Horserace .19.

I stirred awake. My eyes felt incredibly heavy as I attempted opening them; each lid cracking open slowly as I took in the painful sunlight that escaped in through the bedroom curtains, and grumbled as I made myself comfortable again in the warm, soft pillow beneath me.

I wasn’t ready to face the day just yet. I could almost imagine Genji’s cries from my phone blaring to life to get me out of bed for work, and I groaned inwardly at the thought of waking up. If being woken up thanks to sun in your face was bad enough, an awful wave of pain that coursed through my limbs had me practically writhing in bed as I struggled to fall back to sleep.

The devil was probably laughing at me at this point for my useless tricks to fall into exhaustion again, and I frowned; eyes still closed shut. Why did it feel as if I barely got any sleep last night?

Oh… right. It was Suga.

I remembered we stayed up awfully late; the two of us just lazing in bed, stubbornly fending off sleep as he told me his story with shuttered eyes, and even though I was exhausted from the emotional roller coaster it put me on, I listened to him attentively. I wasn’t quite sure if Suga was aware of it, but his hand remained in mine for the duration of his painful recollections – the muscles in his hand flexing every now and again as he spoke, and then he’d would fall into a bout of silence as I allowed for his words to settle in.

A lot began to make sense to me. In fact, I felt I tapped into the Suga that even his closest friends weren’t able to reach for the past year, and weirdly, I felt incredibly touched he confided in me the way he did. Despite how awful I was at holding back my tears when he reached the end, and the horrid weeping I pulled off to myself when I realized how deeply the loss of Yunji affected his creative expertise, Suga was surprisingly patient with me.

‘And you asked me about Jiho…,’ I mumbled between jagged breaths of air as I attempted to look strong in front of him.

It was embarrassing enough that he’d managed to wrangle an awful lot of apologies from me last night, and I couldn’t bear the thought of crying in his stead for Yunji.

‘Well, you now owe me that story anyway,’ he said with a tinge of playfulness despite the tense atmosphere.

I barely managed a laugh. ‘One day. When I’m back in my body, maybe.’

The rest of the evening continued on into the early hours of the morning in lulls of sleep. We spoke about a great deal of things in our drunken states of exhaustion, which was something I was certain I’d never done with anyone before. But I was strangely at peace. If anything, I was the most comfortable with Suga than I’d ever been. The barrier that been between us for the past few days of awkward silence and hurt had melted with mutual understanding.

I felt at ease for the first time in a long, long time… and I was certain Suga felt that way too when I realized upon gaining consciousness that his hand was still in mine despite the rising of the sun.

Our fingers were tangled; our palms a moist breeding ground for sweat which on any other occasion would have had me wriggling away without a second thought, but I felt an incredible sense of contentment. If this sort of contact eased his thoughts, I was more than glad to offer him the solace.

I like you, Yoongi, my mind blurted, and I wasn’t even ashamed to admit it anymore.

I stared beside me at the crumpled sheets; his form buried under the gray throw from last night; and watched his imaginary outline with melting reverence. If ever I’d imagined someone offering me this kind of look in the early hours of the morning before work; the smell of fresh coffee brewing in the machine, the birds chirping outside, the sunlight flittering in through net curtains as I emerged from the bedroom with messy hair and no makeup; the thought never quite occurred to me that I could very well reciprocate that kind of affection.

But here I was doing it. Against my own will. It’s alright to be selfish sometimes, right?

I wasn’t conscious of it, but my raging thoughts were so intense that I’d been mindlessly squeezing onto Suga’s hand beneath the covers. My palm sank into his snugly; my fingers clenching his as tightly as my heart squeezed and clamped within my chest.

I really, really like you, Yoongi.

The sun had almost entirely consumed the room with a gradual flourishing akin to that of a reluctant daisy spreading its petals awake like dormant limbs, and the loud clatter of the front door was heard.

My eyes snapped open with incredible alertness at this. More clatter ensued, followed by a few voices I could only assume belonged to one of the boys, and I shot out of bed, throwing the covers over me almost instantly. I tore myself out of bed; the action so rushed that I felt awfully light-headed for a moment; and rushed to the door, latching it shut.

I stared at the door with intense concentration as the realization dawned on me that Suga was still in bed… or the fact that we were in bed together, and if any one of his friends had to walk in now, it would turn into a bloody mess worthy of putting back on the verge of getting a heart attack.

‘Crap…’ I mumbled under my breath with surprising clarity, but I didn’t stop to consider this fact.

I turned around; my body feeling incredibly light for some reason, but I could only assume it was the work of having so abruptly gotten out of bed. My head still spun as I made my way to the bed and groggily yanked at Suga’s arm beneath the blanket that buried his entire form underneath.

‘Get up…!’ I whispered, pulling on what I was certain was his arm as hard as I could, and cursed mentally at how difficult that really was.

Wow, how many hours of sleep did I get last night that I’m this weak? What the hell happened to all Suga’s manly strength? … Wait, and since when did I have such bulky arms that I could barely pull them out of the bed?

I gritted my teeth, pushing these questions to the back of my mind considering the dire circumstance we were in and yanked once again as powerfully as I could on his arm. I seemingly managed to pull his upper half out almost entirely from underneath the covers, but his dead weight was so incredible that I gave up as soon as I noticed him almost completely motionless on the bed. I fell back on my derriere on impact and squeaked as it made contact with the hard carpet floor. It didn’t help one bit that my limbs too were aching madly and threatened to fall off with all the hard work I did trying to pull him out of bed, but—

Wait a minute, did I just squeak…? I stared with wide eyes at the single arm that dangled on the side of the bed thanks to my prior efforts, and the shock was so great, I sat stunned on the floor for the next few seconds.

‘Yoongi?’

It sounded like Hoseok as he knocked on the bedroom door a few times; the sound of his knuckles clacking against the wood almost echoing in my mind as I stared in complete bewilderment at Suga’s large, unmoving form under the blanket.

‘Hyung, are you in there? You OK?’

It was Taehyung this time, followed by more calls on the other side of the door, however I was in far too much shock to register their concerned words. I felt myself break out in a horrid cold sweat, and reached out tentatively with my still-sweaty palm.

‘Well folks, it seems like number 8, Insanity, has won the race!’ the emcee’s melodramatic voice cried out as my eyes zoned in on the pale arm ahead of me.

I could hear the crowd’s laughter in the background. The confetti bursting overhead, the cameras panning in around me as my entire body trembled with incredible fear.

‘Oh, what’s this, what’s this? It seems like number 5—no, number 2!—Dream, has taken the lead!’

I woke up with such a start that it felt as if someone had thrown me head-first into a body of cold water. The moment my eyes snapped open, I found myself staring into another pair… that pair belonging to none other than my own body, who was seemingly adjusting the collar of her white work shirt; a hand on my forehead, brushing away the pink bangs.

‘Are you OK?’

I stared at Suga wordlessly, still recovering from how ridiculously lifelike the dream I had honestly was. It