, Namjoon sits on the tiny swivel chair, watching him.

“You nearly vanished all by yourself,” he says quietly.

Yoongi sits up and discovers that he is in a stranger’s bed, in a stranger’s room. The chaotic array of items and clashing colors hurt his eyes. The bedsheets are stripes of blue and magenta, the walls are a bright orange. Yoongi makes a face at them, then at Namjoon.  

“How?” he asks.

“You’re existence as a ghost was shaken,” Namjoon says.

When Yoongi’s brow furrows with confusion, Namjoon explains. “I said it before didn’t I? Common perception is that us ghosts hang around because we want to fulfil a goal or something. The truth is that there is someone out there with feelings strong enough to sustain our existence and bring us back.”

“Then what about you?” Yoongi says. “You left behind the person whose feelings sustain your existence right? How are you still here?”

 “I-“ Namjoon pauses. “We came to the mutual conclusion that our relationship wasn’t working and so we parted. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have strong feelings for me, or vice versa.”

Yoongi’s eyes sharpen. “Are you saying you’re still in love with this guy and you left him?”

Namjoon frowns. “I never said we fell out of love. If that was the case then I doubt I’d still be here. What we decided was that both of us would move on. He would learn to live with the living and I would find a way to pass on.”

“How?”

Namjoon draws a deep breath. “We are borne from strong feelings and chained here by strong feelings. And those feelings are sourced from memories, from good times and happiness and so-“

 “Are you saying if we get rid of those memories then we can move on?” Yoongi frowns deeply. “Seriously? In the first place how would we even remove memories?”

“It doesn’t have to be that drastic,” Namjoon says, lips downturned. “The living just needs to be willing to let us go.”

“So why hasn’t this love of your life let you go if you two are in agreement of parting?” Yoongi says sharply.

“Because,” Namjoon grinds harshly. “Because he’s worried about me.”

Yoongi blinks. “Worried about you?”

“He’s worried about what will happen to me if he lets go. Who knows what will happen to us. Maybe we’ll just vanish into some white void and that’s it. Maybe heaven or hell exists and we’ll ascend or fall. Who knows. We haven’t a clue and that’s what scares him. He tries not to show it but subconsciously he’s scared of letting me go and that’s why I came to you.”

“To me?” Yoongi stares.

Namjoon nods. “I thought if I could find someone to move on with me, then… then Seokjin would be at peace with it.”

Yoongi’s eyes fly wide open. “Seok-“

“But for you I don’t think you could ever convince Jimin.”

“What?!”

“Jimin may not need you anymore but he doesn’t realize it himself,” Namjoon says softly. “And he himself is unwilling to give you up then I don’t know how else you can move on.”

“Basically me not being able to move on is a barrier in your plan to assuage Seokjin’s worries and for you yourself to move on,” Yoongi summarizes in a flat tone.  

“Basically,” Namjoon says, mouth quirking at Yoongi’s irritation.

“And so when were you going to tell me that you dated Seokjin-“

“And so we may have to go with the drastic plan and erase Jimin’s memories,” Namjoon says before Yoongi can finish his sentence.

“Wait. What?!” Yoongi chokes. “Is that even possible.”

“I have a theory,” Namjoon says gravely.

“Actually wait stop right there,” Yoongi holds up a hand. “Why would I even want to erase Jimin’s memories? I want to stay here. Jimin wants me to stay here too. Go find your own way to move on yourself.”

“Ouch,” Namjoon mock-winces. “That’s cold of you.”

“Not my problem,” Yoongi growls. “You and loverboy need to stop butting into my relationship with Jimin. We’re perfectly happy together and he doesn’t want me to disappear.”

“But you nearly did,” Namjoon points out.

Yoongi flinches. “B-but…Jimin didn’t forget about me so…”

“He didn’t forget about you. He made a realization.” Namjoon says. “Jimin’s been subconsciously suppressing the fact that you are dead. He’s trying to fool himself into thinking elsewise. But when that black haired kid walked through you, even he couldn’t deny the truth. And that realization is what is shaking your existence.”

Yoongi looks down at Jimin.

“Strong feelings from memories are one thing,” Namjoon says. “If Jimin understands that you are a ghost then he might be able to let you go of his own volition.”

Yoongi’s fingers go to Jimin’s hair, combing through them gently. “So in the end,” he says softly. “Jimin doesn’t need me.”

Namjoon’s eyes soften. “Think about it. If everyone could not get over someone’s death then this world would be filled with ghosts. But it’s not. It’s human nature to surpass grief. And Jimin will, with time.”

Yoongi can read the undercurrent words there. Just like Seokjin will.  

“So will you take up my offer?” Namjoon says, bringing him back to reality. “Leave Jimin and vanish with me?”

He holds out of hand. A tangible offer.

Yoongi shakes his head. “Not yet. I can’t leave Jimin just yet.”

Namjoon drops his hand. “Still huh? Fine, I won’t force you to choose.” He stands and angles his body away, looking out at the living room. Yoongi has a feeling he can see right through it and to the people beyond. He wonders just how bad things had to get with Seokjin for them to make this choice.

“I’ll be waiting for you when you make up your mind,” Namjoon says, tucking his hands back into pockets and leaning back on his heels. “Just remember that to love doesn’t mean you have to be by their side. Sometimes to love is to leave.”

He inclines his head slightly and vanishes as the wind blows cruelly outside.

*

Jimin awakens with a start. He sits up abruptly to an empty bed and his hands instinctively search for Yoongi’s warmth. Not that Yoongi radiates any body heat, but he’s always given off this sort of presence that Jimin translates into radiance.

Instead there’s a note, typed an unsent message box on his phone.  

I’ve gone out for a bit to think on things. I’ll be back at our apartment by midnight. 미안.

Jimin turns off the phone and shoves it into his pocket angrily. How could Yoongi just leave like that? He should have at least waited until Jimin woke up and- and well he’d stop him but…

Jimin lets out a tiny sigh and makes for the door. He flings it open and stops still as he takes in the sight of Taehyung standing there, topless but for a flowery pink apron, and with a spatula in his mouth.

“Hway Himin,” he says and adjusts the oven’s temperature.

Jungkook walks by and whacks him on the head with a rolled up newspaper. “That’s disgusting Tae,” he says, readjusts the temperature, and then walks back to his bedroom.

Taehyung and Jungkook are roommates, both attending the same high school and intending on getting into the same university and course. Their motivations are slightly different: Taehyung because he’s not sure what he wants to do but is equally good at everything, and Jungkook who is doing it because he knows what he wants to do but his parents disagree and this is the compromise. What they have in common is that they both disagree with their parents and both forge well on their own. The result: shared dorms attending a high school which will hopefully gain them easier access to the university of their choice.

Taehyung pulls the spatula out of his mouth and points it at the oven like a magic wand. “Hurry up!” he declares and waves it.

“Um,” Jimin doesn’t want to interrupt him but the clock says nine and he really should be leaving.

“Stay for dinner,” Taehyung says. “Jungkook cooks well.”

“Jungkook cooked?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung nods. “I didn’t actually cook anything. Kookie just told me to keep an eye on the over until it’s done and call him if I smell anything burning.”

“Then the apron?”

“Because it looks good on me,” Taehyung replies without an ounce of shame.

“Um…”

“Don’t bother with giving him a reply,” Jungkook calls from his bedroom, the door open wide. “You’ll just encourage him.”

“Uh…”

“But anyway, you should stay for food,” Taehyung continues, as if he is not the current subject being dissed.

Jungkook emerges from his bedroom, a pencil behind one ear, sheets in his hand. “Yeah, go ahead. I cooked intending for three anyway.”

“Yeah!” Taehyung takes Jimin by the shoulders and steers him so that he’s sitting at the dining table. “Go ahead and get comfortable.”

Apparently Jimin doesn’t have much say in the matter so he just parks his and watches Taehyung prance about the kitchen, tapping a lot of button and making sounds of ‘hmm’ and ‘ooh’ and ‘yes!’ but not actually contributing anything to the cooking at all. And then 20 minutes later Jungkook walks in, yawning, turns off the oven and puts on mitts to take out the roast.

“Done,” he declares and orders Taehyung to lay the table.

Jimin starts at the presence of actual words and gets up and out of the chair. “I should help-“ he begins, but then Taehyung is there, one hand on his shoulder and pushing him down.

“You’re the guest,” he says shaking his head. “Savor it while you can,” he crooks a grin. “Next time you come you’ll be doing the cooking and the washing up.”

Jimin’s lips twitch and he decides that sounds fair.

Dinner is a surprisingly fun affair. Jungkook has a sharp tongue, but a great propensity for making witty jokes. Taehyung is the opposite, all loud and loose mouthed but somehow making Jimin burst into laughter more than once. Hoseok drops by sometime after eleven with drinks and before Jimin realizes it, it is way past midnight and he hasn’t even realized the time fly.  

“I should get going,” Jimin says hurriedly. Yoongi is waiting and he is late.

“Aww,” Taehyung pouts, cheeks flushed a pretty pink. Jimin’s certain that the drinks Hoseokn bought were non-alcoholic but he’s not quite sure anymore.

“Come back and visit again okay?” Jungkook says quietly. His eyes are earnest, conveying what his tone doesn’t: that he’s becoming surprisingly attached to Jimin in this short period of time. He really wants him to come back. So does Taehyung. Hoseok nods encouragingly in the corner.

 “Sure thing,” Jimin says without hesitation and Jungkook beams. 

Jimin lets himself out and immediately he shivers. The air is freezing and his breath billows. He doesn’t even need to squint to see the snowflakes falling over the muted city lights.

Winter has come and the year is nearly over.

*

Yoongi comes home to an empty house.

He had been half expecting it, but it hurts more than he thought it would.

Jimin could still be sleeping, he reasons with himself. Or maybe he got caught up with something. Or maybe he’s being courteous to those kids.

It doesn’t change the lonesome draw of the room.

Yoongi stares out the glass pane at the dark city. Snow is falling, tiny pinpricks in the far distance. Winter has settled in fully and if their theory is right then in just a little over a month Yoongi will have to make a decision.

To stay. Or to go.

Every fiber of Yoongi’s body is yelling to stay. But apparently everyone else is telling him to go.

*

It’s December when Yoongi decides to make contact with Hoseok.

Hoseok is his long time best friend, something that Yoongi doesn’t think has changed despite their divulged career paths.

Jimin of late has been over at Taehyung and Jungkook’s a lot. They’re around the same age and it’s quite possible they could all end up attending the same University if things keep going this well. Jungkook is two years younger than both of them, but he’s skipped a grade due to his book smarts. Taehyung on the other hand has taken a gap year to ‘think’ things over. And Jimin? Jimin was meant to be in University but ever since Yoongi died his attendance flopped to the point where he simply dropped out and took a year off due to ‘personal reasons’. What he does in the upcoming year is very much up to his whims, though if he wants to get into the spring semester then he’ll have to do some quick networking.

End result is that Yoongi has been left to his own devices for much of the time.

He tries to not be spiteful. This is Jimin’s future they’re thinking about.

“He’s moving on Yoongi,” Namjoon says, appearing as usual out of nowhere but for when the wind blows harshly. He follows Yoongi’s gaze as he watches Jimin wave energetically goodbye, off to go discuss entry requirements with Hoseok who is a senior at the University the three kids are thinking of applying to.  

“So what?” Yoongi says, a little viciously.

Namjoon blinks, but doesn’t let it bother him. “So you should as well.”

“Go away Namjoon,” Yoongi says tiredly. “I don’t want to talk to you today.”

Namjoon bows his head easily. “If you don’t want to talk to me then why you talk to someone you actually like then?”

Yoongi spins, but Namjoon is already gone, nothing but leaves in his wake.

Someone he actually likes?

Yoongi racks his head. He can’t think of anyone else he is particularly close to. Ever since he met Jimin he hasn’t really bothered with making ‘friends’ or ‘ dealing in niceties’ as he puts it. He’s got acquaintances in the music business, people with the same interests in the course he was doing, links in the underground scene. They’re the people who had visited his wake out of respectfulness, but people who wouldn’t cry over his too soon death.

And before Jimin?

Yoongi can’t really think of anyone else but Hoseok. Sure he knows Seokjin, but he’s only met him through Hoseok and later Jimin and apparently, now through Namjoon. But just the thought of talking to Seokjin brings back the memories of his cold words telling him to just leave.

So there’s really only Hoseok. But how can he talk to Hoseok?

Seokjin was somehow able to see Yoongi, but Yoongi’s starting to think that’s because of his relations to Namjoon. Hoseok doesn’t have anything of the sort and honestly Yoongi’s at loss at how he’s going to make this work, but before he even realizes it his feet have led him to the doorstep of Seokjin and Hoseok’s shared house. The sky is black and apparently he's whittled away the entire afternoon just thinking about if he should ask Hoseok or not. 

He presses the doorbell, thinking what the hell, and it is Seokjin who answers. Of course it’s Seokjin who answers.

“What do you want?” Seokjin says, not unfriendly, but neither friendly.

Yoongi flounders for a second, mouth falling open and then close. Is um…Hoseok in? He wonders a second too late if Seokjin can read his lips as well as Jimin has learnt how to.

“He won’t be able to see you,” Seokjin says flatly, apparently adept at lip reading and art of being blunt. Maybe he’s gotten that from Namjoon as well.

Yoongi’s shoulders drop. Oh.

Something flickers in Seokjin’s eyes which Yoongi can’t read. “Come in,” he finally says and Yoongi hesitates. Because, just what?

Seokjin throws the door open wider. “He may not be able to see you, but I think I can arrange something else.”

He turns, calling for Hoseok and Yoongi slowly comes in, closing the door behind him.

It’s been a long time since he’s last visited Hoseok’s home. It looks exactly as it did just a few months ago, a stormy clash of neatness and hurricane mess. Hoseok and Seokjin are polar opposites in terms of housekeeping. Hoseok throws things everywhere and will use three day old underwear if need be. All that runs in his mind are dancing and rapping and eating. Occasionally sleeping as well.

Seokjin of course despairs and cleans up after him as best as possible. He’s trained Hoseok somewhat so that he puts his clothes in the various laundry bins around the house and makes sure he has a fresh pair of underwear and socks every day. Seokjin ensures that Hoseok isn’t living off instant noodles and take away chicken twenty four seven and that he isn’t arrested for looking like a walking, talking garbage dump.

Basically Seokjin makes sure Hoseok doesn’t die from his failed domestic abilities.

Yoongi is somewhat grateful to him for that.

Seokjin enters Hoseok’s room and taps him on the shoulder. Hoseok shrugs off his headphones and presses pause to the dance video he was watching.

“What’s up Jin-ah?” he says, all friendly and bubbly like and Yoongi’s heart aches. He’s missed Hoseok. He hasn’t realized it before – too preoccupied with Jimin’s imminent depression and his even more imminent erasure of life – but with the loss of communication he now realizes just how much he misses their friendship.

“Yoongi needs to talk to you,” Seokjin says bluntly.

“Uh, what?” Hoseok stares at him nervously, unsure if he should treat this like a joke or not. “I hate to break it to you, but Yoongi-hyung is dead…”

Seokjin gives a small sigh. “Yoongi’s here,” he says, trying to explain. “He’s a ghost and you can’t see him, but he’s here and he wants to talk to you.”

“Um,” Hoseok blinks furiously, a habit of his when his brain fails to catch up with the situation around him. “If I can’t see him, then you, uh, can?”

Seokjin nods.

Hoseok gapes. “How-“

Seokjin puts up a hand. “That’s not the issue right now. What is, is that Yoongi needs to speak with you.” He looks to Yoongi. “I could stay here and translate for you, but…” he takes in Yoongi’s look of distress, “but I think this is something private that he wants to tell you alone.”

“Um, how then?” Hoseok asks, still a little stunned.

Seokjin leans forwards and clicks open a blank document on Hoseok’s laptop. “The old fashioned way,” he says.

Seokjin jerks his head to the laptop, looking to Yoongi. “You can type right?”

Yoongi pads forwards in answer, pressing one finger to the worn out keyboard. 예.

Hoseok’s eyes turn to the size of saucers. “Y-Y-Yoongi!” he stutters and spins around wildly, as if he can suddenly gain the ability to see him.

“Hoseok,” Seokjin chides. “Pay attention to the screen. That’s the only way you can talk to him. He can hear you so you don’t need to type, but Yoongi will then be able to reply to you via the keyboard. Okay?”

Hoseok closes his mouth and gives a silent nod.

“Good,” Seokjin says. “I’ll leave you two to it then. Will 10 minutes be enough?”

Yeah, Yoongi says and Seokjin gives an affirmative nod and leaves.

Now it’s just the two of them awkwardly in the room. Hoseok his lips nervously, another little habit of his, and swallows audibly.

Hoseok opens his mouth to speak just as Yoongi types in the first character onto the screen.

I need your advice Hoseok, Yoongi types, just as Hoseok says, “What can I do for you hyung?”

They both stare at the computer screen for a moment before simultaneously bursting out into laughter. It’s almost ridiculous how in sync they still are.

“So what help do you need?” Hoseok asks, still chortling and wiping away a tear of laughter.

Yoongi bites back his laughter as he leans forwards to type again. Tell me Hoseok, do you think it would be okay if I stayed?  

Laughter dies almost immediately, a shriveled black shell. “What are you talking about Yoongi?” Hoseok says in a tiny whisper.

Yoongi taps away at the keyboard. I’m dead Hoseok. I’m only still here because Jimin harbored a strong desire for me to return. But that’s all changing now. He doesn’t need me anymore and there’s another ghost telling me I should just go. I don’t know what to do anymore.

Hoseok’s eyes scan the words, his teeth digging into his bottom lip as he slowly grasps the situation. “What makes you think Jimin doesn’t need you? Of course he needs you hyung!”

Hoseok’s seen the way Jimin always scurries to Yoongi first. It’s Yoongi first to show him his latest project or his latest idea or his latest dream last night. Yoongi has always been at the front of Jimin’s mind and Hoseok can’t imagine it any other way.

If that’s the case then why is he at Taehyung and Jungkook’s house and not with me?

Yoongi hates how petulant he sounds.

Hoseok’s shoulders drops. “Are you lonely hyung?”

Yoongi’s nonexistent heart beats like a drum. He’s not lonely. He’ll never admit to being lonely.

“Jimin will always care for you, you know that hyung,” Hoseok says argumentatively. “He’s just thinking of his future as well.”

I’m not supposed to exist in his future Hoseok, Yoongi types, his heart splintering with each tap of the keyboard. 

“Don’t say that!” Hoseok exclaims, hands gripping his seat tightly.

I’m a ghost Hoseok. I’m the stuff of fairy tales. You don’t see me, you can’t hear me. I’m not meant to be here and yet I am. I exist purely off Jimin’s desire for me to stay and I don’t know how much longer I can stay.

“Oh Yoongi,” Hoseok gives a little sigh and his heart goes out to him. “You can’t decide if you should leave before Jimin moves on or if you should brave it out to the end and then go when Jimin lets you.”

Yoongi’s fingers fall short of the keyboard, frozen, and he cannot type anymore.

Oh. So that was it.

It was never about staying or going; it was about leaving by his own volition or by Jimin’s. Apparently Yoongi has never had a say in whether he wants to stay or not.

He feels it build up in his chest again – the urge to cry. He’s so glad Hoseok can’t see him right now, his chest convulsing, lips pulling backwards in the mockery of sadness.

There is a hand on his shoulder, warm beyond belief. Yoongi turns to see Seokjin looks sympathetically back at him.

“Do you understand now Yoongi?” Seokjin says softly, and Yoongi shakes his head hard, still wanting denial. But it’s too late. Ignorance is bliss and reality bites.

Seokjin lets go. “You’re a wonderful person Yoongi, and I admire you for what you’ve done for Jimin. But it’s time to realize that you cannot draw this out any longer. It’d be better for both of you is you just cut it short right here and now and stop prolonging the pain.”

“What are you saying hyung!” Hoseok interjects sharply. “That because it’s in the best interests of everyone Yoongi should just go? Best interests are the same thing as best feelings.”

Seokjin’s expression becomes guarded. “I’m not saying that they are. Doing the right thing hurts and Yoongi is only putting off the inevitable. He should just get it over and done with before it all starts hurting.”

Hoseok stands up roughly, shoving the chair away so that it screeches and hits the table. “And what makes you the expert?”

Seokjin meets his look this time. “Experience,” he says shortly and both Hoseok and Yoongi freeze.

Yoongi lunges for the computer. Namjoon? he can’t help but ask.  

Seokjin exhales harshly. “Yes,” he says with gritted teeth.

Hoseok stills as he recalls the name on the gravestone: Kim Namjoon. Which means…? If Yoongi knows Namjoon and Namjoon is dead… Is this the ghost telling Yoongi to move on?

Just because it didn’t work out for you and Namjoon doesn’t mean the same will happen to Jimin and I, Yoongi types boldly.

Seokjin shakes his head harshly in response. His voice is snappish and pitched. “That’s what you think. But it’s turning out exactly the same way it did for Namjoon and I. First you despair, then you cry tears of happiness when he returns and you think hey, we can make this work. We’ll make it work. Love will prevail. But it doesn’t. It just doesn’t.”

Hoseok’s mouth falls into a tiny ‘o’ shape. This is another side of Seokjin that he has never seen before. Maybe it’s the side he would have seen if he had told Seokjin he was willing to believe in ghosts.

Yoongi’s expression however is still defiant.

Seokjin despairs. “Why can’t you understand Yoongi, I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to make sure Jimin and you don’t get hurt the same way Namjoon and I did.”

“What happened to Namjoon and you?” Hoseok asks tentatively, taking a step forwards so that he is in Seokjin’s direct line of sight.

Seokjin’s fierce bravado falters. Just saying his name brings back the memories Seokjin has so hard tried to bury. It’s one thing for Namjoon’s name to roll off his lips; it’s another to hear it from Hoseok’s mouth.

Thinking about Namjoon makes him remember losing him, regaining him, and then giving him up, all over again.

There had been a phone call with the cruel and callous news. Seokjin had dropped to his knees and a numbing sensation had clutched his heart.

The next time Seokjin had seen Namjoon had been at his funeral. He had been dressed in a suit far too formal for his tastes and his hair had been carefully combed back. If he was alive Namjoon would have laughed at himself. But instead he was in a casket and Seokjin was the one left behind, unable to laugh even if he wanted to.

He sees himself in Jimin; Namjoon in Yoongi.

So much love to pull them back; so much dedication to not want to leave.

Right now Yoongi’s eyes match those of Namjoon’s when he had first returned as a ghost. Lost. Scared. Fearful.

Seokjin gives a sad little smile. “It’s not a dramatic story or anything Hoseok,” he says. “Namjoon came back to me a month or two before you and I first met. Ghosts are best seen in winter, when reality is fragile and the cold ades. He came back and we were happy. We thought we could make it work. We were wrong.”

Seokjin takes a little step backwards and sits down on Hoseok’s messy bed. It smells like him and it’s comforting.

“What changed?” Hoseok whispers, feeling like a tone any louder would break the pregnant moment.

Seokjin looks skyward, to the boxed in ceiling. “We broke down. We started fighting all the time. Namjoon was lonely; I felt caged. We came to the realization surreal and out of joint our situation was. We were just fooling ourselves into believe it could work. And it wasn’t. So we decided to part ways.”

“Just like that?” Hoseok stares.

Seokjin nods. “Just like that.”

But Namjoon is still here. You still love him. You can make this work. Yoongi’s typing grows frantic. Jimin and I can make this work-

“Yoongi!” Seokjin cuts him off. “Jimin is already moving on. He’s making friends with people his age, he’s thinking about his future. What can you who is stuck in the past do for him who lives in the present?”

Yoongi’s hands pause over the keyboard.

“Hoseok said it himself. It’s not a matter of staying or going, it’s a matter of when and by whose hand.”

Yoongi lifts his head, a fearful expression plastered there.

He backs away, shaking his head.

“Don’t run from reality Yoongi,” Seokjin says. “You know it in your heart. So stop playing pretend.”

Yoongi vanishes.

Hoseok affixes a firm gaze on Seokjin. “That was harsh of you,” he says.

Seokjin looks weary. “It’s the truth. Truth is harsh.”

“You don’t know Yoongi-hyung. He doesn’t just fall in love with anyone. Jimin was special to him and if anyone can make it work it’s the two of them.”

Seokjin shakes his head, a bemused smile on his face. “Are you saying my love for Namjoon wasn’t strong enough?”

Hoseok’s eyes widen. “That-“

“It’s okay.” Seokjin holds up one hand. “I know you didn’t mean it, and that was mean of me. But I’m just so tired of it all.” He rests his head in his hands, cradling what is left of his fragile body. “I’m tired of being hurt and watching others get hurt as well. I’m tired of mourning for so long. I just…Hoseok…” He lifts his head up and looks at Hoseok, begging almost. “I just want to live.”

Hoseok drops to his knees, one hand coming up to rest on Seokjin’s thigh. “I’m sorry hyung,” he whispers. “You’ve suffered as well, haven’t you?”

Seokjin leans forwards, his forehead on Hoseok’s shoulder. “But Yoongi and Jimin are the one suffering’s right now.”

“They’ll figure it out,” Hoseok says. “You don’t need to be selfless all the time hyung. Worry about yourself as well.”

Seokjin exhales. “Then let me stay like this for a while Hoseok,” he whispers.

Hoseok closes his eyes and rests his other hand on the back of Seokjin’s head. He’s so cold. Why hasn’t Hoseok noticed this before?

“Go ahead hyung,” he says softly. “Rest for a while.”

*

Jimin greets Yoongi’s entry with the brightest of smiles.

“Welcome home hyung!” he says cheerfully, rushing forwards to wrap his long limbs around Yoongi. “I missed you!”

Yoongi’s expression softens. Is that so brat, he says.

Jimin wrinkles his nose at Yoongi’s difficult affection. “Dinner?”

Yoongi nods and Jimin lets go in favor of heading towards the kitchen. It’s so bright here with Jimin. The sky is dark and the weather cold, but somehow just seeing Jimin’s face makes him feel warm on the inside.

Is it really possible that none of this will last?  

*

Jimin takes Yoongi with him the next time he goes over to Taehyung and Jungkook’s house. They communicate through computer and keyboard and Yoongi has to put up with Jungkook’s overly sharp questions and the endless barrage of Taehyung’s nonsensical ones.

Yoongi watches the three of them dance around the kitchen, attempting to cook and failing a lot of the time. They interact like childhood friends who knows each other’s endless intricacies and somehow that just means they end up pranking one another and dissolving into puddles of laughter.

Yoongi watches them and Seokjin and Namjoon’s words ring in his ears: How much longer can you two play pretend?

Not much longer apparently.

Jimin is there within reach, but at the same time he is a thousand miles away.

Yoongi opens his hand, closes it. Imagines Jimin’s future sitting in the palm of it. He could open it and set him free. Or he could close it and tie Jimin to him forever.

The choice is so tantalizingly easy.

*

Yoongi has been vanishing frequently of late.

Jimin knows he’s spending a lot of time over at Taehyung and Jungkook’s, and with Hoseok and Seokjin whenever they decide to drop by, but his nights are dedicated to Yoongi.

Some nights it is just lying in bed together, feeling his heartbeat beat alone. Other nights Yoongi presses kisses down his throat and slips into him and s him so hard that Jimin thinks he’ll never be able to forget the sensation of Yoongi’s skin against his no matter how fleeting his presence may be.

Some nights though Jimin awakens to find Yoongi staring out of the window, one hand pressed to the pane just like that night when he first returned. Yoongi feels intermittently close and then far. He’s like a fever, hot and cold, and Jimin can never tell when he is what.

Hey, Yoongi mouths softly one evening as he slips through the wall.

That’s another thing Yoongi has learnt how to do. To move through solid objects as he likes. He doesn’t bother with the door anymore, or with lifts or stairs. Sometimes Jimin wonders if Yoongi just imagines where he wants to be and then simply appears there.

Not for the first time Jimin finds himself reevaluating their situation. Yoongi is a ghost and Jimin is not. That shouldn’t mean anything. It shouldn’t.

Yoongi heads for his laptop, opening it up and resting it in his lap as he sits down on the sofa. I was out today and I thought up this new song. Just wait till I finish it. It’s going to be amazing, he types onto a blank document.

Jimin matches his smile with his own. It feels forced, the edges not quite reaching his eyes the way they used to.

Yoongi is dead. Jimin is alive.

It shouldn’t mean anything because love with make it all work and they can survive it together. Right? Death means nothing. It shouldn’t mean anything.

Only…only Jimin is discovering that it’s starting to.

*

It’s clear from Namjoon’s eyes that he’s been expecting Yoongi.

“You’re not ready to leave,” he says, eyes seeing straight to the truth. “So what is it that you want Yoongi?”

He doesn’t turn to look at Yoongi who appears out of thin air. He stares instead at the rapidly darkening skyline. Winter has set in deep, snow in a flurry, and sky that fades by mid-afternoon. It plunges the world from white skies to inky smears in a matter of minutes and it is like a leviathan swallowing the world.

Yoongi waits until the final dregs of daylight has been completely consumed before speaking.

“Tell me how to wipe Jimin’s memories.”

Namjoon turns and there is pride in his eyes.

*

Christmas day is a whole group event. They gather at Seokjin and Hoseok’s house, Taehyung running about and tripping over just about anything, Jungkook in the kitchen with Seokjin helping him cook, Hoseok and Jimin in the living room trying out new dance moves and miraculously not breaking a leg with their antics.

Yoongi watches them all with gentle amusement.

“Winter is nearly over,” Seokjin says quietly, stopping by the chair where Yoongi is curled up, eyes never once leaving Jimin. Jimin made sure to tell Hoseok and the others exactly where Yoongi is so that another going-through-the-Yoongi incident doesn’t occur again.   “Have you made up your mind?”

Yoongi gives one small nod. He’s surprisingly at peace with his decision.

Seokjin’s eyes widen. “And that is?”

Yoongi turns to look at Seokjin. Promise me something Seokjin, he says.

“Anything,” Seokjin responds without hesitation.

Yoongi’s lips twitch with amusement. Take care of Jimin for me will you.”

Seokjin returns the smile. “Always.”

Yoongi turns back to the fresh sound of laughter – of Jimin being happy. I’ll take care of Namjoon okay?

Seokjin laughs. “Really? I’d think both of you would hopeless at taking care of each other. Say what you will I know Jimin always did your laundry.”

Yoongi wrinkles his nose. Yeah well, hopefully there won’t be any detergent issues where we go.

Seokjin places a hand to Yoongi’s shoulder, warm and comforting. He sits on the edge of the chair so that Yoongi can see his genuine gratitude. “Thank you Yoongi.”

For what? Yoongi asks, perplexed.

His expression must be gold because Seokjin lets out a little laugh, all smooth and gentle. It’s a nice laugh. Erase the anger and the sorrow out of Seokjin and you are left with possibly the nicest person on the planet. Yoongi partially regrets not getting to know Seokjin better before.

“Thank you for helping Namjoon move on as well. Letting Namjoon go was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Discovering that even then he wasn’t able to move on was even harder. I thought it was my fault. In a way I guess I was really harsh on you because I didn’t want you to go through the same thing I did.”

Yoongi feels a pang of guilt that he hasn’t told Seokjin exactly how he plans to convince Jimin to let him go. But then again, if he did tell Seokjin he knows it would only make Seokjin stricken. So he keeps it quiet and asks him something else.

Was there nothing you could do to stay together with him?

Seokjin shakes his head. “We tried. We tried for nearly four months. The movies make it sound so easy. But it's not." 

What happened? Yoongi asks, unable to draw his eyes away from the shake of Seokjin’s chin.

Seokjin looks at him, eyes shiny with unshed tears. “Spring came,” he says and closes his eyes.

*

Spring.

By right there should be another month or so before spring properly settles in and sunlight returns with vigor, but Yoongi knows now that things are best done when the year changes in. A fresh start. A new beginning.

Christmas may have been a six peopled event, but New Year’s Eve is just the two of them.

Jimin has it all planned out. Dinner, fireworks, and the romantic kiss under the moonlight at the end of it all. He’s gone over the plan with Taehyung and Jungkook so many times that Taehyung has started repeating it in his sleep.

Yoongi hates formalities, so Jimin just wears a thick jacket and jeans. Yoongi puts on his favorite leather jacket and some thick boots.

“Ready?” Jimin is hopping from one foot to the other at the door, unable to hold in his excitement.

Yoongi suppresses a smile and nods, meeting him at the door.

The night is cold, billows of frost hanging low at Jimin’s mouth. The moon however is full, large and round and it entrances Yoongi.

“Hyung, pay attention,” Jimin complains as Yoongi has just ignored his entire conversation since leaving the house.

Yoongi offers him an apologetic smile and holds out a hand. Jimin is a little surprised because his hyung is not usually one for skinship, but it’s new year’s eve and he’ll take what he can.

His hands are cold and Yoongi tucks their entwined hands into his pockets. He has no human warmth so to speak, but he still manages to warm Jimin’s heart.

Fireworks are over Han River. Jimin knows the other will be there and that they know not to disturb them until after midnight. Jimin puts his free hand into his left hand pocket to finger and check for the box. It’s there. It’s all okay.

He calms his racing heart.

The crowd is thickening along the bank so Yoongi and Jimin stroll by at the top of the hill, keeping well away from anyone who might accidentally walk through Yoongi. Normally Jimin loves plunging straight first into the thick of the crowd, just to feel the beat and the bump of other human bodies. Yoongi however hates the shuffle of feet and the push of bodies. Ghosthood appears to have given him a legit reason not to immerse himself into those hateful crowds.

Jimin, Yoongi scrawls with one finger into the palm of Jimin’s hand.

“Yeah hyung?” Jimin hums, eyes fixed onto the stall selling chicken.

Are you happy?

Jimin halts, drops his gaze away from the chicken stall and its grilled allure.

“I am hyung. I really am.”

Excited for university?

“Hyung!” Jimin complains, and the moment passes. “You know I’m nervous about that!” Jimin’s put forwards an application to switch Universities. He’ll have to restart from year 1 but it means he can start anew with Jungkook and Taehyung. All three of them have applied for a general course but Yoongi has seen the shine in Jimin’s eyes whenever Hoseok has invited him to come to the dance studio.

Jimin continues his inane chatter about campus, about the dorms , about Taehyung and Jungkook and sharing with classes with them, about Hoseok who will be his senior. He talks and Yoongi’s heart aches because he knows that he will not be a part of this.  

Seokjin was right. Jimin hasn’t realized it yet but he is moving on and looking at the future with his head held high. Yoongi is chained to the past. The further he walks, the further Yoongi falls behind. Frustration builds just at the mere thought. It’s like smoke, thick and heavy, and one day it will choke the two of them to death.

Yoongi is going to end it before that day comes.

“Hey hyung,” Jimin whispers, hands tightening on Yoongi’s fingers. “Look.”

Fireworks explode above them, a glorious burn of gold and yellow and red. Sparks shower down in rainy trails and against the black background of the sky they are beautiful array of artwork. Yoongi doesn’t even realize he’s holding his breath until Jimin exhales, having exhausted his air supply.

“Isn’t it amazing,” he breathes and Yoongi gives a small nod in agreement.

“Happy new year hyung,” Jimin grins, turning and pressing a kiss to Yoongi’s cheek. It’s messy and slips so that he ends up kissing Yoongi’s ear instead. Yoongi grins like a fool and wraps an arm around Jimin’s neck, tugging him over and kissing him properly on the lips.

That’s how you’re supposed to do it kid, he says and Jimin laughs, eyes flattening and creases appearing. Jimin’s gotten good at reading his lips, as much as he is at kissing them.

Jimin leans forwards to kiss Yoongi again. “Better?” he says teasingly and Yoongi rolls his eyes.

Another shower of red and blue flickers in Yoongi’s peripheral.

“I have something for you hyung,” Jimin says softly, pulling something out of his pocket. It’s a necklace with a thick black cord and a stone pendant on the end. There are two of them, a matching set. “I thought we could start the new year with a promise.”

Something sticks in Yoongi’s throat, heavy and unyielding. He takes the necklace and loops it over his head. It sits just above his bone, uncomfortably warm.

“It looks good on you,” Jimin beams.

I have something for you as well, Yoongi says and presses a solid object into Jimin’s hand. Jimin unfurls his fingers to find a tiny USB stick.

“This is?”

The song I said I was writing.

“Yeah?” Jimin sounds pleased as he pockets it. “Am I the first person to listen to it?”

Yoongi fights to keep the smile off his face. Cheeky little brat. Of course, he says. It’s your song.

Jimin’s eyes widen. “A song? For me? Mine? You wrote it for me?”

Yoongi rolls his eyes to hide his amusement and nods. Yes, yours.  

Jimin’s heart does a little stutter. It isn’t the first time that Yoongi has written a song incorporating his feelings for Jimin into, but this is the first time Yoongi has written a song purely for Jimin.

Jimin’s cheeks are beginning to hurt from smiling so hard. “What’s the occasion for?” he asks teasingly, nudging Yoongi gently.

Yoongi’s smile flickers and fades.

Jimin notices it. “Hyung?”

There’s a spark of gold, small and it is swallowed into the blackness of the night almost instantly. A brother joins it in the sky but it too is quickly doused by the darkness.

Jimin… Yoongi starts and then falters. I…

Seokjin’s right. The movies make it look much easier than it really is.

Yoongi reaches out with one finger, touches to Jimin’s cheeks that are tinged with the winter chill. I want you to be happy. No matter what, he writes across skin.

“Hyung-“ Jimin starts, but Yoongi shushes him with a kiss.

I love you Park Jimin, he writes, nose touching against Jimin’s and Jimin’s eyes are wide, staring right into Yoongi’s depths. This is all Yoongi can think of saying. Famous last words these are. I will always love you and I will always watch over you.

He presses a gentle kiss to Jimin’s lips, nose, eyes, a final one to his forehead. One hand sneaks around the back of Jimin’s head. It’s gentle and as Yoongi downwards Jimin feels an incredible urge to close his eyes. He resists it. Or at least he tries to. The words, the promise, the song. It can only mean one thing.

“Don’t do this hyung, please,” he begs, his voice a weak trickle as the fireworks above them comes to a .

Yoongi shakes his head and smiles softly, presses one final kiss to Jimin’s lips. Gods, he’ll miss them. Goodbye Park Jimin, he mouths into the soft press there and Jimin reads his words against lips and skin. He’s crying before he even understands what is happening.

Yoongi’s fingers clasp around the back of Jimin’s cranium as the final burst of fireworks ricochet above them, again and again and again like starbusts of love. 

There’s a heartbeat. A flicker of white. Jimin closes his eyes and the fireworks echo behind the lids in showers of gold and silver and red. They spark and flash and then as all things do, they vanish.

*

“Yoongi!” Seokjin yells, skidding to a halt.

He watches as Yoongi lowers Jimin’s unconscious form to the soft grass beneath. When he stands, he looks every bit the foreign spirit he is.

“You didn’t have to erase his memories, you know that right Yoongi?” Seokjin says as he searches deep into Yoongi’s eyes.

Jimin and I are not like Namjoon and you, Yoongi says firmly, one hand touching to the necklace that Jimin had begged Seokjin to help him pick out. You can survive knowing that Namjoon is somewhere better even if it is not by your side. Jimin can’t.  

“He’ll learn He’ll grow. We’ll help him,” Seokjin protests.

Maybe, Yoongi muses. But either way, this is for the better. He looks down at his hands which flicker once. I don’t have much longer now that I’ve extinguished Jimin’s memories of me.

He looks down at Jimin’s sleeping form and a fond expression dances over his face in the creasing of his eyes and the flicker of a tiny smile.

There is a movement from behind Yoongi. Seokjin looks past him to see Namjoon appear.

No words are needed.

Namjoon presses his lips close in that unique smile of his and closes his eyes, ducking his head slightly to Seokjin. I missed you, he says with his smile alone.

Seokjin grips his fists and wills them to stay by his side. I missed you too.

Namjoon turns to Yoongi, breaking the spell. “Are you ready?” he says in words that Seokjin cannot hear. Only Yoongi can, but right now he is carding his fingers through Jimin’s mussed hair one last time. They linger at the crown of his head, and then Yoongi breaks away.

Take care of him for me, Yoongi says throatily to Seokjin.

 “I will,” Seokjin promises, tears burning at the back of his throat. Why on earth do movies make it sound so easy? It really isn’t.

Make sure he eats on time and gets to classes and doesn’t drink too much, Yoongi says.  

Seokjin mouth trembles. “I will.”

Make sure he gets out there and tries out all the things he wants to try. Make sure he finds a dream and follows it.

“I got it,” Seokjin says tightly.

And…if he should fall in love with another person, make sure that person is perfect for him. Yoongi can feel his body begin to tremble. Once again he’s thankful that he cannot cry. What a scene he’d be elsewise. The one and only Min Yoongi, crying right before he vanishes. Now that would be a movie scene.

Seokjin’s eyes soften. “I will.”

And… Yoongi presses the heel of his hands to his eyes. He cannot cry but he sure feels like he wants to right now. And…

There is a warm hand on his shoulder. Namjoon’s. “Seokjin will take care of him,” he says gently.

Yoongi’s body flickers again and so does Namjoon's. It’s like they’re connected, both of them beings from a world away.

Namjoon looks over the top of Yoongi’s head to Seokjin. There’s a terrible longing in those eyes and Seokjin has to wrap his arms around himself, a last ditch attempt to stop himself from running over and holding Namjoon back.

“I’ll take care of him Yoongi,” he promises throatily. You take care of yourself, is his silent wish to Namjoon.

Namjoon’s eyes burn back, a comet racing to catch up to the passing star.

“It’s time to go,” he says to Yoongi and Yoongi snatches one last glimpse of Jimin’s sleeping form, his chest rising and falling, his hand clasped to the necklace. There are so many memories there and saying farewell is the hardest thing Yoongi feels like he has to do. He never had to do it the first time round.

His bottom lip trembles and Yoongi turns before his lips can betray him further.

Namjoon blinks once, a goodbye to Seokjin and Seokjin watches as they both take a step backwards.

Seokjin loses it. He stumbles forwards, one hand flying out and Namjoon bites down on his lip as he they clasp hands and intertwine fingers.

“Goodbye Namjoon,” Seokjin whispers brokenly as he presses a chaste kiss to Namjoon’s lips. When he pulls away Namjoon’s eyes are wide and shiny.  

Love you, he mouths, because Namjoon has never been able to say goodbye, and then before either of them can betray their promise again, the wind blows, and Yoongi and Namjoon are gone.  

*

“Hyung!” Taehyung hollers as he pounds over to where Seokjin still stands, the ghost of a kiss on his lips. “Where did you run off to? Jungkook wanted to get candy but we ran out of money and Hoseok said we could only buy toffee apple if you said it was okay and-“

He looks down at where Jimin is curled into the grass. “Why are you sleeping here Jiminnie?” he kicked at Jimin’s torso with one sneakered foot.

“Taehyung!” Seokjin chides, more out of pure habit than anything else. His voice comes across as exhausted. He feels it in every bone of his body.

Taehyung shrugs and drops to a squat, swirling a lollipop in his mouth. “Jimin, Jimin, Jimin-ah,” he says as he pokes Jimin’s cheek with one finger.

Seokjin is too tired to say anything.

“It’s not good to be sleeping out in the cold Jiminnie,” Taehyung says. “Wake up before you catch a cold.”

Seokjin’s brow furrows as he realizes not for the first time that as scatterbrained as Taehyung may seem, he actually takes quite good care of Jimin and Jungkook.

There’s the pattering of feet as Hoseok and Jungkook approach them. “Is Jimin okay?” Hoseok asks immediately, heading straight for his sleeping form.

“He-“ Seokjin starts, but words fail him. How can he explain what Yoongi has done?

Hoseok shakes Jimin by the shoulder gently and Jimin stirs. He blinks and opens eyes, dark as pitch. Seokjin makes his way over and sinks down into the grass.

“Are you okay Jiminnie?” he asks gently.

Jimin doesn’t reply at first. His eyes roam in their sockets, his lips move but he doesn’t speak. It’s like he’s readjusting to his body. In a way he probably is. Having your memories wiped must not be an easy affair.  

“H…yung?” he eventually croaks.

“Yeah,” Seokjin breaths with relief. “Do you remember me?”

Hoseok’s brow furrows at the question, but he chooses not the voice it then and there. Instead he helps Jimin sit up, one hand resting at the small of his back.

“I…know who you are hyung,” Jimin manages, his voice still pitifully small and lost. “What happened?”

Seokjin hates lying, but then again half his life has been a lie ever since Namjoon died. “You fainted,” he says. “How do you feel now? What can you recall?”

Jimin looks at his hand, empty and bare. The necklace lies limp on his chest. “I feel a little dizzy,” he admits. “And I can’t remember what happened. Why are we here? What happened? Who was I with?” He looks searching at Seokjin. “I feel like I was with someone, but why can’t I remember who it was?”  

Seokjin swallows. This will be the first of many lies. A castle of lies and he builds it fallen body upon fallen body. “You can’t remember who that person was?”  

Jimin shakes his head slowly. “Am I supposed to?” he asks innocently.

There’s a burn in Seokjin’s chest at Jimin’s expectant gaze, heavy and ashy. “No,” he says slowly, ignoring Jungkook, Taehyung and Hoseok’s curious stares. “No, you’re not supposed to at all.”