“hey?” jimin mutters, voice quiet and it’s so peaceful, so calm, yoongi tries to take it all in.

“yeah?” he answers, fingers slightly tracing over jimin’s empty hand splayed over his thigh. his cold fingertips grazing over jimin’s warm skin. he grins for one split second.

jimin doesn’t reply back, just retracts his hand from yoongi’s thigh and takes his hand into his, lacing their fingers together and it’s such a sweet gesture that it has yoongi smiling, his teeth showing and he doesn’t deny the fact that he likes holding the black haired boy’s hand.

jimin giggles, a cute laugh from the back of his throat and yoongi could listen to it for hours, just listening. with jimin’s hand in his and the boy’s head on his chest. yeah, he could probably do that forever.

but he can’t.

there’s a bottle on jimin’s hand but he doesn’t drink it. it’s alcohol, yoongi knows. they’ve been sitting on the roof of jimin’s house for a while, just staring at the sky as the sun sets. they must look romantic, yoongi thinks. but right now all they can do is hold hands and drink their problems away.

jimin presses the mouth of the bottle to his lips, tilting his head back to take huge gulps of the liquid, then withdraws the bottle from his lips to let out a soft chuckle.

“what’s funny?” yoongi asks, smiling but he doesn’t know why. (maybe just seeing the younger boy laugh makes his day better; makes him forget all the problems in his head.)

“nothing,” jimin shrugs and shakes his head, “just felt like laughing.” and he’s tilting his head back to laugh again.

yoongi shakes his head, he’s drunk. and holds jimin’s hand tighter.

-

“you okay?” seokjin asks one day, when they’re both sitting on yoongi’s couch, empty bottles of alcohol heaped at their feet, and yoongi’s mind numb. seokjin is not really doing a great job of keeping away all the bottles of beer away from the younger boy.

“y-yeah,” he hiccups, “never better.” and seokjin gives him an apologetic smile. yoongi takes another swig of the alcohol from the bottle he’s holding, loving the burn in his throat that it gives, seokjin does nothing to stop him.

even though seokjin keeps telling him that drinking too much alcohol everyday will eventually kill him, he knows it helps. it helps yoongi to forget a lot of things. specifically a boy named park jimin.

seokjin ends up leaving an hour later, muttering his apologies because his mother keeps texting him and telling him to go home. yoongi lets him, tells him he’ll clean the living room up himself for once, and seokjin runs off, bidding him a quick goodbye.

yoongi kind of regrets telling seokjin that he’ll clean up, because he’s lazy and tired and drunk so he clumsily walks back to his room, tripping on his own feet a few times in the process. he lays face down on his bed, groaning when his phone dings.

it’s jimin.

      hey hyung 5:34

he replies, fingers typing quickly on his keyboard (it’s quite impressive, considering that he’s drunk).

 what 5:34

he gets another text a minute later.

      wanna hang? 5:35

no, too busy. 5:35

      ok talk to u soon hyung 5:36

yoongi sighs, placing his phone on his bed side table and just sleeps the rest of the day off.

-

the next day, yoongi’s head is pounding and seokjin and is over to clean his apartment.

“you know you should really start cleaning up your own damn house.” seokjin mutters, annoyed but the both of them know he’s just playing around.

“i didn’t ask for you to clean it anyway.” yoongi replies, impressed at himself by how he can still make up a comeback when he’s hungover.

“so you can live in a garbage can? no yoongi, i will not be friends with someone who is a messy .” seokjin jokes while mopping yoongi’s floor.

“you like me, though.” yoongi smirks.

“yeah sure i do.” seokjin rolls his eyes. they both laugh it off.

yoongi thinks it’s better like this, when it’s just him and seokjin, joking around and actually having fun. but he doesn’t like it, not when jimin’s not around. the younger boy never fails to make his heart skip a beat or for butterflies to form in his stomach. too bad he’s with someone else.

seokjin had talked about it once, with yoongi. he’d cried so hard his head started hurting and all he could do was rest his head on seokjin’s shoulders while the older would rub comforting patterns on his back and reassure him everything was going to be alright.

it wasn’t.

yoongi knows nothing will ever be alright because the boy he loves so ing much is with someone else and the worst part is jimin doesn’t even know that yoongi is so badly in love with him, with his eyes; the way it brightens up whenever yoongi tells a joke, his smile; how sweet and genuine and beautiful it could be when someone compliments him, his laugh; the way yoongi could just listen to it for hours and hours without caring about anything else. god, he’s so in love with him.

but jimin wasn’t. jimin thought of him as a friend, as a brother even. he was dating someone else, jung hoseok, yoongi bitterly remembers. he was that guy jimin met in their dance class. jimin had said, “he’s such a great dancer, like holy those hips, those hips could do magic” a few weeks back. yoongi can’t even dance that well.

seokjin had told him that he’d be there to help him move on, to help him get over it and help him be happy again. as much as he’s thankful for his best friend, it’s not really helping. nothing is really helping. the alcohol- it makes him forget, but only temporarily. it helps wash away all the problems and helps him not think of park jimin but when he wakes up, head throbbing and world spinning, he remembers park jimin once again and he thinks he might just throw up.

“hey yoongi, you heard me?” seokjin asks, sitting next to him on the couch.

“yeah sorry? wasn’t listening.” yoongi says.

seokjin chuckles lightly, “i figured. i was asking if i could sleep over tonight.”

“sure. go ahead.” yoongi nods, and seokjin gives him a genuine smile. he stands up and walks to the kitchen, probably to prepare dinner.

sometimes yoongi thinks he’s so ing lucky to have seokjin as his best friend, he’s been with him through ups and downs, never left his side. he doesn’t even deserve seokjin, the guy deserves someone so much better than yoongi, much more decent, more mature, and more sober than him. and yoongi thanks every single existing god everytime seokjin comes to the rescue for him.

yoongi sleeps on his bed that night and seokjin ends up on the floor, even after yoongi’s protests.

-

seeing the love of your life holding someone else’s hand must be the most painful thing you could ever see, yoongi decides when he meets jimin and hoseok one day, hand in hand with smiles painted on their faces.

yoongi pretends to smile.

“hey, hyung.” jimin greets, and he is so goddamned thankful he has seokjin beside him. he grips the blond’s hand and hides it behind his back. seokjin squeezes his in response.

“hi, jimin, hoseok.” yoongi smiles, hoseok returns it.

it’s awkward for a few seconds, yoongi averting his eyes away from jimin’s gaze and instead gives seokjin’s hand a hard squeeze.

“so, funny seeing you guys here.” seokjin speaks up, smiles towards hoseok and jimin and yoongi mentally thanks him. they’re currently standing in the middle of the mall, where people who walk by stare at them for a second and ignore them at the next.

“yeah, we were just hanging out, we’re actually leaving now so, um, see you around, hyung?” jimin says and yoongi mumbles a small “bye” and they both walk away. yoongi still standing awkwardly, his hand still holding seokjin’s.

“you okay?” seokjin asks. yoongi nods and they start to walk to the department store, hand still in clutching seokjin’s.

-

it’s a friday night, and yoongi is getting hammered. again.

going out to the bar will only cost yoongi more money so he drinks at home. again. with seokjin keeping him company. again. it’s a cycle now, every night seokjin will check if yoongi’s drinking (he always is) and he keeps him company and lets him drink away all his problems and lets him rest his head on his shoulders as he cries.

funny how he could suffer so much. watching the person he loves cry over someone else. to say it was painful was an understatement. seokjin was suffering, all he wants to do is help yoongi feel better, bring back the old him, but at the same time he wants yoongi to be happy with him, not with jimin or someone else- no.

yoongi falls asleep on his chest, forehead on top of his shoulder and he lays him down gently on the couch, clearing away all the empty bottles and laying a blanket over his body. he sighs, “god, if you ever knew how much i love you.” and drives home that night.

 -

the next morning, when yoongi wakes up, he gets a call from the hospital saying seokjin didn’t end up at home alive the other night.