In the midst of his scheduled nightly ritual, Yoongi is struggling. He’s had to process a lot today – Namjoon’s friends are ing with Yoongi’s life, Jimin lives in ing Seoul, Namjoon is home again because his dinner date was ing cancelled, and otherwise the knowledge that everything seems to be in ruins.

Including his Tumblr dashboard. He’d fully been planning on just reblogging a few posts before getting ready for bed, something to keep his blog looking active just in case he ever decided to message Jimin – he didn’t want to seem like a creep from some cobwebbed corner of the internet – but those plans are impossible when Yoongi can’t even find any good content over the stream of asks filling his feed.

Yoongi’s mad. He’s upset – this is totally unacceptable behaviour and Yoongi will never stand by it, but to Jimin. All of this hatred and rude attitude directed at Jimin, and Yoongi is never going to be able to just ignore that.

Besides, it doesn’t hurt to show a little support, Jimin isn’t going to know Yoongi’s been stalking his academic career with great interest via the internet. Jimin was way too polite to that dickwad anyway, the least Yoongi can do is indirectly address the pathetic excuse of a human being with some choice words Jimin’s too good to use.

His fingers hit the keyboard on his phone before he really knows what he’s saying, tapping out a lengthy message that Yoongi doesn’t really stop to consider along the way. It’s not like it matters, who’s going to know?

When his thumb finally hits the send button, he doesn’t feel relief. No – when his thumb hits that cursed send button, Yoongi stomach drops and he screams.

“What the ?” is the first thing Yoongi hears, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen. The exclamation is closely followed by the sound of a body hitting the wall and then Yoongi’s bedroom door slamming open, hard enough that it probably leaves a mark in the wall.

“Yoongi,” Namjoon breathes, stumbling into the room. “God, are you okay?”

Yoongi doesn’t move, doesn’t think he has it in him to speak. Namjoon steps forward again, a little more composed this time, and shakes Yoongi with hands digging into his shoulder. “Yoongi, talk to me, what’s going on?”

Turns out, Yoongi does have it in him to speak. “I ed up,” he whispers voice hoarse. Namjoon’s understandably panicked – Yoongi’s an old soul, quiet, has never screamed in his life, and Namjoon probably hasn’t heard him this upset since....that.

“Hey, Yoongi, it’s okay, talk to me? I’m sure we can fix it?” Namjoon says, shaking him by the shoulders again. Yoongi laughs.

“I think I’ll ing die, Joon.”

“Alright, okay, alright,” Namjoon starts. His hands come from Yoongi’s shoulders to pry his phone out of his hands, and it’s only a matter of seconds before...

“Oh , Yoongi.”

Yoongi leans back until his head knocks harshly against the wooden headboard of his bed. He laughs again, because what else is there to do? It was a perfectly normal message to send right up until Yoongi sent it, because apparently he doesn’t know how to click that little switch, that one that says send anonymously and would ultimately save Yoongi from the shame of owning those words.

“Right, up you get,” Namjoon says finally, grabbing a hold of Yoongi’s arms and hauling his limp body up to its feet.

“What are you doing?” Yoongi asks, with no real interest. He stays standing while Namjoon pulls a coat off the hook on the back of Yoongi’s door and shrugs it around Yoongi’s shoulders.

“We’re going out.”

Namjoon’s too good for me, Yoongi decides. He’s gripping a worn karaoke microphone in one hand and a disgustingly sweet concoction of too much alcohol in the other. Namjoon’s picking a song still, hunched over the small computer in the corner of the room and cussing when it doesn’t respond to his touch.

Namjoon has done what Namjoon has always done best. He recognised the situation and made the best choice in the moment to preserve Yoongi’s well-being – sometimes that meant ordering takeaway and forcing Yoongi to eat, and sometimes it’s taking him out to get drunk and pretend that absolutely nothing was wrong.

He’s unsteady on his feet and way too confident in his singing abilities, but it’s fun. They’d bar-hopped their way across Seoul, ending the night at this dingy karaoke bar because nothing else had been open this late on a Sunday night. With the liquor in his system, Yoongi even starts to think that maybe his non-anon message to Jimin wasn’t that bad of a thing after all.

“Aha!” Namjoon cries out, stepping back as another song fills the tiny room. Yoongi takes another large swig from his glass, cringing at the hyped-up taste, and hits that first high note like a born singer (which he most certainly is not).