Namjoon’s tired, but he can’t allow himself a wink of sleep.

He sits on the edge of the bed with his legs stretched in front of him, next to him a half-asleep and half-conscious Taehyung. Thin columns of sunlight peek out through the gaps in the drawn blinds, highlighting the drops of sweat gathered on Taehyung’s forehead and glistening over his upper lip. His hands are resting on top of his stomach, long fingers twitching and the back of his palms marred with thin, pale red scratch marks.

Namjoon looks away, dips a rag into a bowl of cool water in his lap and squeezes the excess out. He lays it on Taehyung’s forehead, pressing lightly. There’s still a bit too much water left and it drips down Taehyung’s face, drops racing down the straight slope of his nose.

There’s a steady poking in Namjoon’s lower back, an uncomfortable kink that he can’t seem to stretch. He stares longingly at the spot next to Taehyung, sheets bunched up like cottony clouds and a white pillow begging him to lay his head down on it.

Just as he thinks that Taehyung jerks his arm violently, letting out a high-pitched noise.

“It’s okay,” Namjoon whispers immediately, pressing cool fingers onto Taehyung’s sticky neck.

Taehyung lets out another small noise, the whites of his eyes visible for a moment or two until the spasms stop.

“You’re fine,” Namjoon places his other hand over Taehyung’s sticky upper chest, a flush rising up from over the collar of his baggy shirt.

Taehyung’s high temperature is worrying, Namjoon knows. And yet, all of his knowledge on caretaking includes only what Seokjin did when one of the boys would start showing symptoms of a cold; stuffing them full with tea and soup and making sure their temperature goes back to normal. Namjoon can’t cook to save his life and he has no idea where Seokjin keeps those tea leaves, if there are any left at all, so cooling Taehyung off is the only thing he has left.

The hands he has on Taehyung’s neck and chest start to become warm much too fast and Namjoon gnaws on the inside of his mouth. The itchy sort of tingling in his fingers and his feet intensifies by the second, the lack of both sleep and nicotine posing a heavy strain on his nerves.

Suddenly, there’s a soft buzzing from the pocket of his sweatpants. He moves the hand he’s got on Taehyung’s chest and receives a throaty mumble. Taehyung’s head flips to the side and Namjoon’s thumb digs into the soft skin under his jawline.

 With another small noise, Taehyung moves his head to face straight, slender neck stretched out.

Namjoon exhales and slides the phone out of his sweatpants carefully, trying not the jostle the shallow bowl set in his lap. He unlocks the front screen and stares down, eyes burning from the artificial glare.

Min Yoongi: you awake?

Rapmon: yeah

Rapmon: why

Min Yoongi: Ok

Namjoon frowns.

Rapmon: why tho

Min Yoongi: I’m coming over

Taehyung twitches, knee knocking against Namjoon’s leg, and Namjoon types out quickly.

Rapmon: im busy is it urgent

Min Yoongi: Yeah

“,” Namjoon mumbles.

Rapmon: fine when

Min Yoongi: 5mins

There’s a distressed whimper from his side and Namjoon writes out a “K” and puts the phone down, turns straight away to quickly take the compress off Taehyung’s forehead. It’s hot to the touch, and Namjoon douses it in water again, tinted green from Taehyung’s fading dye.

He pushes off green strands of hair stuck to Taehyung’s forehead and sets the compress down. As soon as it makes contact with his skin, Taehyung’s face scrunches up and he jostles his legs, throwing off the comforter strewn over his lower half.

“Ah, Tae,” Namjoon says through a sigh.

He puts the bowl of water on the floor by his feet before reaching over to adjust the comforter. He pulls it up the middle of Taehyung’s chest and he rustles, a hard frown turning his eyebrows downwards. Namjoon thinks about letting Taehyung stay uncovered but he can see how hard his body is shaking, goose-bumps breaking out on his skin and beads of sweat on his forehead.

Namjoon tucks the edges under the sides of Taehyung’s arms, enveloping him in it completely, and Taehyung gives an unidentifiable grunt.

Namjoon lifts the bowl up again, cussing when water sloshes over the edges and spills onto the mattress. He dips his hand into it carefully and goes to place it on Taehyung’s skin when his phone buzzes, twice in a row.

Namjoon scrutinizes the sheen on Taehyung’s cheeks and the soundless moving of his lips. From the living room, he can hear the dull thuds coming from the front door.

He lays the wet hand on Taehyung’s cheek, electing a small puff.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promises, and Taehyung gives him a couple of more huffs in reply.

Namjoon removes his hand with a heavy heart and sets the bowl aside again. He gets up on his feet, thighs straining at the effort and head feeling so thick he thinks it might just topple right off his body.

He throws another look at Taehyung before leaving the room, a long bundle under a too-small comforter ending just over his feet in mismatched socks, one with red and white stripes and the other blue and polka-dot. He lets the doors stay open a crack, just in case.

Namjoon drags his feet to the front door, rolling his shoulder to try and fix the coils under his shoulder blades. The ache stays, no matter how hard he tries to relax it.

His phone buzzes again, and right after the banging on the door becomes more insistent.

“I’m coming!” he calls out, adding a “damn” under his voice.

His arm shakes when he lifts it to unlock the door.

Yoongi doesn’t look much better than Namjoon feels, his hair disheveled and eyes like two tiny bugs nestled into swollen eye bags. He’s wearing the clothes from yesterday, a black hoodie under a heavy winter jacket, with the addition of a sports bag slung over his shoulder. Namjoon opens his mouth to greet him, maybe ask for advice on how to help Taehyung when Yoongi pushes past him, sharp shoulder digging into Namjoon’s chest.

“Ow, what-” Namjoon starts but Yoongi just walks past him, walking around the living room and picking up random pieces of clothing, shoving them in the bag. He zooms into the hallway before Namjoon can warn him to be silent.

Namjoon watches him pass the bedroom door, throwing only a short glance inside before striding right to the closet at the very end of the hallway. He opens it up and starts rummaging through it, picking up random articles of clothing and shoving them into his bag.

“What-” Namjoon starts to follow him, but a sudden dizziness overtakes him and he has to grab the corner of the wall so he doesn’t fall over. He lowers himself to the floor, crouching while holding onto the wall. The moment he closes his eyes he feels like he’s going to black out so he forces them open, suffering through the colorful specks that burst across his vision.

By the time that he’s regained control over his limbs and the world has stopped spinning, he sees Yoongi leave the bathroom. His previously empty bag is filled to bursting, sleeves and trouser pants spilling out from it. He tiptoes around Namjoon, faltering when his eyes fall on him.

“,” Namjoon breathes out, pulling himself up with difficulty. Yoongi’s fingers spasm, but he doesn’t move his hand from the strap of his bag.

“Well,” Namjoon gives a shaky, twisted smile. “Hello to you, too.”

Yoongi doesn’t give him a reply, taking to staring at him like a creepy sort of a doll. Namjoon swallows down his nausea, still feeling light on his feet from the vertigo.

“How - How did you sleep?”

The moment the question is out of his mouth Namjoon feels somewhat stupid for asking it, and the blank look Yoongi gives him only seems to confirm his sentiment.

“Alright,” he gestures to Yoongi’s bag. “You’re really going, then?”

Yoongi nods once, a sharp jerk of his chin.

“’Kay,” Namjoon says, trying to push down the sinking feeling rising up his windpipe. “When will you guys be coming back?”

Namjoon feels a strange sort of aura creeping up to him from the still, drowned gleam of Yoongi’s eyes. It reaches his fingers, causing an uneasy sort of premonition that spreads down the lengths of his arms and all the way to the back of his throat.

“We won’t,” Yoongi says evenly.

“Ah,” Namjoon scratches at his neck, looking at a red-sprayed chair by the table. “Alright. How’re you guys gonna make rent?”

“We’ll manage.”

“Will you? You know about water and electricity and communal services, right, that just tallies up like you can’t believe.”

“I’m aware.”

No matter how much he strains his ears, Namjoon can’t read out the usually snarky tone under Yoongi’s voice, only blunt indifference. He crosses his arms over, trying to fend away the cold air reaching under the cuff of his jeans and down his neck. There are little notes crumpled by the couch, yellowish papers that Namjoon knows are from Yoongi’s notebook, and he wonders if he’s forgotten to pick them up.

“Okay, well,” Namjoon’s eyes stray to the window, squinting at harsh sunlight entering through the open blinds.  “You can always come back here if you need to.”

 “We’re not coming back at all,” Yoongi says curtly. “Ever.”

A sharp prick in his gut and Namjoon looks to Yoongi, a white glare clouding the center of his vision.

“Yeah, okay, I got it just fine the first time.”

 “I don’t think you have.”

The muddled corners dissolve and uncover Yoongi, the cold quality of his expression only enhancing the foreboding building up in Namjoon’s body. He tries to swallow down the sandpapery feeling in his mouth, thick saliva sticking his tongue to his palate.

“So. What is it, then?”

Namjoon eyes the dry, red patches on Yoongi’s neck, watches as Yoongi shifts the strap of his bag up and down his shoulder, the movement almost mechanical.

“This is the last time we’re seeing each other.”

Namjoon looks up into Yoongi’s unblinking eyes, breath suspended somewhere between his lungs and windpipe.

“Don’t try to get in touch at all. That goes for Jeongguk-ah too,” Yoongi’s voice is strictly logical, unbridled with any sort of human emotion. “If you have any reason left, you won’t involve Park Jimin in this either.”

Namjoon’s mouth opens and closes, forming half-thought out words and arguments and questions and what comes out of his throat, dry and raspy, is a simple,

“And - And Jeonggukie’s fine with this?”

A twitch in Yoongi’s cheek, perfectly crafted façade malfunctioning for a single second.

“Yes.”

A burst of hot red and even as Namjoon’s lungs collapse his legs move, hand knotting in the front of Yoongi’s hoodie, yanking him roughly towards him.

“You’re lying,” Namjoon says, and Yoongi’s eyelids flutter, a faint frown on his face. “There’s no ing way he’d be okay with that.”

Yoongi lifts up a hand, wiping a speck of spit off his cheek. There is nothing but cold assurance in his eyes when he says, calmly, “He is.”

Namjoon’s eyes flit down Yoongi’s face, the red rims of his eyes, the straight lines of his lips and relaxed cheeks and he can’t tell, he can’t tell what’s right and what’s wrong.

“And what about – what about what we agreed to do?” Namjoon presses, shaking him a little. “What the happened to all of those ing plans, huh?”

Yoongi looks at him, eyes like round buttons sown into his skin. He gives a small shrug, arms resting by his sides.

A switch flips in Namjoon’s brain and his fingers unclench. Yoongi stumbles back, swaying like a rag puppet under the weight of his bag.

“Get out,” he says, voice sounding shaky and distorted in his ears. Yoongi’s figure swirls in front of his eyes, a vision in vibrant green and black. Hands dig into the sockets of his eyes and Namjoon thinks that someone is telling him goodbye.

He realizes that Yoongi’s going to leave, leave before Namjoon can say all of the things he has in mind and he reaches out to stop him because he can’t do this, not without Jeongguk, not without Seokjin, not without Yoongi but they can still fix things if they just stay together.

His fingers curl over Yoongi’s forearm and Namjoon opens his eyes, "Hyung-”

He stares at his palm, fingers resting on rough, dilapidated wood.

The fridge works steadily in the background, a dull buzzing, and outside of the window, there’s a lively chirping of birds.

Namjoon searches his pocket, but doesn’t find the familiar outline of a cigarette pack. His eyes roam over the empty, glum room around him, searching through chairs and flat surfaces to find nothing. He makes for the bathroom with heavy footsteps.

Tiles swim in and out of focus, and he opens the cupboard over the sink with clumsy hands. It’s less cluttered than Namjoon remembers it to be, and he realizes that all of Jeongguk’s skin care is missing. He swallows down the bitterness on his tongue, fingers curling over a small bottle left over by Hoseok.

He pushes on the lid but it won’t come off. His fingers are shaking too hard and it only makes Namjoon madder, and he pulls on the lid violently. It pops open, flying off to the side of the bathroom, pink, round capsules spilling out of the bottle and falling down the open drain of the sink.

“.”

Namjoon knows how much Hoseok needs these things, how difficult it is to get a prescription and he’d just wasted a fistful of them.

“, , .”

Namjoon sets the half-empty vial down on the wooden cupboard to his side, stands on the tips of his toes and looks through the rest of the shelves. He feels the length of the dusty surfaces, finding only empty cosmetics and packaging that once held face masks. On the top shelf he finds something akin to a pair of prongs and twists it between his fingers. Suddenly, he remembers Jimin proudly showing him his profile, inquiring whether his nose looks high and charming.

He puts it back with care, knowing that Jimin loves his bizarre beauty enhancing contraptions just as much as Seokjin loves good food. Yoongi’s words play back through his head, and Namjoon wonders if Jimin’ll will ever be coming back to get it.

The thought makes Namjoon’s stomach turn upside down, sudden nausea doubling him over, and he fumbles for a surface to lean on. The cupboard is the closest and he leans against it without looking, hand knocking something over and causing a dozen of small plinking noises.

When he opens his eyes, the rest of Hoseok’s pills are strewn around his feet.

“ing ,” he spits out and kicks the cupboard violently, causing a sharp flash of pain that only serves to make him angrier. His hand curls into a fist and he swings before he can think about it, bones and ceramic colliding with a sickly clang.

All of this at once causes a moment of sharp clarity, and Namjoon takes in everything: his hand, red and swollen and a couple of wounds oozing dark blood, a chipped off tile on the wall and the cracked leg of the cupboard, splinters lining the jagged edges. His foot is throbbing like insane and Namjoon sits down on the floor, back against the hard side of the bathtub.

He thinks that there’s no way that this day could get any worse. Then, Namjoon hears a noise of the door cracking open and says to himself; of course. Of course it can.

He looks up, a flushed and sweaty Taehyung stumbling into the bathroom, bangs standing up vertically from his forehead.

“Hyung, hyung, I’m sorry,” he babbles out hoarsely. He sits down next to Namjoon, capillaries surrounding the whites of his eyes, hot hands grabbing Namjoon’s injured one before he can hide it. “Hyung, I’m sorry, hyung.”

Everything hurts, Namjoon’s hand, arms, gut, back, head, eyes.

 “Stop, Tae.”

Taehyung’s fingers curl gently under his palm, and he rocks back and forward, mumbling with his eyes closed: “Hyung, I’m sorry, hyung, I’m sorry, hyung.”

Taehyung is three different people in Namjoon’s head: A cheery, sun-kissed boy introducing himself with a grin, bringing Namjoon from the brink of a destructive rampage with a ludicrous idea and a self-extended invitation to a party at Namjoon’s own place; a member of his newfound family, deep giggling and easy affection, an intelligent, attentive spark in his eyes over cigarette smoke, voice strong when he entrusts Namjoon with a story about his older sister and her inability to do what’s right for her; and lastly, a stranger with Taehyung’s face slouched against a wall, dry blood smudged over his cheeks, running down the length of his hands and painting the white canvas of his shirt in macabre spots.

Namjoon looks at Taehyung, who’s swiveling his head up and down and still repeating the mantra. A small, round pill lies on the floor next to Namjoon, and he picks it up with one hand.

“Tae, this will make you feel better.”

Taehyung doesn’t respond, and Namjoon blows on the pill before slotting it between his lips. His eyes snap open, pupils as big as plates looking at Namjoon.

“You’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Taehyung swallows, throat hitching on the pill, before Namjoon can get up and offer him a glass of water.

“Hyung, I’m so sorry, hyung, please, hyung-”

Namjoon wraps his arms around Taehyung’s thin body, a hand on the back of his head. The pain in his knuckles is bone-deep but he knots his fingers into the damp strands of Taehyung’s hair, feels  Taehyung’s lips form barely coherent apologies against his shoulder. He shakes like a leaf on the wind and Namjoon draws him closer into the side of his body.

“Don’t leave, hyung, don’t leave me-”

The images collide and overlap in Namjoon’s brain, merging into a thin, terrified, lonely boy, carrying burdens too heavy for anyone to bear on their own.

“I won’t,” Namjoon promises, lips pressed to the top of Taehyung’s head.  “Never.”

He’s not angry anymore, he finds, the heat boiling down to a grudging understanding.  He can remember how Yoongi would look at Jeongguk sometimes, like he was a constellation brought to life, and he knows that Yoongi must have images of things he needs to protect too.

Later, when Taehyung’s fast asleep, Namjoon takes out his thankfully intact phone from his pocket.

Rapmon: Make it worth it

He doesn’t expect a reply, but he gets one a couple of hours later, after he’d woken up from a fitful sleep with Taehyung’s head heavy on his chest, body sweaty all over and spine feeling bruised and aching.

Min Yoongi: I will.

 

***

 

Namjoon does a lot of thinking while scouring the outskirts in search of Yoongi, the time being four in the morning.

Hilarious situations, half-baked promises, drunken episodes and heartfelt conversations, all of these spin through his head, creating an indiscernible sort of mush. A particularly sore memory of how he’d gotten nicknamed as “God of Destruction” stands out clearly from the rest of them, and Namjoon shakes his head and pushes back the sounds of Hoseok, Jimin and Taehyung laughing.

With a start, he halts. He squints at the curvy gibberish sprayed on top of a navy-blue train car that looks a little too familiar.

He sighs, deciding to stop by the known landmark rather than continuing to circle around aimlessly. He drags in smoke and wrecks his brain, proverbial cogs spinning around with tortured creaks.

Yoongi’s new apartment had been empty, as he’d expected it to, locked up tight and abandoned.  The train yard seems vacant as well, as far as he can tell. He thumbs at his chin, replacing his burned out cigarette with a fresh one.

Suddenly, Namjoon remembers the hole in the wall Jeongguk used to rent before he moved in with Namjoon, and then with Yoongi after the incident had happened. He’d never been inside of it himself, but he remembers dropping Jeongguk off in front of it after a party at their place once.

Namjoon wonders if Yoongi had ever visited him back there, or if he even remembers how to get to the place if he did, but he figures it wouldn’t do harm for him to pay it a short visit.

Namjoon’s pack is shorter by five cigarettes by the time he gets to the motel, the derelict façade enlightened with red and yellow neon.

It’s not much better inside, gray ceilings and a couch with vibrant red upholstery. There’s a tired looking receptionist sitting behind a rickety counter, a woman somewhere in her early thirties. Namjoon approaches the table, puts on his most amicable smile and says: “My friend is staying here. Is it fine if I go get him?”

The woman doesn’t even look up from her phone, giving him a lazy nod. Namjoon takes a breath, preparing himself to question her if it’s really okay to let anyone up to the guest area unchecked, when he realizes that she might just forbid him from going up.

“Aight, thanks,” he says.

Namjoon climbs up the narrow staircase, trying not to look at the mystery smudges dotting the carpeting. He hadn’t asked for Yoongi’s room number or even if there was such a person staying here, thinking that it would have sounded a little suspicious. He regrets this a little now, taking the receptionist’s lax mien into account.  However, Namjoon thinks that he knows what room Yoongi would be staying in.

He spends a moment pondering on why the rooms are numbered with four digits, seeing as how the motel has only five floors with four rooms in each of them. He eyes a scribble on the peeling wallpaper saying “Choi Sooyoung is a cheating ” and thinks that it’s a pretty poor attempt at adding a cosmopolitan air to the establishment.

The air smells heavily of moisture on the last floor, the ceiling riddled with enormous wet marks, and Namjoon wrinkles his nose. Number 1002, Jeongguk’s old room.

He checks the doorknob by some knee jerk reflex. To Namjoon’s surprise it slides open, and he thinks that he’s missed the room just as gets hit by the putrid smell coming from the inside.

 It’s a mixture of alcohol, gasoline and sweat, and yes, there’s definitely someone inside, although a really gross someone.

“Hello?” Namjoon calls out, voice coming out distorted from his plugged nose. “I’m coming in.”

The lights are turned off and Namjoon feels around the slightly moist wall, trying not to imagine what the wetness might be. His fist hits the light switch and the dim bulb turns on. It shines flickering lighting onto his surrounding, highlighting the peeling walls and the gas tanks surrounding the bed, eerily resembling an open casket.

Namjoon is now pretty sure that the person here is Yoongi but he equally strongly hopes that it’s not, because there’s honestly only one thing he can deduce from the tanks and it’s not something he has the capacity to deal with at this very moment.

Life has no intention of suddenly giving Namjoon a break, because he finds that it’s definitely Yoongi lying on top of the bed on his back, hair bedraggled and clumped in strands like it hasn’t seen shampoo in days. The weak light shines down on a purpling bruise on his cheek, one Namjoon noticed as a reddening mark when Yoongi had come to visit a couple of days ago.

 Namjoon nudges a tank out of the way with his foot and leans over Yoongi’s sleeping form.

“Hey.”

Yoongi’s eyelids flutter, nose wrinkling up like he just got a whiff of something unpleasant.

“Wake up, I’m serious.”

Yoongi’s mouth twists downwards and he cracks one eye open slowly, like opening both would be extending too much effort.

“Morning, sunshine,” Namjoon intones, cheeks pulling into a sardonic sort of grin. “You’re looking great today.”

 Yoongi gives him a frown, and Namjoon barrels onwards in false cheer.

“Wanna get up now, or are you-”

Yoongi closes his eyes in the middle of Namjoon sentence, smoothly flipping over onto his side. Namjoon drops off, the snarky remark he’d planned on delivering jammed in the middle of his throat.

While he’s fully aware that his approach might have not been ideal, he thinks that he deserves at least some kind of remark for the fact that he’d bothered searching all over Seoul just to find him. The lack of sleep he’d gotten this night only adds to his frustration, and his next words come out taut like stretched out rope seconds from snapping.

 “Min Suga,” he grinds out though his teeth. “Get up.”

Yoongi doesn’t move at the slightest. Namjoon stares at the still line of Yoongi’s shoulders, an airy feeling in his head.

“Hello, anyone there? I said-”

Yoongi interrupts him there, gracing him with a grand sum of two words spoken in a harsh, throaty voice.

“Go away.”

A heavy wave of heat courses down Namjoons body, leaving a tingling in his fingers.

“The hell I will,” he spits out, fingers twitching almost involuntarily.

He finds himself grabbing the back of Yoongi’s shirt and pulling hard. Yoongi’s as thin as a bone but Namjoon doesn’t manage to move him at all, so he figures that Yoongi must be putting all of his strength into weighting his body down. Yoongi doesn’t oppose him visibly or say a single thing either and Namjoon gets a sudden urge to either kick him off the bed or fling him out of the window along with it.

While entertaining the thought he pulls a bit too hard, the collar of the shirt fraying and snapping with a tearing noise. Namjoon can see down Yoongi’s torn shirt, the ridges of his spine sticking out like sharp metal.

The suffocating heat in his head simmers, turns into something heavy and bitter. He unclenches his fist and Yoongi’s shoulders slump, the bed rocking back with a high-pitched whine.

He leaves the room and stomps down the steps, cursing when he almost slips down the threadbare carpeting. There’s a lit cigarette in his hand even before he pushes out of the hotel and he kicks at the trash-can outside in a pique, toppling it over.

It hurts a lot more than Namjoon’s expected it to, and curses leave his mouth like a string of lyrics as he crouches down, pressing on the top of his sneaker with one palm.

Namjoon remembers how Yoongi had called him “a loose cannon” once, during some game Taehyung had made up to try and get them to spill each other’s secrets. It mostly stayed on pure speculation, since they hadn’t even known each other for too long when they’d first played it. Jimin had laughed Yoongi’s statement off, clapping Namjoon on his thigh and telling him how much of a “great guy you are, hyung”.

Namjoon can still see the crescent marks yellowing on his knuckles, and even when they fade away the hole in the tiles will always stay, a bitter reminder of how all-knowing Min ing Yoongi always is.

He inhales half of his cigarette before the ache in his toe dulls down. When he removes his hand from the sneaker his palm goes away slightly oily and Namjoon remembers the red containers in Yoongi’s room, and then the lighter he’d asked him for some days ago.

“.”

Namjoon drags in a big smoke and extinguishes what remains of his cigarette. He pulls the trash-can upright, grateful that the garbage bag inside hadn’t spilled open on the asphalt. The receptionist only gives him a lift of her eyebrows as Namjoon passes her table and Namjoon wonders if she had heard a ruckus coming from the outside of the motel.

He wipes his hand on the tapestry next to the room, before pushing it open with the tip of his shoe, door still ajar like he’s left them. The smell inside the room hits him even harder now that he’s renewed his experience of actual, fresh air.

Yoongi doesn’t look like he’s moved at all, and neither do the canisters around his bed.

There’s a light, relieved sort of feeling in him that pisses him off, so Namjoon goes over to the window to shove it open, the hinges giving in with a squeak.

“Get up and shower,” Namjoon’s glad to find out that his voice sounds more or less normal now. He breathes in the cold air entering the room, takes a lungful of it before returning to the side of the bed.

He stares at the back of Yoongi’s head, the oily strands stuck to the nape of his neck. His thin frame is shivering slightly, ruined shirt rustling from the wind coming in from the window.

“What, you just gonna keep ing ignoring me?”

Yoongi offers no answer.

“You know, I have  to do,” Namjoon starts, words rising up in him like an unstoppable heat wave. “So if you could just stop lying here like a damn mummy, that’d be ing super.”

The tapping of Namjoon’s foot feels like a countdown.

“Okay,” he says cheerfully. “Guess you don’t care about what’s happening with Jeongguk-ah, so I might as well-”

Yoongi’s shoulders twitch.

 Then, a silent hiss, “What?”

“Hm?” Namjoon looks under his nails. “You say something?”

A small shift and Yoongi looks over his shoulder, profile stern and serious.

“What’s going on?” he demands, and Namjoon indulges his need to grin at him and bite back,

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Yoongi kicks his legs off the side of the bed and Namjoon watches him prop himself up to his feet, bones popping like bubble wrap. Immediately he sways, head falling forward and hands pressed up to his face.

“It lives,” Namjoon intones dramatically.

Yoongi drops his hands and places one on the wall, hobbling over to Namjoon slowly. He stops when he’s just in front of him, the tip of his head coming to Namjoon’s nose.

“Why do you want from me, Kim Namjoon?”

His tone is a hundred percent dignified even with the putrid stink of sweat rising off him and the purple of his bruise stark against his skin tone. Namjoon swallows his disgust down, speaking as clearly and coolly as possible.

“Some ing explanations, for starters.”

 Yoongi stares at him, red-rimmed eyes narrowing. He lowers the hand he’s got propped up on the wall and wraps it around his own waist tightly. Namjoon notices how narrow his body looks now, almost sickly for a man of his age.

“Alright, what?” his says, words coming out clipped through his tight jaw.

“What’s this?” Namjoon gestures around him. “The happened?”

“Stuff,” Yoongi drags out, tongue rolling on each letter.

“Wow, no . Like what?”

Yoongi’s eyelids twitch and he inhales heavily, fingers digging harder into the skin of his forearm.

“An argument.”

“So what? Was it your fault?”

Yoongi’s eyes flicker away for a moment, a muscle twitching in his cheek.

 “Aha. And then what, you just ran off like-”

 “Enough,” Yoongi says harshly, looking at him again. “It’s none of your business anyway.”

The words cause an irritating flare of pain in Namjoon’s chest. Instead of acknowledging it, he puts a hard smirk on his face.

 “Right. Except this time around, it really ing is.”

Yoongi looks at him, gives him a charged look. Then he turns his head to the side to squint out of the window, shoulders stiff and rigid, body bending forwards like he’s forgotten how to stand straight.

It sparks up a sudden image: Yoongi’s back hunched over his ancient laptop, a pirated version of a mixing program on the screen, their only set of headphones around his neck. Namjoon knew that a mixtape was far away, reading it from the self-loathing expression on Yoongi’s face. Still, they could always talk about that, figure out the right transition or the proper way to master the track.

All that remains now is a big, fat pause that feels jarring and uncomfortable.

Namjoon breathes out loudly, and Yoongi turns his head back, eyes flat and apathetic. Namjoon wants to be spiteful, wants to hate Yoongi and show him just how much he means it, but his next words dip too close to a plea.

“. Just say something already.”

Yoongi’s lips thin out, a lofty droop to his eyelids. Namjoon waits for a couple of moments, and then Yoongi looks away again, exhaling heavily from his nose.

Namjoon waits a little longer, feels the realization rise up like a tidal wave. It spills out of him like laughter, burning his throat and the inside of his mouth. His head hurts, his eyes ache and Namjoon feels like he’s the only one still there.

“Right, of course,” Namjoon rubs at his eyes. “Forget it. I-”

A couple of bitter chuckles and the laughter dies off completely, leaving only a noxious taste on his tongue. Namjoon expels it cruelly, staring at the back of his eyelids as he says:

 “Jeongguk-ah’s been in a car accident.”

“What?”

Yoongi’s raspy exclamation is charged with a complex mixture of emotions. Namjoon feels a sickening twinge in his stomach, satisfaction mixed with self-loathing, and he lowers his hands, blinking at Yoongi’s rapidly whitening face.

“Is he-” Yoongi starts, voice wavering, an almost feverish glint in his eyes. He sags against the wall, blunt fingernails digging into the smooth surface and Namjoon can’t look at him. He stares up at the ceiling and shoves a hand in his pocket, feeling for the thin shape of a cigarette.

“He’s fine. He got lucky, according to the doctor.”

“How-” there’s a thin, anguished note in Yoongi’s voice, and Namjoon scratches at his neck until it hurts, fingers breaking through the tobacco rod.

“-How hurt is he?”

“A broken arm. Bruised ribs.”

Grains of tobacco spill down his pocket and Yoongi doesn’t ask any further questions, but turns on his heel and marches off to another room nestled in the far right corner.

Namjoon can hear the sounds of water running through the thin walls, and he goes over to the open window to light the broken cigarette. He fumbles, almost drops Yoongi’s lighter down the darkness between two buildings, but catches it in the last second.

Namjoon mutters a half-hearted curse, his words dispersing in a white cloud.

There’s a dull, quiet sort of ache in his chest, and not even the stinging on his neck can drive his attention away from it.

He inhales smoke, surrounds himself with it, sees the bloody skin around Yoongi’s nails, thin scrapes in the filthy tapestry of the room and his eyes that remind Namjoon so much of Taehyung, clutching at his hand, sobs dissolving in the sunset, body swaying at the edge of a fall.

The smoke clogs up his throat and Namjoon hacks out a guttural cough, coming straight from his lungs.

Thoughts spin around his head, Taehyung stuffing his mouth full with fries, laughing as he evades thin streams of water, walking in front of him with his hands in his pockets and a playful gait, looking down at him from high up, hair glimmering and Namjoon almost lost him, almost lost him too -

He breathes in, throat raw and painful, a steady pounding at the back of his head. His eyes are watering up from the smoke of his cigarette and he lets it drop down the dark hatch between the buildings.

The ache feels like a gaping hole now, and Namjoon grits his teeth and smacks the window pane with an open palm.

“Stop,” he hisses at himself, a cloud of dust rising up where his hand struck the flat board. “ing stop.”

He fishes another cigarette out of a pack in his pocket with shaky fingers, sticks in between his lips and breathes in the toxic smoke, swallows it down to his crumbling lungs.

Yoongi’s ed up, Namjoon thinks, but he knows that he’s ed up even more.

One breath after another and Namjoon shelves it all away. He wipes at the corners of his eyes, and the tips of his fingers come away damp.

He’s halfway through his new cigarette when he’s interrupted by the doors opening again and a gust of heavy heat filling the room. Namjoon listens to dull footsteps, the sounds of fabric rustling. He coughs, shakes off the cinders from the tip of his cigarette.

“Hurry.”

Namjoon looks over his shoulder and finds Yoongi by the door, a winter jacket on his shoulders and a hand on the doorknob. Namjoon inhales once and extinguishes his cigarette, leaving a black mark on the side of the façade. He lets it drop down and follows after Yoongi.

They pass by the dozing receptionist and push outside.

The cold bites at Namjoon’s cheeks, the sun still hidden behind the thick cover of night. Yoongi walks quickly, arms bent at a ninety degree angle and cutting sharply through the air. There are water drops on the back of his neck, Namjoon notices, dripping down from the black crown of his head.

“It’s two degrees outside,” he says quietly, and Yoongi shucks the hood of his jacket onto his head after a couple of seconds.

They walk in silence after that, Namjoon lagging a few steps behind him.

“Visiting hours?” Yoongi throws at him, the words broken apart by his breathing.

“6 a.m. ‘til 9 p.m.”

“What time’s now?”

Namjoon takes his phone from his pocket and throws a look at the screen, frowning when he sees a dozen message notifications. He flicks it open, the screen cold against his finger.  

Tae: Did you find Yoongi-hyung?

Tae: Jimin keeps talking in his sleep

Tae: He just called Kook his best friend

Tae: I’ll nvr let him live this down

Tae: H

Tae: Y

Tae: U

“-Joon-ah.”

Namjoon lifts his head from the procession of letters, met by Yoongi’s pale eyes under the feathered brim of his hood, “The time?”

“My bad,” Namjoon glances at his phone again, “It’s twenty to six.”

Yoongi lifts his gaze up, squinting a little. Suddenly, he breaks into a half-run, looking like a thin-limbed robot. Namjoon makes his steps longer to keep up with Yoongi’s spirited jogging, but the two packs of cigarettes a day catches up to him and he’s out of breath after just a couple of minutes.

Yoongi glances over his shoulder when Namjoon’s footsteps start to lag and waves his hand forward. Caught by surprise, Namjoon answers only with a shake of his head. Yoongi turns back around and speeds up, rounding a corner quickly and disappearing from Namjoon’s sight.

Namjoon stops for a moment to catch his breath, fog curling in front of his mouth. The fingers holding onto his phone are red and numb, and typing feels like a Herculaneum effort.

Tae: N

Tae: G

Tae: T__T

Rapmon: found him

Rapmon: hes headed over there now

Taehyung comes online almost immediately.

Tae: Hyunggg (>--<)

Tae: Oky

Tae: Walk safely and come back quickly <3

Namjoon almost writes him a one word reply, but tacks on a: you too tae, before shoving his frozen hands back into his pockets, curling them into fists.

The walk to the hospital is quiet and undisturbed, perfect for immersing in heavy thoughts. Namjoon lights a cigarette and lets the smoke chase them all away.

The hospital looks ominous in the early dawn light. Activity is high in the courtyard, nurses and doctors bustling to and fro; there are always patients to attend to in the busy city of Seoul.

It’s warm and toasty inside, and Namjoon’s wipes his runny nose with the back of his hand. The nurse by the counter recognizes him and gives him a slow nod, and Namjoon wonders for a second if everyone in Seoul is tired and weary.

Namjoon feels as if his steps become heavier the closer he is to the right ward. First floor, Acute assessment unit.

 If all is well, Mr. Jeon will be moved to the Short stay unit, the nurse had informed Namjoon.

The unit consists of a long hallway, the walls painted halfway pastel blue and halfway white. The doors to it are open now, indicating that visiting hours have arrived.  There are a couple of rooms spreading down to the end, five plastic chairs positioned to face each door.

Namjoon finds Taehyung and Jimin where he’d left them, on blue chairs overlooking Jeongguk’s room.

They had been allowed access to the ward for a short amount of time, just so Namjoon could check up on Jeongguk’s state. Jimin fell asleep then and thankfully, the nurse agreed to let them stay when Namjoon pleaded as nicely as possible.

Taehyung looks up when Namjoon approaches them, eyes widening in pleased surprise. His face is swollen from lack of sleep, the skin under his eyes discolored and hair sticking out in every direction. Still, he sounds absolutely delighted when he says, “Hyung!”  

Namjoon feels affection swell in his chest and he pats Taehyung’s cheek with one hand. It feels like a hearth under his frozen fingers, and Taehyung makes a dissatisfied sort of groan but doesn’t move away.

“Hey,” Namjoon says softly. He moves his hand away, fingers brushing down the line of Taehyung’s round jaw before dropping down. He looks down at Jimin, whose heavily lined eyes are leaving black smudges on Taehyung’s beige pants. His jaw is still moving slowly, a stream of mostly incomprehensible mumbling leaving his lips.

“How’s Jimin-ah?”

Taehyung cards his hand through Jimin’s washed-out red hair, gently pushing it backwards. His thin fingers press over Jimin’s forehead like he’s taking his temperature and the look he gives him is caring, eyes shining with unspoken words of love.

It surprises Namjoon how right it all looks, even in a messed up situation like this.

“Okay,” Taehyung pouts. “I think.”

He removes his hand and ruffles the bangs carefully over Jimin’s frown, brushing them back into place. He looks up then, eyes widening like he’s just remembered something.

“Oh, Yoongi-hyung came. He saw Jiminie and me and was all like-”

Taehyung lifts up both of his hands and jumps back a little, mouth forming a small “o”.

“He was surprised?”

Taehyung nods a couple of times. He then looks at Jeongguk’s room.

“I told hyung that Kookie was there, and he went in.”

“Hm,” Namjoon leans on the wall next to Taehyung, all of the chairs occupied with Jimin’s legs. He’s truly tired now, adrenalin spent, and there are still so many things to deal with. Jimin, although there’s nothing much he can do about that now, and of course, Yoongi and Jeongguk; Namjoon wonders if he should go check up on them now or give Yoongi some more time alone.

And then there’s Taehyung, sitting by his side and playing with a flyaway strand of Jimin’s hair.

“Tae,” he prompts. “How are you? Hungry?”

Taehyung purses his lips, “I’m a little hungry.”

“What do you wanna-” Namjoons starts, pushing off the wall, but Taehyung grabs him by the cuff. Namjoon looks down at Taehyung’s fingers, clutched tightly around Namjoon’s sleeve, then up to his face, eyes wide and insistent. Namjoon thinks that he looks a little scared and it causes a sharp jab in his chest.

“Ah,” Taehyung at his lips and turns his eyes down. He lets go of Namjoon’s sleeve with an abashed little smile. “Sorry, hyung.”

“No,” Namjoon almost reaches out to pat his cheek again but stops himself. “It’s okay. Later, then.”

Taehyung gives him a brief nod, eyes falling to Jimin’s bedhead again.

“How are you, hyung?”

It’s a logical follow up to their conversation, but Namjoon is still caught unaware. He takes a breath, tries to answer and finds that he has no appropriate words.

“I – I don’t know.”

Taehyung looks up, head crooked and a confused furrow in his eyebrow.

“Hm?”

Namjoon tries to fish for a word to describe that feeling, that jabbing in his chest that’s always lurking somewhere near the surface. He lays a palm over his heart instinctively, and Taehyung follows the movement

 “Life is just so – so ,” the words are overly simplified and crude, and Namjoon tries again. “It's like - One second it’s running and laughing and being together and the other it’s bloody knuckles and cigarette smoke and just this – this poison on your tongue. It’s just goddamn bull.”

Taehyung squints a little, lips pressed together in a thoughtful fashion. Jimin’s arm moves suddenly, and the jacket slung over his chest slides down to uncover his bare arms.

“Hm,” Taehyung draws the jacket back up and tucks it around Jimin’s neck.

He pinches the tip of Jimin’s ear gently, and there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips when Jimin gives out a mumbled protest.

“Maybe, but I’ll remember it,” he says, quietly. “Everything good. Like Busan.”

Namjoon tips his head backwards, wall hard against the crown of his head and a thin smile on his lips.

“Or Yoongi-hyung walking in on Hobi-hyung ,” Taehyung adds, and Namjoon snorts on a laugh.

“There was so much screaming,” Namjoon says.

Taehyung sniggers lightly, and it’s a bittersweet sort of sound. Namjoon looks at the two of them, Taehyung’s arm over Jimin’s waist, faint smile playing on his lips and Jimin’s cheeks, pressed up onto Taehyung’s lap, dusted with a warm, healthy pink.

A kindling in Namjoon’s chest. It’s a dangerous, impulsive sort of feeling.

He moves away from the wall, and tells Taehyung: “I’m going to the window for a second, okay?”

Taehyung gives him a confused nod, and Namjoon feels his eyes on his back while he walks the length of the hall.

He reaches for the back pocket of his pants and takes out a mint-cased phone. He knows what he’ll find there; a missed call and a text saying:Yoongi-yah, I was sleeping, is everything okay?

Namjoon’s tired of feeling haunted by old memories.  He dials the number and holds the phone to his ear. It rings, once, twice, and then -

 “Yoongi-yah? Did you get my text? I’m really sorry for not picking up.”

Namjoon closes his eyes, overwhelmed by the sudden realization of how much he’s missed hearing that voice, clear and collected when he wasn’t. Namjoon looks out of the window at the end of the hall, people black pins on white. The window is halfway open, a narrow sliver letting air in.

“Hello? Yoongi-yah?”

Namjoon leans closer and breathes in with full lungs, giving fuel to the feeling burning inside of him.

“Hi, Seokjin-hyung.”