Most days, Yoongi’s mood is an afterthought. He’s a bit happy or a bit grumpy or a bit tired. Tired is a powerful emotion, Kiseok feels it faster and faster these days, he’s only thirty two for ’s sake.

Point being, nothing ever deviates too far from the norm, which is less standoffish than it thinks it is, a little hot headed, cuddly in the mornings. Yoongi slips in and out of Kiseok’s apartment like clockwork - they have a routine - and talks in loud grumbles about his day and his friends and his group mates and whatever else goes on when Kiseok’s not watching.

Kiseok’s pretty good at watching, Kiseok can really pay attention when he wants to.

“You alright?” he slides Yoongi a box of take out chicken from the place down the street.

Yoongi’s eyes are glassy, his shoulders tight around his ears. His mouth hangs open like there’s a thought trying desperately to escape from it that will not be dislodged. He shakes himself free of his stupor and his shoulders are still tense, “I’m fine.”

That’s pretty normal. Kiseok takes a bite of chicken and lets him be.

Three days is a long time for Kiseok to go without texting someone, for Yoongi it would appear to be more or less standard. It’s a shame, there are dinner dates and movie nights they miss out on when he doesn’t pick up his phone, but it can’t be helped. If he was trying just a little less hard to be cool, Kiseok might make a fuss, but it’s easier not to start silly fights in the first place.

C u 2night? Kiseok send off, tries not to get his hopes up.

Two hours later, he gets a reply. Pretty good going. Don’t think I can. Sorry. Working on some stuff.

Kiseok’s heard that before. You sure you don’t wanna be distracted? ;)

We’ll do something on Tuesday. Yoongi replies.

Kiseok is cool, he doesn’t go chasing after people like that. He doesn’t say anything when the snapchat Yoongi sends him less than an hour later has clearly not been taken anywhere near the studio.

“I gotta go,” Yoongi jumps up from the sofa in a rush.

Kiseok resents the empty space he leaves, “for real? Already?”

Yoongi’s already half way to the door, throwing on outdoor clothing and checking his phone with a pointed intensity that doesn’t seem entirely natural. Kiseok gets up to show him out, trying not to sulk, trying not to be miffed but…

“C’mon, you can stay another couple of hours. I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to show you,” he grins, wiggles his eyebrows. When all else fails is normally enough of a reason for Yoongi to pull his together.

Yoongi sighs, bites his lip. He’s thinking, not in a ‘what I have to do verses what I want to do’ sort of way. Kiseok knows what that looks like, it’s a bit irritable and doesn’t like it but chooses what is necessary over what is nice. This is the indecision of someone who doesn’t know what they want. Why would Yoongi not know? Where does he want to be that isn’t right here?

“I have to go,” Yoongi breathes.

Kiseok shrugs, disappointed, watches him go. It bugs him though, something doesn’t quite add up here. Yoongi was smiling just half an hour ago, happy to go along with whatever. It doesn’t make sense.

Calls in the middle of the night are not completely unheard of, they both keep odd hours, after all. Sometimes it’s a booty call, sometimes a drunk dial, sometimes the world feels so wide at night that it’s only fair that they share it with someone. Kiseok sees Yoongi’s name pop up on the front of his phone, blinking away sleep from a rarely snatched early night. He’s not best pleased.

“What?” he snaps.

“Hey! I just…um…it’s late I just wanted to…” Yoongi’s breathing too much, speaking too fast. Kiseok scowls.

“Spit it out.”

“We had a late schedule for some bull idol business…thing. Anyway I hate people don’t you just..hate people sometimes?”

Kiseok wants to slam the phone down and let Yoongi deal with his late night nihilism on someone else’s watch – he’s tired, he doesn’t want to be having this conversation. But something feels off, either too light or too heavy, he can’t quite work out which, but his gut tells him that he has been called because Yoongi knows he’ll stay on the line.

“Are you alright?” Kiseok asks. He can already see Yoongi’s glassy stare, everyone stares off sometimes, nothing weird about it. Everything weird about it. He’s not sure, it feels like he’s crossing unseen boundaries just by entertaining the idea that anything about this is wrong, and yet it’s wrong.

“I’m fine,” Yoongi replies tightly. Then he rattles off some bull story about a couple of idols Kiseok doesn’t know and a security guard. It doesn’t sound very important and so he stops paying attention.

Kiseok’s a crybaby at heart, he doesn’t mind saying as much. His emotions get the better of him more often than not and that’s fine. He’d rather feel big and brash than pretend he doesn’t feel.

Every time the mixtape ends he goes back to the first track and starts over. He still hasn’t told Yoongi what he thinks. , he’s not even really listening to the music, he’s listening to all the parts of their conversations that have been missing, kicking himself for not being just a bit pushier, just a bit more clingy.

He feels numb, and angry, and sad. He doesn’t think crying will help.

It takes three hours and ten phone calls for Yoongi to pick up, Kiseok’s about ready to go marching over to his dorm.

Kiseok in Yoongi’s dorm is a hard limit, no go zone. He’d be in the dog house for a month making up for it, but he’s willing to go that far, if that’s what it takes. No more half measures.

“Jesus ing Christ you took your time,” Kiseok collapses onto the sofa, “what was all that about?”

“What was that about?” There’s a note of bemused indulgence in Yoongi’s voice. He doesn’t sound distant or distracted or wrong, he sounds like he’s supposed to sound. Like he always sounds, until he doesn’t.

Kiseok doesn’t know where to begin to start, so he starts at the impetus. “That ing mixtape.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“That’s really not the point,” Kiseok winces, kicking himself internally for saying it like that. He can practically see Yoongi shrinking in on himself, he’s not as good at taking criticism as he’d like to be, “Yoongi, you shouldn’t go airing your out like that.”

“It’s my , I’ll air it where I like,”

“Where you want to air it and where’s good to air it are two different things, trust me.”

“I don’t know wh-“

“As someone who’s been doing this for a lot longer than you, trust me,” Kiseok finds his pacing, slows down, lets his voice settle into a tone less accusatory and more comforting, “you gotta be careful what you put out there.”

There is silence, and for a long moment Kiseok worries that Yoongi will think up an excuse to end this conversation and things will proceed as normal.

“It just…” Yoongi starts quiet, “it feels so much better to get it out.”

“You have friends, don’t you?”

“Yeah but…I dunno man I’m not sure it makes much difference if I talk to a friend or if I talk to a mic.”

Of course he doesn’t, he’s still so goddamn young. Kiseok feels tired just thinking about it, “It makes all the difference. The people who are listening to this, they don’t know you like that. But they think they do. Mixing this kind of with your fans can only go so far before it gets nasty.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Yoongi sounds miserable.

“Talk to me!” Kiseok smiles despite himself, the simple things always come hardest.

They both stop, take pause. Trapped in the headlights, nowhere to run.

“Not right now,” Yoongi says, “I’ll see you Thusday just…not tonight.”

Tuesday is three days away. Kiseok has just enough patience to stretch that far.