Tired. Just tired.

That's all Namjoon had been feeling lately. All the way to his bones.

He leaned back lazily in the computer chair, legs splayed out in front of him without any sort of care in the world. He was slouched far enough that he felt the back of the chair up against the base of his skull, head leaned so far back that if he looked straight ahead, he'd be staring at the ceiling. Instead, his eyes were strained downward toward the monitor while he clicked and scrolled listlessly through posts he shouldn't have been reading-- hate messages and comments that probably would have hurt more ... if he just wasn't so tired.

Not sleep-tired, although that was on its way, but soul-tired.

Such was the life of an idol. Of an artist. Of a rapper. Of anyone with status. You get the good with the bad, the bad with the good. But sometimes, especially very late at night after endless hours of practice, the bad just slightly outweighed and decided to leave an iron clench on the heart. Again, it didn't particularly hurt, but it added to the density he was feeling in his chest.

The only sounds in the computer room was that of Namjoon's mouse clicking quietly, and the very quiet sounds of Gaeko coming from the speakers. He'd turned the volume pretty low down so he could hear the sound of his thoughts better, but had decided once he'd hit the Internet that he didn't even want to hear those. Still, it was late, and a thumping bass wasn't really what he was going for at the moment anyway.

With a click, he closed the forum he'd been surfing, after reading a particularly long post about how he wasn't any kind of true hip-hop artist due to being "leashed" by a company. "Don't think of yourself as 'underground' if you're owned by the land above." Closing his eyes against the montior's light, he tried to think of all the good things he'd read from fans-- how perfect his voice sounded to them, how great his image had been, how good his style was, how much his dancing had improved (even just slightly), how kind the group was to each other, how much they'd grown up over the years. But the negative comments came floating back up, in the end, and he squeezed his eyes tighter in an attempt to ignore them, like he just had to do every once in a while.

Namjoon was so distracted by everything he'd been reading and by the weariness in his body that he didn't hear the door to the room creak open. He hadn't really been thinking about if anyone else would be wanting to come in and check up on things or record a video log; in fact, he'd not been focusing on what the rest of the group was doing at all. As the leader, it was sometimes a bit of a relief to be alone and meditate on oneself, even if what he was meditating on wasn't the best.

Upon poking the door ajar and peeking in, Yoongi was expecting his groupmate to turn around in the chair and toss back a joke about "knocking before entering, you don't know what's going on in here" or something similar. To which he would have immediately replied with something witty and they would have had a good laughing moment. Instead, he was greeted with the slumped form of Namjoon, his pastel-splattered hair the only real visible body part. The monitor was still on, but, with nothing on the screen, Yoongi could almost only assume the other had fallen asleep.

Briefly, the redhead had the idea of sneaking up and scaring his friend awake, maybe donning a mask and strumming the nearby guitar ominously. The atmosphere in the room was strangely thick, though, and he wasn't feeling like the timing was good-- instead, he quietly closed the door behind him and took a few steps forward, peering over Namjoon's form curiously. Instead of sleeping, though, the leader's mouth was partially opened in a scowl and his hand was up against his temple, his eyes shut with effort instead of relaxation; he looked halfway between concentration and frustration.

It was too late not to get any kind of startled reaction, so Yoongi just let out a slight cough, clearing his throat in the process. In the stillness of the room, even with Gaeko's rhymes eminating in near-whispers from the computer, the sound came out quite a bit louder than he intended.

"Yah!" Namjoon said with a start, nearly slipping the rest of the way down the chair to the floor with his legs not providing much of a foundation. He gripped the arms of the chair and swiveled a little to glare up at Yoongi's slightly-wide-eyed 'oops' face. Realising who it was when the older one cracked an apologetic half-smile, Namjoon shook his head and sighed. "Scared the hell out of me. What's up, man? You need the computer?"

"No," he replied with a lazy half-shrug, giving a polite nod of acknowledgement in his groupmate's direction, "really just seeing what you were up to. Saw the computer light through the window and figured you were either recording or writing."

Namjoon gave a shake of his head and sat up straighter and more comfortably in the chair, attempting to crack his neck or at least stretch the stress out of it. "Neither, actually, reading the some of these people post online." He squinted his eyes a bit and side-eyed the form standing to the right of him. "I'm getting a bit tired of our rapping not 'actually' being rapping, because, you know, despite the fact that it's said in the form of--well, you know, fancy that--rap, when it comes out of an idol's mouth it turns into ing baked bread and flowers or something?"

Yoongi barked a humourless scoff, and resumed his half-grin, leaning his left arm on the back of the chair, letting his fingers pluck boredly at some of the spikier and more colourful sections of Namjoon's hair. "Yeah well, they can talk all day, the best they're doing in their lives is typing up ty video comments while we do something with ourselves." He leaned his upper body forward a bit and met Namjoon's gaze. "You're not actually taking any of it seriously, are you?"

The leader tried to match his friend's scoff, but it came out as a breathy sigh instead. "If I was smart, I'd say no."

"Well, no one said you were smart, so go on."

"Ha ha ha. No, it's just ...," Namjoon trailed off with another sigh, staring through the screen in front of him as he tried to figure out what he was attempting to say. He plucked a little at a random fold at the knee of his jeans. "After a while, I can't help but feel it. Most of the time, I brush it off as nothing, but once you hear something over and over, you start to go, 'Man if everyone's saying it, it must be true.'"

"But it's not everyone saying it, it's the jerks that are the loudest," his hyung responded, continuing his lazy assault on the cotton candy-coloured hair strands, "and you know that." Yoongi's eyes wandered over to where Namjoon's hands were now idly tugging at one of his hoodie strings, obviously in a form of frustrated fidgeting. "You're always the one telling us never to read into it. Listen to your own advice."

Namjoon, noticing lightly that he was enjoying the feeling of Yoongi absentmindedly toying with his hair and that it was helping him to relax, nodded slightly. He kept his eyes faced forward as he spoke. "I know. And I stand by what I say. But sometimes, as the one having to keep us progressing forward, I feel like I have to take these comments and shoulder them for all of us, and frankly it's starting to feel really goddamn heavy." He his lips and continued fidgeting with his clothes, realising he was grateful for getting the thoughts off his chest. Having a best friend in an already-close band of brothers was one of the pillars keeping him standing, helping him remain the foundation that pushed them to stay strong under the pressure.

Standing there with him in the quiet, somewhat dark room, Yoongi could hear the weight in his leader's words, and felt himself trying to take some of it on for him. When their Rap Monster wasn't at 100%, the rest of the group wasn't either, and Yoongi was particularly good at brushing off the negative. He never claimed to be optimistic, he'd just learned when and where to actually give a .

With another humourless chuckle, he started purposely through the soft strands of Namjoon's hair, a heavy-hearted attempt at comfort. He could physically feel the other boy's slight slump in the chair as some of the tension left him. After a second, he drew his hand back and used the weight that was leaning slightly on the chair to nudge it so his bandmate was facing more toward him, getting to actually look him in the face. He bent his chest forward so he could lean his left hand on the armrest of the computer chair, his right hand immediately reaching out and wrapping around Namjoon's string-tugging fingers, the little hoodie string and all.

Namjoon's eyebrows raised, looking right into Yoongi's indolent eyes, the kind that always looked like they knew more than they were letting on. They were just as focused on his own, a smirk playing on the older's face; he felt the warmth of Yoongi's hand on his, the barest of effort put forth in the grip. Namjoon could have pulled away and told him to back off, but something about the way his hyung was looking at him was keeping him still. The tension he was feeling over the commentary and negativity was slowly being vanquished by the playful affection in all these actions.

"You need to quit shouldering everything for us," Yoongi finally spoke, "and give a about yourself every now and again. When you're not feelin' it, we're not feelin' it, and that ." Yoongi glanced briefly at their touching hands and then back into Namjoon's curious eyes. "I don't know if you realise just how much I need you to stop caring what they think, and instead care about the fact that we-- nah, that I'm always around for you to at or take a swing at or whatever you need to do to take a load off and get back to being you. Okay?"

Namjoon's lips parted slightly as he breathed out a moment, not wanting to pull his eyes away. The words he was he hearing was, unbeknownst to him, exactly what he was needing that evening, and he was reeling from the fact that his best friend had managed to have the perfect reaction to his momentary downturn. In response, he twisted his hand out from under Yoongi's grip and properly interlaced their fingers instead, squeezing once. He swallowed some of the twitchiness in his voice as the electricity of the moment took ahold of him. "I-- yeah, yeah, no, you're right. I keep forgetting." He his lips out of temporary timidity and let his gaze explore his bandmate's face: his lips, his jawline, even the way his eyebrows were slightly furrowed. "Thanks. For ... that. And everything."

Seemingly satisfied by his leader either having relaxed more or having at least replaced the source of his tension, Yoongi gave him a big smile and scrunched his nose a little. "You're welcome. And you're also welcome for this." In a swift motion, he took his left hand from leaning on the armrest and gently placed it against the side of Namjoon's temple, while leaning forward and planting a noisy, somewhat playful, kiss on his lips. As quick as he'd started, he leaned back and stood straight up again, the cocky gummy smile back on his face, lidded eyes gazing down as if he'd just said the world's wittiest pick-up line. "Now cheer the up and let's go get some sleep, it's been a long day."

Yoongi teasingly chewed on his lip for a second and winked cartoonishly, resuming the smile and heading toward the door of the office.

Recovering from the actions of the past 30 seconds that felt more like 10 minutes, Namjoon gathered his thoughts and the moment came rushing back to him as he watched his hyung's retreating back. "Yeah yeah," he finally said, laughing and pushing himself out of the chair as if he'd never even felt bad at all, "I'll cheer your face up with my fist when you try to tell me what to do." He gave a big wide grin and followed, wondering just what would happen the next time Yoongi caught him alone in the computer room.