“What is the difference between youth and young?”

Hoseok raised an eyebrow at Taehyung’s peculiar question, even though it was not easy to see the brief dance of that same eyebrow in the dim light of the room.

Assuming that he was simply sleep talking, Hoseok chuckled: “At least you’re not ordering noodles this time.”

Somewhat annoyed, Taehyung said edgily: “Hyung, I’m awake.”

“Oh.” Hoseok said, unable to figure out what to say to answer a surprising question that seemed to have sprung out of nowhere. Honestly, Tae was so unpredictable at times. “Haven’t you read in school? Youth is an adjective and young is a noun.”

Hoseok tried to wring out of his brain what ‘noun’ and ‘adjective’ were in case Taehyung asked that next. He didn’t.

Rather, Taehyung giggled: “Hyung, you’re bad at English as always. It’s the opposite.”

Hoseok’s cheeks warmed slightly, and he said: “Yaah, it’s impossible. Thank god I wasn’t born in England.”

“They’d kick you out for sure.” Taehyung agreed.

Chuckling, Hoseok hit Taehyung’s forehead with the back of his hand. “Go to sleep, kid.”

Even though he let out a whine of protest against the word ‘kid’, Taehyung complied, silently snaking his arms around Hoseok’s waist. Maybe the noodle man in his dreams would have an answer to the question.

Alas! Noodle man didn’t appear that night. And he was left to wonder on his own about that question.

Despite the oddity of the question, in Taehyung’s mind its sudden appearance sounded quite normal. He thought about things most didn’t, well, actually he thought about things most didn’t even think to think about. It must have been one of the reasons why he was called an alien, but it kept his mind occupied most of the time.

He stumbled across the word ‘youth’ just a few days ago. Contrary to popular belief, Taehyung could speak English to some degree. Like, even first graders could speak some English, not that Taehyung was calling himself a first grader (but he himself might have had declared his mental age was far less than one of that age).

 He was simply reading a fashion magazine article, where the word suddenly was seen by him. A simple word- but it kept on reverberating in his head. He remembered the word being in between quotation marks. Something that stood something like that: “It’s the color of youth, after all.”

If he wasn’t mistaken, the aforementioned color was yellow. Youth was yellow? What was youth, then?

“What a stupid question! Youth should be the state of being young.” Jin had said.

“Should be?” Taehyung tilted his head to the side.

“Yeah, I mean, words have different uses don’t they?” He replied.

“What other uses?”

Jin let out a sigh: “Honestly, you’re worse than a ten year old. Youth in general is used to describe ‘new’ in a poetic sense.”

He wanted to ask further, but Jin exited the room, probably to escape his attacks of questions, because he foresaw that they would soon reach a destination where Jin couldn’t do anything to answer.

***

Taehyung remembered a line from the song ‘lost stars’, especially because their Maknae, Jeon Jung Kook had done a cover of that song.

God, tell us the reason, youth is wasted on the young.

Linguistic boundaries sometimes were an inconvenience, but it didn’t really bother Taehyung much as it should’ve.

So, that line didn’t really seem all that significant at the time he heard it, even though he had admitted that the song was nice in its entirety and Jung Kook had done an excellent job of singing it. However, Jin-hyung had told him that youth was the state of being young.

Youth was being wasted on the young- for the first few seconds, it made absolutely zero sense to him. According to Jin, it would be like: wasting newness on the new. Would you say you’re wasting singing on a song? Or wasting food on your stomach?  

Rap Monster chuckled, and said: “That’s not it Taehyungie…”

“Then that would mean youth and young would be different, right? I thought about it. An eight year old is young and so is a twenty year old. But if my younger sister said she wants to enjoy her youth I’d act the older brother by scolding her and telling her to go do her homework.”

Rap monster had laughed at his reasoning. In fact, he laughed so hard that the man who was known for great wisdom at a young age was not able to reply through his laughter. Annoyed, Taehyung had left him in the workroom.

After that, he had been sitting on his own, fidgeting with the paws of a lion plushy while thinking on the same topic. Why was he so stuck up on the stupid word anyway?

“Alright, what’s bothering you?”

A harshly spoken sentence took him out of his trance and made him look up. It could be spoken by one person only, since none other in the dorm had that harsh and somewhat demanding sort of tone. Honestly, for someone with his looks, Yoongi’s words sure were incongruent. Yoongi-hyung sat next to him on the couch Taehyung sat on.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re quiet and the silence is disturbing. I can’t focus on my writing.”

Taehyung simply wondered at his Hyung’s logic and was about to say something in return, when Yoongi said, deadpanning: “As much as I hate to admit I adapted to the extraterrestrial, it’s uncomfortable when you’re quiet. So either cut down that or stay the hell away from me.”

Taehyung contemplated doing the latter, but then he remembered that even though Yoongi wasn’t knowledgeable in the same way Rap Monster was, he was acknowledged for his diverse knowledge. His rap lines were insightful and intelligent, and if anything was needed to solve the question in his mind, it would be insight.

“Hyung, how can youth be wasted?”

Yoongi cocked his head to the side and said: “If kids like you spend too much time trying to act grownup.”

“Hyung!”

Sighing, Yoongi said, unable to decide exactly how much Taehyung could and would understand: “Youth isn’t always a physical state you know? Youth is more about appreciation. It’s a state of mind.”

Something in Taehyung sparked, and he flashed his rectangular grin to Yoongi, who was surprised yet relieved that the alien was back so soon and got up to mind his work. Youth, huh? It could be an interesting concept for a song. Yoongi thought as he murmured a stanza that suddenly came to his head. He guessed that he’d treat Taehyung to some candies later… or maybe not.

Youth is more about appreciation. Yoongi said that laconically, but the meaning was quite elaborate to Taehyung, because that answer in itself brought many questions, some Taehyung could easily solve.

What was to be appreciated? The answer was simple. Everything.

The life he was given, the world around him, the people near him and even his age. Youth was the time when things were still novel, new. It didn’t matter whether you were eight or eighty. Some people were young all their lives and some were never young to begin with, but most lost their youths as life passed by.

Reaching that conclusion, he smiled happily to himself and it was not unnoticed. “What, Taehyungie, found out what youth is?”

Looking at the direction of the voice he saw Jin, who stared at him with mild curiosity. “Yeah, Jin-hyung. Now I know why you couldn’t tell me about it.”

Jin threw him a contemplative glare and said: “What do you mean?”

“You need to remember to tell, and it was… OW! What was that for, Hyung?”

“Are you calling me old?” Jin said, his eyebrows twitching as he pulled on Taehyung’s ear.

Taehyung giggled as he pulled free of Jin’s hand, and stuck his tongue out before running in the opposite direction. He was planning on going back to his room and jumping on his bed and probably on Hoseok as well, when the an all too familiar voice was heard, reiterating the all too familiar word. In the hallway, their Maknae, Jung Kook was loudly singing along to some song in his beautiful voice. Despite of his flawed English (Not that Taehyung had that much to say about that); the lyrics were sounding surprisingly clear. Rap Monster would definitely be proud of little Jung Kook.

My youth, my youth is yours, tripping on skies sipping waterfalls,

My youth, my youth is yours, run away now and forevermore,

My youth, my youth is yours, truth so loud you can’t ignore,

My youth, my youth, my youth, my youth is yours.

Taehyung had frozen in his place listening to the song, and Jung Kook was too immersed singing along to notice. Looking up after the song had ended, Jung Kook saw him and said with a smirk: “Bewitched by my voice, Hyung?”

“What were you listening to?”

Pouting that he totally ignored the fact that his singing was awesome, he named the song: “Youth, by Troye Sivan.”

“The guy of whose song you and Rap Monster did a cover of?” Taehyung asked, curious.

“Yeah, the song’s name was ‘Fools’.” Jung Kook nodded and started his music again, singing enthusiastically along with some song of Zion T.

***

Needless to say, Taehyung spent no time before looking up the song. At first he didn’t understand what Troye was saying in his fancy Australian accent, but clicking on a lyric video, he started to read along as the song played. Then again, the chorus was the part that intrigued him the most.

My youth is yours, it sounded somewhat… nice?

 Instead of walking all the way over to his and Jimin’s bunk bed, he dropped on Hoseok’s and kept on humming the tune. It was one of the rare days Hoseok and Jimin cut themselves some slack. It was very often that Jimin, Jung Kook and Hoseok would be found at 1 or 2 AM beginning their dance practice. Even Jin would be late working out whatever he claimed to have eaten that day. Hard to believe, but even Yoongi would be awake working on composing or writing along with Rap Monster. V, on the other hand, would join some of them at times, or at times practice by himself. However, his mind was occupied and he was not in the mood for practice.

So when Hoseok and Jimin returned to their room, Taehyung was mildly surprised. Pulling out an ear bud, he asked: “Hyung, you don’t have practice?”

“We were practicing but Hobi Hyung is being lazy.” Jimin shrugged as he grabbed his towel and walked to the shower.

On the other hand, Hoseok stretched his arms out and said: “Too much practice tires your hope!”

Hoseok, who apparently showed no interest in showering, plopped down next to Taehyung and took the ear bud Taehyung took out in order to speak to them.

“Hey!” Taehyung whined, but Hoseok ignored him.

The moment he heard the song, Hoseok chuckled: “Youth again? Kid, did you finally hit puberty?”

“Shut up, Hyung. You’re sweaty.”

“I’ll take a shower before I sleep.” Hoseok yawned and smashed his face on a pillow, lying on his stomach.

Inevitably, Taehyung’s ear bud was pulled away along with Hoseok and fell under Hoseok’s body… Damn, that was his only pair of earphones left. Annoyed, he slapped him on the back a couple of times, but he could elicit no other reaction than Hoseok chuckling away. Sighing, he his back and stared at the ceiling, his mind back to the lyrics of the song.

How can someone’s youth belong to someone else?

Youth was a state of mind, a period of appreciation. Then if youth was equivalent to time, then it would mean whoever his time was given to would be the one owning his youth? It didn’t help that most of his time was taken by practicing. Yoongi had said that youth was not always a physical state, it was about appreciation, a mental state. Then, whoever taught him to appreciate the world would give him youth? Then, in the first place, his youth was given unto him by someone?

If so, to whom did Taehyung’s youth belong?

He refused acknowledge any inanimate objects or not objects at all. That’s why, youth wasn’t time, he could tell without even thinking hard. Youth was a state of mind, and state of mind knew no time. Time could control one’s physique; it could never control one’s mentality.

Influence?

Maybe. But never control.

 What was youth anyway? Was it not what he had thought previously? Sighing, he tried to remember the times he felt young.

No, the times he felt ‘youth’. In other words, let’s take it as youth = appreciation. He was always petulant and frivolous, but that didn’t necessarily mean he saw everything with novelty, and things were appreciated best during two stages. The first would be when they were still new and fresh (The part of youth), and second would be when they were gone. These two stages are separated by a long line of monotony. He wasn’t dead yet, so he would only be able to appreciate the first stage of things.

When he was being childish and playful, he saw life with naivety if anything. If that was youth, then he had been a youth ever since he was born.

But Yoongi did emphasize on appreciation.

But if youth = appreciation, then there would be too many calculations to do, and there would be too many answers to choose from. He wasn’t a donor that he was going to say everything he appreciated was the shared owner of his youth (Hell, he even appreciated duck meat); he wanted a simple, one digit answer. He would need to find something that youth was, which would be youth ≠ time, and youth>appreciation.

He must’ve gone crazy, comparing youth to an equation. He giggled when he remembered what else they once compared to equations, but soon, he started thinking about his new equation again. The reason why youth couldn’t be time would be because his time was spent working hard, performing in front of thousands of hundreds of people. Did he feel young or youth then? Not at all.

The feeling Namjoon-hyung sometimes described about being on stage, feeling he owned the world- Taehyung didn’t feel the same way. He felt like he had a major responsibility on his shoulders, something he couldn’t screw up. He didn’t own the world; the world owned him when he was on stage. Was that youth? If that’s so, then youth .

The lyrics of the song, ’youth’, threw a bunch more riddles on his face. The most annoying thing was that the riddles were complicated further with hints. The lyrics were:

What if, what if we run away?

What if, what if we left today?

What if, we said goodbye to safe and sound?

What if, what if we’re hard to find?

What if, what if we lost our minds?

What if, we let them fall behind, and they’re never found?

Again, after the chorus:

What if, what if we start to drive?

What if, what if we close our eyes?

What if, we’re speeding through red lights, into paradise?

Cause we’ve no time for getting old,

Mortal body timeless souls,

Cross your fingers here we go, oh oh.

That indicated freedom, recklessness and adventurous propensity. It indicated mostly the timelessness of youth. These were all mere multiples of youth, youth was a greater digit than any of them, or all of them combined. One or more multiples were missing, Taehyung concluded to himself as he tried to match the current outcome with his own life.

Troye had indicated that his youth belonged to every one who enjoyed his music. He said it in an explanation for his song, and also hinted it in the lyrics.

When the lights start flashing like a photo booth,

And the stars exploding we’ll be fireproof.

It was evident that youth was very different for Troye and Taehyung. However, Troye had a clear idea what his youth lied in. That was exactly what Taehyung wanted to find out.

When did he feel youth?

He wondered as he turned his head to Hoseok, whose face was still buried in his pillow, even though he wasn’t sleeping.

When did he appreciate things? What did he appreciate?

He started with the person next to him. Hoseok would be, undoubtedly his favorite Hyung. Things were never heavy, never awkward with him. Even after their faces were slammed together and joined at the lips by Min Freaking Yoongi during the punishment game they played. Did he hate it?

Not really, no, but the lipstick was going overboard. In actuality, it was a time where he felt the so called ‘youth’.

It was reckless and stupid, giving his first kiss away to a guy wearing lipstick. He didn’t particularly enjoy it either, given that he felt like he kissed a Dementor instead of Hoseok, afterwards.

It still had a thrill to it, being filmed as he kissed someone of the same gender (Yeah, he would have preferred it if Hoseok was a girl). It was supposed to have consequences in South Korea, but thankfully it was brushed off as unintentional and purely fan service, thanks to the same Min Freaking Yoongi slamming their heads together.

Blush crept up to his face at the reminiscence of the memory, and he pulled his thoughts away. Did he feel youth when he was near Hoseok? Hell yeah, he did.

He even had already accepted the fact that he was probably head over heels in love with his Hyung. However unrequited it might’ve been, he did appreciate things when he was near him. He appreciated the time he spent with him, the words he spoke, the songs he sang, the actions they performed and he appreciated all of Hoseok himself.

He could clearly feel youth at the way his heart would flutter when he would be met with the ethereal silhouette of him, dancing in a manner that would put fairies and angels to shame, in the middle of the night, captivating even the air around him.

He would feel youth in how his heart beat quickened with anticipation when Hoseok took the spotlight and dominated the stage.

How he would be frozen every time Hoseok presented him with that blinding smile of his.

All those times he would ‘accidentally’ walk in while Hoseok changed.

Feeling somewhat bold and impulsive, he asked: “Hyung, are you awake?”

A muffled noise came out: “Yeah.”

“I like you.”

Taehyung felt butterflies flutter in complete synchrony with his heartbeat. He was being reckless, it was dangerous. They were band mates, if Hoseok hated him for this, then he would have only himself to blame. The band in entirety would suffer because of such a stupid action on his part. They were of the same gender. Things would never work out, and that would be considering Hoseok even reciprocated. They were going to have to be clandestine forever. Their music careers would suffer if words got out; they’d be shamed every moment of their lives, hated in every way possible if words got out. It was South Korea, there, they would have no rights. If that wasn’t recklessness, wasn’t insanity, nothing else was.

But do I dread the outcome as much as I dread his reply? He asked himself, and his answer was immediately made in the negative. At that moment, he feared nothing but a simple sentence out of one man. He could deal with the world hating him, but he couldn’t deal with Hoseok hating him.

When the lights start flashing like a photo booth

The stars exploding we’ll be fireproof.

He muttered the lines to himself, whether as an encouragement or consolation he didn’t know.

The next few seconds could bring anything. He was probably insane to do such things. But he needed closure. He needed to know that Hoseok was the owner of his youth. The back of his mind was filled with the resonation of a voice that said that he wasn’t insane… he was…

Hoseok’s head quickly turned to the side to look at Taehyung, whose face was red as hell by the time the words were spoken. “Yeah…”

Youth.

“I like me too.”

Hoseok finished, a goofy grin creeping up his face.

The flutters in his stomach were gone, the suspense in the atmosphere strangled along with anything else positive… other than Hoseok. For a brief moment, Taehyung wished even Hoseok would be strangled with all the positive things in the air. Annoyed, Taehyung subconsciously pouted and stood up: “Well, good luck having dreams about yourself, narcissist.”

He was about to storm away, when Hoseok stopped him by grabbing his wrist. “Hey, just because I like me, doesn’t mean I can’t like you too.”

Taehyung threw him a death glare over his shoulder that melted instantly at the smile on Hoseok’s face. Replacing annoyance in his head was the same flutter of butterflies in his stomach. There was a reason why they wrote a song about butterflies, they sure were annoying and lovable at the same time (Even though that wasn’t what the song was about). Seeing that Hoseok was still clutching his wrist with his body propped up on his other elbow, Taehyung sighed and lied down next to Hoseok, snuggling closer. Hoseok mildly protested: “I’m sweaty you know.”

“I do know, and you smell.”

It was Hoseok’s time to be annoyed. He said: “Then…”

“You smell of youth.” Taehyung smiled, looking up at Hoseok who was rendered speechless for a second.

After that second had passed, however, Hoseok lied back down and said: “Of course I smell young, I’m not old you know. Wait, are you calling me old, Tae?”

It was somewhat adorable that Hoseok kept rambling on because of his sudden nervousness. “Not young, youth.”

Hoseok raised an eyebrow, and sighed: “Kids in puberty sure are a handful.”

Taehyung simply chuckled against the crook of Hoseok’s neck, where he had buried his face in. For the past five minutes, there hadn’t been a moment when he hadn’t felt it… well, aside from the time when Hoseok temporarily murdered the youth in the air. He had been feeling youth for as long as he had stared at Hoseok. Hoseok was the actual beginning of his youth. He found the missing multiple- ‘Love’.

But it was just a multiple.

Love didn’t suffice in making him feel youth, like Hoseok had.

Hoseok was the only one who held that rare power.

Not because Taehyung had a Mount Everest sized crush on him, he had crushed on a girl before. It came with the feeling of maturity rather than youth, he had felt the need to tell her, he had been disappointed when he couldn’t. It never let butterflies loose out of the mental hospital in his stomach.

It really wasn’t solely because Hoseok was the person he was in love with. He loved ARMYs, going as far as to calling them his husband… whoops, wives. He loved his band members too. But it was evident that none of them could give him youth. They all came with a sense of responsibility.

Youth came from one source and one source only. It came from Hoseok. Hoseok had his timeless love, his freedom of mind, his appreciation, his desires to do the dangerous and being reckless and every other multiple of youth. Hoseok owned his youth (Not necessarily him though, he was not about to objectify himself).  

Of course, why hadn’t he seen it before?

Youth wasn’t time, Yoongi was right. It was a state of mind. Anxiety, happiness, they were all states of mind, weren’t they? They were feelings too.

Youth was a feeling.

It needn’t be continuous, just like the other feelings he experienced; a person was never constantly in youth. It was intermittent. A forty year old could feel youth at times even though that person wasn’t youthful.

That didn’t mean some people couldn’t constantly feel youth. He just wasn’t one of them. It might sound surprising, because he knew that if anyone named a forever young person, most would just bring up his name.

But it wasn’t true.

The youth, of those who were forever young, belonged to the whole universe. His youth didn’t belong to the universe, it belonged to his universe. It belonged to Hoseok. He was only young when the time itself became timelessly Hoseok.

Love, appreciation, timelessness, adventurous propensity, insanity and freedom were all multiples of youth. Youth was a greater thing, youth was a feeling greater than all of them, the multiplication of them all created youth.

He knew it, because right then, he was feeling youth as Hoseok kept drawing small patterns on his back, ruffling his hair. He knew that he could look forward to feeling youth more often.

His youth belonged to Hoseok alright.