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You don’t end up making it into the M-countdown prerecording. Instead you spend the next day getting settled into your recently-acquired single-bedroom apartment block, promising yourself that you’ll go to the Inkigayo fan-sign instead. Yet, once you start working - commuting back and forth from the high school you start teaching at, all the while still trying to get your bearings of Seoul, you find less and less time between your days to line up outside fan-signs, fan-meets and prerecordings. 

Days becomes weeks and weeks stretch into months. Too soon, the maple trees, that had just started shedding their leaves when you attended that first fan-sign, just after landing, were stripped bare, against the winter chill that had begun to settle on the city of Seoul. Three months of no contact. Three months of unlocking your phone at every free moment, opening that conversation and rereading those lines of text - those five lines of proof that it really wasn’t a dream. Three months of typing and backspacing, of scribbling lyrics on the spiral notepad under your pillow, only to tear out the page and crumble up the words. Three months of not having the courage to rekindle the magic of that midnight conversation.

For Yoongi, it was three months of music show broadcasts, of plane flights - country hopping from Korea to Japan to Thailand to China. It was three months of concerts - two and a half hours of continuous rapping, singing and dancing…of getting barely enough free time to sleep, and even less time to work on the songs for the new album. In all honesty, he had been so caught up in the whirlwind of schedules that had hit the group that the only time he had spared a thought towards that conversation was during those select moments between midnight and sunrise, right before he drifted into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

———

“Okay, that will be all for today - have a good weekend everyone~”

You’re met with a collective murmur of “안녕히계세요 성새님”. The students file out of the classroom, backpacks slung over their shoulders, taking turns to bow to you, quiet “Thank you”s mumbled in English. You keep your smile in place, waving slightly until the last of the children leave, before slumping against the desk, eyes fluttering shut. You’d been teaching at the high school for almost three months now…yet you still found the formalities of a respectable teacher-student relationship mildly suffocating. That was your last class for the day and you’re in no hurry to go back to the apartment just yet, deciding to wander around the streets for a while. However, once outside, the bitter winter chill nipping at any exposed skin it finds, you realise that it’s far too cold to be wandering anywhere. Ducking into the nearest coffee store you line up, swiftly ordering a caramel macchiato, then sliding yourself into one of the seats at the very back of the cafe, pulling out a well worn notepad and flipping to the very back. The page is half-filled in with messy Korean characters - you haven’t been writing in the foreign language long enough to develop a handwriting “style” in it, yet. 

You sit there, pen posed over paper, willing words to flow from the ball-point tip onto the paper, finally giving up when your order arrives. You take a tentative sip, careful not to let the hot liquid burn your tongue. It’s sweet, almost too sweet. To be fair, it would be more unusual if a caramel macchiato wasn’t sweet. A vibration in your right pocket brings a stop to your musings about the sugar levels of the caffeinated beverage. You pull out the device, unable to stop the grin that spreads across your face at the twitter notification. Its another selca of Yoongi, this time in a black and white hoodie, smiling up at the camera, captioned with: ‘It’s good to be back! Did you guys miss me?~’.
You’re just about to tweet a quick reply, one to join the millions of other messages already flooding in, when the bright yellow on-screen pop-up stops you, fingers hovering over the phone screen.

‘I’m back! Sorry for not keeping in touch~’

Fingers trembling you open the message, shakily typing up a reply.

‘Welcome back, Yoongi oppa!~’

After some thought you start typing again.

‘What are you doing right now? Resting?’

The reply comes straight away.

‘Yup~ What about you?’

You think for a moment, before swiping open the camera app and snapping a quick picture of the still-warm macchiato. ‘Coffee~’

‘Ah~ I want some ㅋㅋㅋ’

‘Come ㅋㅋㅋ I’ll give you some of mine~’

As soon as the message sends, you regret it.
Too bold…that’s far too forward…too obvious.
As the minutes tick past, the yellow “1” beside the message disappears…yet no reply comes.

———

“Hyung~~~” Taehyung nudges Yoongi’s side, shifting them both closer to the car window, craning his neck to take a peek and the older boy’s phone, “Why are you smiling at your phone?”

Startled, Yoongi immediately locks the device, hiding the chat screen from his bandmate, heart thrumming impossibly fast, guilt nipping slightly in the back of his mind.

“Nothing, Tae…” he ruffles the younger’s hair, allowing the the 95-liner to lean against his side, “Go back to sleep…you can lean against me~”

Taehyung doesn’t need to be told twice, taking advantage of the rare occurrence, he settles himself against his hyung’s shoulder, body sinking into the less-than-comfortable car seat, eyes fluttering shut. 

Yoongi lets out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding, shoulders slumping in relief…before he catches sight of their leader’s confused eyes on him through the rearview mirror. After a moment, Namjoon looks away first, dropping his questioning gaze, eyes returning to his own phone and scanning the playlist he had opened. For the second time in ten minutes Yoongi can feel his sped-up heart rate slowly settling back into a normal pace. Leaning against the window, he tugs at the earphones hanging around his neck and plugs them in, letting his eyes fall shut as he, too, does his best to get some much-needed sleep. 

———

You had waited, acutely aware of your steadily cooling coffee, for a reply. A feeling that was equal parts disappointment and resignation settling over you when one didn’t come.

You rest your head against the back window of the bus, watching as the brilliant red that