“You know where my apartment is, don’t you?” he asked to the boy that night in front of the club.

“Yeah, rich chaebol hyung, of course I know. Apartment in Gangnam, it’s hard not to point that out,” blurted the boy whose name he knew now as Jimin.

Chaebol. That was one of the few words that he hated to hear, much less to be used to describe him. Yoongi rolled his eyes before continuing.

“Then come to the apartment, anytime you want. Go to the receptionist and say your name. I’ll leave your handkerchief there so you could take it back.”

He still felt bad about having the fabric on his hand, since it definitely and clearly belonged to the boy. At one point, of course he had to return it back. Or maybe bought him a new one, since his blood had smeared the handkerchief and he had found no way to clean the apparent smudge. Having a stranger’s blood on your handkerchief. That was indeed unsettling.

“I change my mind. I’ll buy you a new one,” he said, taking in to his thoughts.

Jimin raised his hands, clearly rejecting his offer.

“No, don’t sweat it, hyung. The handkerchief’s yours.”

He was giving him the handkerchief? No, Yoongi couldn’t accept that. As much as an he really was, he clearly didn’t take people’s property just as easily as that, even when he was an who crashed his car on people. He had to change that, though, because the thought of being a ‘crasher’ really felt unsettling to his mind and here Jimin was trying to remind him about that fact over and over again almost every time they met with that stupid and ludicrous nickname.

“You’re making me feel bad, you know,” he said.

He regretted saying those words, because a mischievous smile lighted up Jimin’s face.

“Then I have a proposal to make you feel better, hyung. Say, do this and it’ll make up for you crashing on me,” he said, grinning. In the back of his mind he noted that Jimin could do well for a toothpaste commercial. 

What could it be, then? Paying the kid some money? It wouldn’t be much of a trouble and he preferred it to be that way, ending this weird relationship with a simple amount of money. Buying the kid stuff? As long as his credit card could afford it, and most importantly if it was under some amount of budget, he could probably pull it off.

“Treat me for some food.”

He raised his eyebrow. That was easy enough. Yeah, easy.

.

The pounding on his head was the one that woke him up this time. It wasn’t his normal headaches, the one he started to get whenever he set a foot outside. This was different though felt too familiar as well. Something he got from five shot of whisky, he realized. Hangover. He groaned, still having his eyes closed and got up from the bed, trying to reach for the sink. He regretted not buying those painkillers and aspirins as he had originally planned.

The thing about locking himself up in his apartment was not having the capability to differ the hour, days and dates. Every time the sun came up would always be a morning and every time it didn’t would always be a night. Monday or Sunday didn’t make any difference whatsoever and he barely cared about looking at the calendar to tell the date, much less the month (at least he got the year right). He did know that it would be a Wednesday because that was the day where Namjoon would come to visit him. 

Walking out to his living room, he felt his body stiffed and aching, even though he had had a good night sleep, which to his case would be a rare thing this last couple of weeks. He sat on his couch, looking at the transceiver to his right with the light beeping. His friends had ended calling on his apartment’s phone, since he kept his cell away, not touching it for the last couple of weeks since he retreated to this solitary state that he was in. He let the battery died and kept the phone on his nightstand, completely forgotten. Besides, his friends would probably figure out that he would be sitting slump on the couch, not doing anything significant. Only a night out and here he was having someone calling to his home's number already.

Punching the button with one sweep of a lazy finger, he heard the first message being spoken aloud, filling the quiet room.

The first message was a series of cacophonous noise, followed by a hint of bass and loud thumping noises. Whoever was leaving a message at the other end of the line was probably in a club. He thought about who could it be before he kind of scowled and rolled his eyes when Namjoon’s voice came from the speaker, hoarse and slurred. A drunk message from last night. And here he was, being someone who received it from Namjoon. Why couldn’t that best friend of his call someone else other than him?

“Oi, Yoongi-hyung,” he said, sounding perfectly not like his usual smart- self. For a moment he thought that Namjoon had probably dialed the wrong number, but upon hearing his name being spoken aloud, he could only sigh.

He thought about deleting the message, knowing that it would probably contain nothing significant before the man ranted again, calling his name aloud once again.

“We’re worried about you, hyung.”

Yoongi froze. Why did it take Namjoon to be drunk to tell him this now? He could tell him how worried he was to a perfectly fine Min Yoongi any other day, one in which he was sober and free from alcohol's influence, but no, he had chosen to take that matter even when he was drunk and being completely oblivious.

“You didn’t come out for days. You’re like that, we know. Alone time, ha ha. But weeks of that were too much. Don’t you think it’s too much, hyung? Don’t think about it too much, too much, too much. There’s no need to-,”

And drunk Namjoon had somehow got into a song break in the middle of the phone, singing a particular rap from Drake. Yoongi groaned, hitting the delete button when Namjoon went back talking something about, “Do you know that my smells like Jasmine”. He could hear Seokjin’s yell in the background before the message went in a beep, finally deleted from his voicemail.

He sighed, thinking that a drunk message from Namjoon was all he would get before another voice came from the speaker.

“Hey, Yoongi? It’s Seokjin. I just wanted to know whether you’ve gotten home safely or not.”

The eldest hyung was too considerate indeed. Judging from the background, he was already back from the club, whether in the cab or already arriving at home. He must have taken the drunk Namjoon back home.

“Call me when you’ve arrived, okay?” he said again.

He thought that it would be the end of it, but there was this small pause and Seokjin himself didn’t turn the phone down. He waited, feeling as if Seokjin himself had taken a time to think and say another words that had been bothering his mind.

“On second thought, I know you won’t,” the hyung said, followed by a small laugh.

Yoongi cracked a smile. He could imagine Seokjin doing the same thing. That hyung certainly understood him.

“Anyway, drink and eat healthy. I’ll come visit you tomorrow, probably. If there’s something you want to eat, tell me. Or else I’ll just assume that you’re good with chicken.”

No, he wasn’t good with chicken. Seokjin knew better than anyone else that he hated eating chicken. The hyung was teasing him to pick up the phone and call him, only to give him the satisfaction and realization that Yoongi was fine. He scoffed. His friend certainly knew how to play him.

The message ended with a beep and Yoongi thought that it was all when another message came through the phone. This time it was low in tone and upon the first time hearing it you would probably suspect it belonged to someone with a rather terrifying look. He wouldn’t really describe it as terrifying, only something along the line of being an adult. But then again, knowing who Kim Taehyung really was, all that suspicion would only be proven as wrong.

“Yoongi-hyung, I kind of forgot my key card again. Would you be so kind to fetch it for me?” he said, giggling to the phone.

This wasn’t the first and he knew wouldn’t be the last either.

“Could you like, hurry up, hyung? Because I kind of remembered just now that I haven’t fed Kkanji. He’ll be real pissed at me. So can you like, hustle a bit, hyung?”

That brat. He even had the decency to ask him to hurry up. He should have turned down Mrs. Kim’s offer to swap apartment’s keys should emergency happen. He thought it would only be fitting, if somehow he kind of forgot to turn the stove off or let something on for too long. The things that turned out was not to his imagination at all, because the emergency that he had initially thought of had turned into one of that stupid occasions (that had happened way too many) when the stupid, reckless brat from next door had forgotten his key instead.

He clearly wasn’t up for such antics and stupidity, much alone in this early of an hour. He pushed the button again, deleting the message and let this one slide. He would spit out a simple excuse of being busy and let the kid whined for as long as he wanted to, having to sit and wait in the lobby for his mother. Besides, the kid must have called him like hours ago and the help he needed would already be futile. Secretly, he hoped that Kkanji scratched his face as well.

He got up from the couch and thought about lying on his bed again when the phone beeped one more time. Yoongi groaned, already walking midway through the hallway towards his bedroom.

“Nah, forget it, hyung. Turns out, Mom comes home early. Sorry to bother you!” Taehyung’s voice beamed again, sounding too much like sunshine and vanilla.

He hated sunshine and vanilla.

Yoongi lied back on his bed again, looking up at the ceiling with hands resting on his flat stomach. He took a glance at his forgotten cellphone. He hadn’t touched his cellphone for weeks and he was kind of happy for the decision, leaving him with this peaceful state, away from the grasp of anybody that meant to bother his world. He thought that maybe getting rid of the telephone in his apartment/ would be the next step. Yes, that was true, before Christmas came and the telephone started ringing, relatives from all over Korea calling just to say some obligatory petty words like ‘Merry Christmas’. He loathed that.

The thought of that somehow made him sick.

.

True to his words, Seokjin knocked on his door somewhere along five in the evening. He had put on a beanie and hid the scab under his bangs the moment the elder stepped into his apartment. Only a few more days and it would have probably healed, leaving no scar for anybody to realize. The older man had brought him some beef to cook and he knew that the chicken thing was nothing but a mere threat. He talked about how Namjoon acted like a complete fool last night and ended up like in the morning. Hoseok was sad because he went home without saying goodbye but felt happy nonetheless because Yoongi did manage to come.

He was sitting on the dinner table with stomach full, staring at the empty bowls and Seokjin washing the dishes when the elder turned around and looked at him with the same worried gaze that he always had exclusively for Yoongi.

“What?” he asked.

He didn’t like it, whenever he saw Seokjin looking at him like that.

“Honestly, Yoongi. We’re really worried about you.”

He scoffed. He certainly didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Or ever, as a matter of fact.

“What is there to worry? I’m perfectly fine.”

That was true. Min Yoongi was fine.

He was perfectly okay.

Seokjin was standing with his back on the sink, his hand grabbing the edge of the kitchen counter. He gulped down before returning the word, and he knew that the elder was actually as reluctant as he was to bring this topic up.

“No you’re not. You’re clearly not.”

“Why? I’m functioning right, aren’t I?”

“Staying inside of your apartment for a whole week is not functioning right.”

Yoongi gritted his teeth, trying to avoid Seokjin’s eyes. As much as he hated seeing them, there was another feeling that haunted him the most. Guilt. A tiny part of him felt as if his friends were also suffering from his actions. A larger part of him would in to that tiny thought and kick it out of the window, leaving no room for him to actually empathize and being sentimental.

“You stop going to college. The professor haven’t noticed but at some point they’ll do and you’ll be held back a year.”

And that guilt finally turned into annoyance upon hearing those words and annoyance got him looking back at Seokjin with gaze sharp and a condescending smirk written across his face.

“So it’s about that, huh? You’re worried about my study? I can skip half a year worth of lecture and still graduate so don’t worry about that, hyung. Really.”

Seokjin pursed his lips, realizing that he had brought the wrong topic on the table. If it was his study that Seokjin was worried about, he should have stopped caring about him altogether. The elder stepped forward, pulled the chair in front of him and sat there. He oddly felt like being scolded by a mother. Maybe that was what it felt like. His own never did such a thing, because what Min Yoongi had as a parents were practically people who cast you aside and exchanged their word of affections with paid credit card bills and an apartment in Gangnam at the end of the month.

“No, it’s not that, Yoongi. I’m sorry. You know what I mean,” Seokjin said, being patient with him.

Yet he was the one being impatient, looking back at the elder with sharp accusing eyes.

“No I don’t, hyung.”

He wasn’t really notorious for being stubborn, but as long as he still found himself to be fine, he didn’t really find any reason why Seokjin and Namjoon had to keep on worrying about him like he was some sort of a baby? He was a grown up, perfectly capable of taking care of himself. . Even when he was still a child, his parents had done something as closed as abandoning him. He was used to being alone and the unwanted attention that he drew upon hismelf only made everything more and more uncomfortable.

Seokjin sighed. “We’re just really worried, okay? You keep on saying that nothing’s wrong, that you’re all right, but we know that you’re not, whether you realize it or not.” The elder’s tone had risen quiet a bit though still in composure.

He thought about it, taking the words in, especially the last part. Whether he realized it or not. Could he be not all right without realizing it? He doubt it.

“I don’t know whether it’s a problem with your parents or something else, Namjoon and I and even Hoseok are worried. You don’t move from your apartment and you kept on saying that you’re-,”

“-I’m busy.”

He had recycled the same excuse over and over again, remembering them like the back of his palm. That and the word “I’m okay” was something he had grown accustomed to. He’d been using the words to avoid going out with his friends at days. Truth be told, he was far from it, having no assignment to do or any goal to achieve. Busy was simply a complementary, standardized excuse for people’s question and it pretty much shut people’s mouth off. Busy was a magic word that got everybody suddenly understanding upon whatever real situation you really had behind the lie. 

“You’re not doing anything, Yoongi,” Seokjin said.

The feeling came back, that weird guilt, rising from his stomach. He felt like being scolded, probably exactly like how a mother would scold her kids. Seokjin saw right through him and he couldn’t really find any other excuse to spit. The man had driven him to the edge and either it was him feeling tired or having enough, Yoongi finally sighed.

“Okay. I can’t sleep. You’re happy?”

Actually, he didn’t think about it as much of a problem. He could function with just 3 hours of sleep per day. He did so during college’s life. What would be the difference of pulling the same thing when he got nothing better to do but sit in front of his couch and stare at the wall?

“You can’t sleep?”

“I don’t know, three hours a day. Sometimes three nights without it. It depends,” he said.

Hearing those words satisfied Seokjin, probably, because the accusing gaze he had on his eyes had changed, turning into sympathy. The words weren’t lies. He found himself being in a state of insomnia. Somehow though, he still knew that that wasn’t his real problem was. He didn’t say about that one blackout he had, though he was entirely sure that it was nothing but the case of alcohol being bad on him.

But then again, he didn’t have any problems to begin with. Wasn’t he fine, he said?

“Have you gone to the doctor?” Seokjin said.

“No.”

He thought about lying, actually, because he knew that Seokjin would bring an army of doctors, the hospital itself, even, if he said that he hadn’t. Or worse, he would make him promise and he was terrible at turning those down.

“You should, Yoongi. It might be serious it’s-,”

“I thought that it’s nothing, all right? I’m used to only sleeping for three hours a day so I think I’m fine,” he said.

The elder sighed again.

“It’s something serious, Yoongi.”

The not sleeping part wasn’t, actually.

They ended in a staring contest, Seokjin looking at him and he looked back at the elder’s eyes. Instead of gazing hard, he looked kind of tired and so did Seokjin. They were both are. He wasn’t in the mood for more arguments. He just wanted to be alone again right now.

“I’ll take care of it. Taking some pills,” he finally said.

It would make Seokjin happy, he thought, and it actually did. The elder told him to take care of himself better. Their little talk had seemingly satisfied the young man, for he didn’t bring any other thing up, cleaning up the remain of the kitchen and left soon after. He said something about ‘take care’ and ‘please be healthy’ as Yoongi closed the door, locking them shut. Such a conversation had drained his whole body and he propped himself upon the couch once again, sighing. The guilt was still there. Yoongi wasn’t a liar. He did say about taking pills, but he didn’t say anything about going to a real doctor.

Besides, it wasn’t the lack of sleep that haunted him. It wasn’t the headache either, for he only got that whenever he step his foot outside. It was simply the fleeting feeling of nothing that him in. 

.

He ended in his favorite spot like always, in front of his favorite television right on top of his favorite couch, doing his favorite activity of favorite nothing. Seokjin went home already and night fell. He couldn’t tell the hour and didn’t really care about doing so for morning would take it over later and nothing would hold any significance meaning to him anymore. Nothing actually did.

He was in the middle of a bet, wondering how many sleepless night would he spent sitting on the couch before he managed to sleep again, when he caught something moving from the corner of his eyes. Being cooped up too long in his apartment had that weird effect on him. It wasn’t that he was such a scaredy cat, for it was completely Hoseok’s role to fill in. It was simply curiosity that drove him to turn his head around, wondering what could it be that he had just last seen. He didn’t believe in ghost and even if there was one, he doubted that he would make such a reaction towards it. Still, this time Yoongi turned his head ever so slightly, trying to glance at the dark hallway that led to the other empty bedroom which he had left unoccupied.

He had to admit that sometimes he thought that he was seeing shadows moving. He thought, of course, because it surely turned out to be nothing else but the light playing trick on his eyes. Another would be voices, until he realized that he was probably hadn’t heard another person’s voice for so long he started imagining it in his head.

But then came the realization of what had happened tomorrow back at the club and Yoongi shivered.

No, it was the alcohol, wasn’t it?

Something got him standing up from the couch, glancing at the dark hallway. There would be no one there, wouldn’t it? Why did he care about standing up, walking towards the hallway, flicking the lights on and checking on it? It was exactly what he did, and he couldn’t really grasp the real meaning behind his action beside the simple answer that he was curious.

His apartment was big enough for it to have three different rooms. The master bed was being used as his own bedroom which he hardly ever used these past weeks. The other was his study and it had practically contained every of assignments and paper stacking that he had. The last was a simple empty bedroom that was left unattended, being there only for the use of his friends who crashed there sometimes without warning during the time when Min Yoongi wasn’t a living corpse as he was right now.

He stopped with his hand on the door handle, contemplating whether or not he was going to open the door. Why would he be curious about whatever lied behind the door? It would be just another bedroom. He felt like being pulled there by forces unexplainable. Yoongi scoffed, realizing how silly his action was. He was imagining stuff. What did he expect? He would open the door and saw a corpse lying on top of the bed? Or maybe a bloody woman standing in front of the door, screaming to his face? He smirked slightly, finally prying his fingers off of the handle. Hoseok’s cowardice was contagious, it seemed. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He was brave and he took the pride in admitting that. Checking in an empty bedroom was something silly of him. There would certainly be nothing waiting behind that door for him and he already knew it.

“I’m not a coward like Hoseok,” he said to himself, smirking.

Yoongi turned his heels around and that was the moment his telephone rang. He groaned under his breath, knowing that it would be Namjoon or Seokjin. Probably Hoseok, even, or Mrs. Kim from next door. It would probably Taehyung being stupid again. The thought of answering the phone and holding a conversation irritated him, he simply sat back in the couch and let the phone kept on ringing without the intention of picking it up.

The ringing ended not long after a few seconds and a beep came soon after, signaling that the caller had turned to leave him a voicemail instead.

He just sat there, waiting for the voice at the other end of the line to speak up, wondering whether it would be one of his stupid friends or Taehyung instead. It could probably his other pesky relatives, even, though it wasn’t yet the month for them to leave unnecessary call. There was a static noise at the other end of the line. Whoever the caller would be, he or she was probably having a bad reception. The message would end just right there, he thought, when a few seconds passed without any voice being heard. He realized that he shouldn’t be hyped about a mere message as well. The static continued and it would be the end of it, before he realized himself to be wrong, because he could hear it clearly then, a single voice, whispering that one word through the phone it echoed in his own apartment. His eyes widen in that instance and he shuddered. He was imagining this, wasn’t it? This couldn’t be true. He wasn’t hearing a voice in his own receiver, telling him that he was a-,

“Murderer.”

Yoongi picked up the phone in that instance, bringing it towards his ear and yelled out a “hello”. What greeted him was the flat and constant beeping at the other end of the line, telling him that whoever called him had closed the phone already.

He slammed the phone down again, looking at it with disbelief written clearly in his eyes. His blood ran cold. Was he still hungover from the night before? Was this some sort of a cruel joke? Or maybe he had eaten something bad it left him with this paranoia? What was that even mean? He wasn’t a murderer. Min Yoongi wasn’t a murderer. He was-,

The phone rang again and Yoongi watched it in horror, his finger frozen. Was it the same person? Who could it be? He should pick it up, shouldn’t he? He gulped. No, he said it to himself earlier. He wasn’t a coward. His heart was pounding hard, the slow thump started to come back on his ears again. With a quick grasp he grabbed the phone and brought it once again to his ear, yelling.

“Who’s-,”

“Hyung! Thank god you pick up. I thought that you’re asleep. I kind of forget about my key card, again.”

At that moment Yoongi didn’t know whether he had to sigh in relief or be pissed instead. It was no one but Kim Taehyung, that stupid brat from next door. He slumped down on his couch immediately and let out a huge sigh, the phone still resting between his shoulder and ear. He rubbed on his eyes, trying to get that anxiety out of his system.

“Could you please please please bring me the spare key card? I can’t get up with it. That doorman is so mean. He knows I live here and yet he still refuses to let me go upstairs unless I have my key card.”

It was nothing but Kim Taehyung. God, why was he this ing scared over a phone call?

“I’m at the lobby right now, hyung. And it’s nearly 11 o’clock I still got homework to do. My parents are out until next week and I kind of-, hey hyung, you there?”

He cursed under his breath. He didn’t even realize that his palm was already sweating. As much as he hated the brat, he did give him some relief right now.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” he said, his voice shaking.

Taehyung seemed to notice that because his voice turned to being concerned and he asked, “Hyung, are you all right?”

Someone he didn’t know just call him, repeating the same word he had heard yesterday. Someone just left him a message on his voicemail, saying that he was a murderer, the very same word he heard back then on the club before he out. Everything about this was impossible, yet the voicemail couldn’t be wrong, could it? So was he all right? Was Min Yoongi all right?

He gulped down before answering. His voice hoarse and his fingers still trembled slightly, but the words still came out from his lips like it always did.

“No. I’m fine. I’m perfectly okay.”

.

The headache came as soon as he stepped his foot outside of his apartment. It started instantly and Yoongi groaned along the elevator ride, tapping his foot impatiently on the ground. He hated elevator ride. He hated how the room felt so suffocating. He never had a problem with a closed space before, yet he found the elevator to be distressing.

When he reached the lobby, Taehyung came bouncing towards him, his face filled with happiness much like a kindergarten kid finally being picked up by their parents. Only this time, Kim Taehyung was a teenager at his last year of high-school. That was what his birth certificate and school report had said about him, though Yoongi legit believed that he still had the mental capabilities of a toddler, though the brat’s bass and deep voice kind of betrayed him. They walked back towards the elevator and Taehyung bounced, following him happily. The ride back felt somehow ten times slower than the descend. The headache wasn’t helping either, because it had intensified again just like the time when he reached NB yesterday. He reached towards his own temple, massaging it slowly.

“You look like , hyung,” Taehyung suddenly said.

He groaned. He actually didn’t plan on erecting a conversation at all, hoping that the brat would keep his mouth shut. Of course he couldn't. Why would Yoongi ever thought that Kim Taehyung mastered the art of serenity. 

“Like you don’t,” he returned.

The boy scoffed, seemingly liking the comeback he had given.

“But really, you look pale, hyung. I mean, you’ve always been looking pale and skinny like a corpse, but right now you really look terrible,” he said, giving a slight hint of sympathy under the insult.

All of his friends had to worry about him and now his stupid neighbor got to do so as well? What wrong had Yoongi done to this world, really? It wasn't like he held a board with neon lights on it on top of his head that read, 'hey look at me, i need help and i'm so not okay'.

“Shut up, brat. Just don’t forget to bring your key card next time, all right? I’m tired of seeing your face,” he returned the word, trying to sound as mean as he could.

Somehow Taehyung just laughed and he oddly found himself remembering Jimin. Jimin was as a brat as Taehyung was. He guessed that both would be around the same age or something like that. Funny. Here he was suddenly thinking about whether the boy would really make an appearance or not.

“Nah, you’ll still come for me the next time I forget the key card again.”

What was it with brats, really? Why did they latch on to him like he was some sort of their mother. A big brother, perhaps.

Or maybe it was him who latched on to them without him realizing. 

“Don’t get too cocky you little ,” he said, cracking a smile.