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Chapter Text

“You broke it! I’m so telling dad!”

Seokjin met Yoongi when he was ten years old, running away from his older brother’s angry cries, by the lake his house was near upon.

He was barefooted from rushing too fast away from home, his breath shallow and the soft skin of his feet now sore from running by the rocky lake’s shore.

“Seokjin!” he heard his brother scream behind him, but he only ran faster.

He knew that if his brother managed to catch him now he would get a beating from him and one from his father when he came back home from work. He preferred to only be punished by his father.

He managed to run a little farther, when suddenly someone pulled him closer to the lake by his arm.

“Hush,” said a boy not older than him while pushing him down behind a big rock on the sandy and wet side of the shore.

Seokjin stayed shut and slid down the rock while trying to catch his breath and stop his tears. The boy was around his height, with small eyes and very fair white skin.

“Thank you…” he managed to tell the boy when his brother vanished from the shore and his whimpering stopped a little.

The boy shrugged and stared at Seokjin, the boy’s eyes getting smaller when squinting against the bright sun reflecting on the lake. The boy’s name was Yoongi, and he was a little younger than him.

“Did you know that you can’t chew bubblegum if you cry?” Yoongi pushed his hand into one of the pockets of his beige cargo pants and pulled out a fistful of bubblegum, “did you?” he offered him one and they started talking about their favorite flavors of bubble gum.

That day they stayed behind that rock until way past noon.  Seokjin was pretty sure Yoongi only shared his bubblegum to make him stop crying, and back then it made him feel pitiful, but as the years passed he learned to treasure those kinds of memories.

They went home promising to meet each other again the next day.

Seokjin didn’t make it the next day, or the day after that, because when he came home his father was waiting for him with a belt in his hand, his brother smugly crossing his arms beside the man. His brother’s smug smile disappeared as the beating came to an end though.

When everyone went to bed, Namseok quietly sat on Seokjin’s bed and carefully brushed a lock of hair out of his bruised forehead, but Seokjin batted his hands away and hid under his sheets. He could feel tears pooling at his eyes when Namseok placed his hand on top of his head. “Go away, Namseok hyung.” he brokenly said.

“I’m sorry.” his brother whispered to him before leaving the room.

Seokjin cried until he fell asleep.

OOO

It wasn’t until a week later that he made it to the lake to meet Yoongi.

He ran to the rock he last met Yoongi at, but unsurprisingly the other boy wasn’t there. He hastily sat by the edge of the lake, beside the rock, and stared at the bag of bread his mother made for him in case he got hungry for a snack.

He sighed as he took his shoes and socks off his feet and uncurled his legs to touch the fresh water of the lake with his toes, then his entire feet. He swirled his feet around the water for a while, playing with the movements of waves, before he got bored and just sat watching the sunlight dance across the lake.

“What’s that?” someone said beside him, making him jump a little.

“Yoongi!” Seokjin stared, “I thought you weren’t going to come!” he smiled, Yoongi smiled too.

“My house is boring,” the other said while sitting beside him and grabbing the bag he was carrying.

“My mom gave me some bread from the restaurant she works at.” Seokjin got closer to Yoongi. “She took it behind her boss’ back, so don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Your mom works at a restaurant? What does she do?” Yoongi asked as he took a bite from one of the buns in the bag.

Seokjin’s mom worked part-time as a waitress at a small restaurant fifteen minutes away from their home, his father took a train everyday to go to work, Seokjin didn’t really know where his father worked, only that sometimes he would come home with a lot of papers that they shouldn’t play with. His father didn’t talk too much, always straight and silent; Namseok usually started conversations with him, but Seokjin was too scared of the man to do more than obey and stay shut when he was home.

“Did he do that?” Yoongi asked while pointing at a fading bruise on his cheek.

Seokjin nodded a little, “where does your mother works?”

Yoongi contemplated him for a moment before answering him, “I never met my mother, but my father works in the army. I never see him though.”

Min Yooseon was a strict man with a strong sense of moral and ethic, but he was always so busy he couldn’t meet his children too often, so when Yoongi and his brother had a break from their boarding school they were sent to his grandmother, who lived peacefully in Seokjin’s village.

“So you live at your school?” Seokjin asked him. “Like, you eat, sleep and shower in it?”

Yoongi nodded while throwing pebbles at the lake.

“Isn’t it hard?”

Yoongi shrugged, “I almost never see my father, but neither do my friends, so I don’t get very sad about it. My school gives me better food than what my father can make, so I think I just got lucky I don’t have to try his cuisine every day.” When Yoongi noticed Seokjin’s seriously concerned face he kept going. “Also, they give us tons of toys and books, so we’re never bored; we also play a lot of games and the school is really pretty, so it’s not bad. Wouldn’t you like to go to a boarding school?”

Seokjin was scared of his father, and sometimes his brother played with him too rough, but his mother’s cooking was really good and he couldn’t imagine himself not sitting together with his family every morning at breakfast and every night at dinner.

“I’m fine with the toys I have, and I think my house is really big and pretty.” Seokjin said while he shook his head.

“Really?” asked Yoongi.

“My dad just painted our house before summer, and my mom planted some flowers outside this spring.” Seokjin said remembering how happy his father looked back then, stealing kisses from his mother every time she frowned at the gardening instructions.

That day they went to Seokjin’s house, which wasn’t very far away from their rock, but they still had to walk some thru the forest surrounding the lake to reach it. When they were standing in front of it Yoongi was surprised.

“Are your parents foreigners?”

 “Not at all.” Seokjin laughed a little, “Only the people who gave it to them”

Seokjin explained to Yoongi the tale of the house as they went into his room with some sandwiches Namseok left for him. “I don’t know why he leaves so much food for me, he knows I don’t eat that much…” commented Seokjin as he put in the fridge the remaining sandwich of the three his brother left for him.

His father’s family was very wealthy, but exiled him when they knew he married Seokjin’s mother. His mother was an orphan, and as she grew up she worked doing almost everything, from a cleaning lady, to a kitchen assistant, to a waitress; but she was happy she worked that hard, because that was how she met Seokjin’s father. It was love at first sight, according to their mother.

His mother told them once that their father worked really hard to support them after it, constantly missing sleep and passing hunger to make them feel comfortable at the small room they were renting back then

“That’s how I know that my father loves us,” Seokjin explained to Yoongi as he slightly touched the bruise he was sporting, “he could have gone back to his family and leave us, but he stayed and made us his new family.”

When one of his father’s best friends knew about his situation, he offered him a house he had made in a village in Korea. It was for his mother in America to stay in the holidays but she died before it could be finished and his father’s friend didn’t see a point in keeping it, so he gave it to Seokjin’s father. The house was pretty much finished, and his father and mother slowly patched it up until they felt it was complete. They moved in when Seokjin was still pretty small, but he remembers looking at lizards for the first time and being scared.

Yoongi laughed at that confession.

“Don’t laugh! Lizards are scary…” Seokjin reprimanded him as he covered his flushing face. “Do you remember when you entered your boarding school?”

“No,” the other boy said as he shifted on Seokjin’s bed, “It’s like if it had always been my home”

“Then what about the first time you went to your grandmother’s house?”

Yoongi smiled at him, eyes becoming smaller, “The same… but if I’m honest, I think lizards are scary sometimes too”

Seokjin smiled behind his fist.

OOO

Yoongi’s grandmother was a sweet and wise woman who lived by herself in a beautiful hanok with a small pond full with colorful fishes.

The entire house was full with ancient-looking furniture, and Yoongi’s granny always dressed in fancy hanboks. She was very old and had to walk with a cane, but Yoongi’s father contracted people to do the things she couldn’t do, like cooking and cleaning.

Yoongi told him that if he acted really sweet she would give him bubblegum, so Seokjin tried to be very polite and at the end of the day both of them had their pockets full of bubblegum.

Yoongi made bubbles with his gum while he walked him home at sunset. All the way back to Seokjin’s house they held hands while singing a song off key smiling at each other.

Seokjin wondered if that was how it felt to have a best friend.

OOO

They were the best of friends that summer, just like peanut butter and jelly together.

They played together almost every day, they tried flying kites (Seokjin cried when his kite got stuck in a tree and Yoongi let him fly his, only to have it wrecked too), they helped Yoongi’s grandmother feed the fish in her pond, they explored the clearing after the lake’s forest; once they followed the end of a rainbow, but they got tired before they could find it. They chased lizards away from Seokjin’s room as they listened to an old radio Seokjin’s mother had and ate ice cream by the pond in Yoongi’s house. Somewhere along summer Seokjin realized Yoongi was the most exciting person he had ever met.

By the end of that summer they knew each other like the back of their hands, making it hard to separate at the end of summer break. But it didn’t matter how far they were, Seokjin told himself he had one good friend in the world.

“I’ll come back when it’s winter break.” Yoongi promised as they hugged goodbye outside Yoongi’s grandmother’ house, Seokjin’s eyes full with unshed tears.

And he did.

Chapter Text

Winter passed in a whirlwind of Seokjin’s laughter, snow castles and warming up in each other’s beds while eating bread and cookies.

Seokjin’s hands were warm and soft, so Yoongi liked holding them every chance he got, even when they were just laying down doing nothing. They helped each other memorize awful multiplications and long poems, Yoongi taught Seokjin how to make rhymes the easy way and Seokjin showed him how to sum up things really quick.

He spat his last baby tooth into his fist after a fight with his brother. Some blood dribbled down his chin as he spat the ugly taste out, but he was so excited about losing the last one of his baby teeth that he didn’t get too mad at his hyung. He didn’t think about it twice before running to Seokjin’s house. It was getting dark already, and in his rush he almost forgot to take his jacket, but his grandmother eyed him sternly and he went back to fix his boots and jacket on.

He found Seokjin shivering outside his house in just his pajamas.

“Why are you out here?” Yoongi asked as he grabbed freezing hands. “You are like an ice cube!”

“I’m being punished for c-calling my mom stupid.” Seokjin said through clenched teeth. “I was very rude and I deserve it.”

Yoongi stared incredulous at him. Seokjin looked at him and Yoongi noticed tears on his face.

“I-I was just really angry because she believed my brother instead of me,” Seokjin sniffed, “and then my father heard and- and I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t cry, Seokjin.” Yoongi freed one of his hands from Seokjin’s cold grasp to swipe his friend’s face with the sleeve of his jacket.

“I’m really cold, Yoongi.”

Yoongi ended up sharing his jacket with Seokjin behind a bush, hiding from Seokjin’s father. Seokjin cuddled onto him holding on tight. Slowly, Seokjin heated up again and his crying stopped. Yoongi tried to make Seokjin smile again by taking his tooth out of his jacket to show him, but he didn’t feel as happy as before he saw Seokjin freezing outside his house, crying.

“Whoa!” Seokjin opened his eyes really big, making Yoongi smile.

“And there’s even some blood on it. Look,” Yoongi smugly pointed as he pressed his cheek on Seokjin’s own.

Seokjin contemplated him for a while, hesitant.

“Do you believe in the tooth fairy?”

“No.” Yoongi wrinkled his nose.

“Then you won’t cry if I ask you what are you going to ask your father for it?”

“No, I won’t.” Yoongi grimaced.

 “I don’t think you would cry even if I did break your dreams.” Seokjin smiled while squinting his eyes at the tooth, “I don’t ask for money because my brother takes it from me, so I always tell my father to buy me something yummy instead.”

“My grandmother and father give me money before we throw the tooth up or down my grandma's house. ” Yoongi smiled, “Both of them give me money. My brother doesn’t care; I hit him if he takes something from me.”

“Isn’t he older?”

“Yeah, so?” Yoongi gave Seokjin a pointed look. “You shouldn’t let your brother get away with so much either. Fight him back.”

Seokjin gave him an alarmed look.

“I don’t like fighting him, he’s bigger than me and he always wins. Actually,  I don’t like fighting with anyone.” Seokjin shyly confessed, “Also, my father gets really angry when we fight. It’s very scary.”

Yoongi had never met Seokjin’s father before, but by the old scars and fresh bruises that he watched Seokjin nurse from time to time, he decided he would hate the man. He was not scared, his father taught him to be brave, and he wanted to ask the man why would he hit someone as frail as Seokjin. He wasn’t stupid either, his grandmother and older brother taught him to understand other people’s choices and be polite, so if Seokjin told him to not say bad things about his father then Yoongi wouldn’t. That didn’t stop him from thinking them though.

“Seokjin!”

Yoongi got startled by a woman’s voice calling his best friend. Yoongi recognized the tall woman with big eyes and full lips as Seokjin’s mother, holding a thick blanket in her hands. She was looking desperate.

“I have to go,” Seokjin said reluctantly while standing, “but I’ll go to your house tomorrow.”

“I’ll wait for you.” Yoongi nodded.

Seokjin shifted on his feet a little, he bit his lower lip before he leaned down and pecked Yoongi on the cheek, almost on the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you, Yoongi.”

Yoongi clasped a hand over his flushing cheek as he saw Seokjin being wrapped on a blanket by his mother. Seokjin’s lips were wet and left a slippery-cold sensation, but Yoongi found himself enjoining it. He went home dazzled and abnormally in bliss.

He lost a tooth but he got a kiss.

“You’re a walking miracle or what.” Yoongi said to Seokjin the next day.

He was outside without anything suitable for snow for half an hour and didn’t get sick.

“That’s only because I have you.” Seokjin blushed, confusing Yoongi’s stomach a little.

Maybe Seokjin was like a prince and Yoongi like a knight. He definitely could get used to Seokjin’s kisses. But only Seokjin’s, because seriously, kisses, ugh.

Nowadays, when Yoongi recalls how much he found the idea of kissing repulsing back then, he laughs about it.

OOO

“Do you know what hip hop is?”

Seokjin stopped watching Goku fight with some or another monster on TV to look at him.

“My brother listens to it a lot.” Seokjin answered, and after regarding Yoongi for some seconds. “My father got him a CD walkman for his last birthday and he won’t stop bragging about it to his friends.” Seokjin rolled his eyes.

Yoongi quickly peeled his eyes from the screen to stare at Seokjin, “Really?”

Seokjin nodded and after a while of watching Yoongi stare longingly at the stairs he asked if he would like to see his brother’s CDs. Yoongi said yes.

They literally skipped two steps at a time to come faster on their way up, but Seokjin hesitated a little before opening the door to his brother’s room.

“We are just here for the CDs, let’s not touch anything else, alright?” He said to Yoongi as he led him past one of his brother’s dirty t-shirts to a shoe box sitting on a tall dresser.

As Seokjin tiptoed to reach the box, Yoongi explored the room with his eyes.

It was the same size as Seokjin’s, with a baby blue color adorning the walls and a white framed window in a corner, but at the same time so much different. Seokjin’s room felt softer and barer, while Namseok’s room was somehow imposing and stuffy, with thick books piled everywhere, dark patterned sheets on the well-made bed and some dark posters and stickers on the walls. He caught a wrinkled white sheet of paper hanging on the wall, crayon smudges and curvy lines resembling people were drawn on it.

“What’s that?” asked Yoongi as he forgot about the CDs inside the box and climbed on the bed to take a closer look. “It doesn’t look like your brother’ style.”

“I gave it to him for his birthday last year, but he didn’t like it and threw it on the trash.” Seokjin was surprised, “I thought he hated it.”

“Maybe he was lying.” Yoongi snickered while starting to jump on the bed. “My brother sometimes says he hates me and we fight, but I know he actually loves me, because I love him too… and saying too somehow means the other person loves you first.” Yoongi felt embarrassed by confessing that, but it was ok, because it was with Seokjin.

Seokjin stared quietly at the drawing for a long while. It made Yoongi’s heart ache in a way he didn’t comprehend. It was just as if Seokjin was realizing for the first time that he was loved.

 Seokjin made his heart ache in so many ways for so many things, it confused Yoongi.

“I love you too, Seokjin.” He shyly told the other, “You are Min Yoongi’s best friend.”

Seokjin’s silence vanished like a soap bubble when touched. “And you are Kim Seokjin’s best friend.”

Twenty years later, the feeling remains untouched.

Chapter Text

Seokjin woke up with his mother kissing his face.

“Wake up, little baby. We’re going out today.” She softly said as he blinked sleep from his eyes.

She handed him a set of clothes and guided him to the bathroom to wash his face. He passed his brother on his way out of the bathroom and asked him the time, “Too early to be awake.” his brother said and looked at him once before nodding towards the kitchen, where their mother was singing while cooking. She was in a weird mode today. Even with a bruise on her cheek her smile looked radiant.

“Don’t you have work today?” his brother asked her after swallowing a big bite of pancakes.

“Yes, but I want to take you guys out, on a little trip.” Their mother said as she looked at them with something weird in her eyes.

Seokjin felt uneasy, and by the looks of it Namseok too.

The sun was starting to rise when they stepped out of the house, stars dancing above their heads on the messy orange and blue sky. When they made it to the city, Seokjin had fallen asleep in his mother’s arms, right beside her heart.

His mother held his hand even if he didn’t need to anymore, but Seokjin let her lead him.

They went to some stores, where she brought a flowery dress that looked really beautiful on her and a pair of shoes for him and Namseok. His brother was trying a pair of jeans in the changing rooms when he saw the store across the street.

“Mom, can we go to the toy store when we’re done?”

His mother glanced at him and then at the store before giving in.

His brother said he would wait at the store next door until they were done, because it was embarrassing to be seen at a toy store when being fifteen years old, or so his brother said, so he went in just with his mom.

They got in and his mother automatically went to the boy’s blue section, but Seokjin stopped her halfway. He was staring at a doll with sparkly eyes holding a baby bottle, the packaging a pink pastel. His mother looked at him with hesitant eyes, but then her face went soft and she sighed in defeat.

They went grocery shopping after it, which he found tremendously boring, but Namseok glared at him every time he opened his mouth to complain about being bored. It was pretty unfair, taking him there but not letting him choose the cereal he wanted. Seokjin pouted all the way out of the store while holding a bag full of groceries, but then he remembered the doll inside one of the shopping bags Namseok was holding and he felt cool about having the tasteless cereal instead of the chocolate one.

“Do you want a sweet potato?” their mother asked when they passed by a little food stand.

Seokjin couldn’t have said yes any faster.

They settled on a bench outside the small stand while eating their warm sweet potatoes, looking at a lone pigeon beak at the ground in search of crumbs.

The sun was setting in a pretty color that resembled a peach when they made it back to their house.

He helped his mother peel potatoes for dinner while Namseok put all the groceries out of the bags and in their rightful places at the kitchen. Their mother was making a stew in their biggest pot, it smelled so good, Seokjin stayed in the kitchen even after peeling all that was handed to him. 

“I remember my mother making something similar to this at my birthday.” his mother said as she moved the boiling stew a little “My last birthday with her…”

Seokjin could only stare at the ugly bruise on her tan skin. He knew first handedly how bad it hurt and in an attempt to make it better he gave her a kiss on the cheek, something he hadn’t done in a long time. She smiled softly at him and quickly sent him to fetch bowls and spoons for the rice and stew.

He sat on the table with his brother while waiting for their father. His mom changed into the pretty yellow dress after the stew and rice were done, her hair down in soft curls, her bruise partly covered.

He was rubbing his sore feet against each other under the table when they heard the front door opening and heavy steps approach the kitchen.

“It smells really good…” his father said a little shy.

“We were waiting for you,” the last days his mother had given his father a cold tone, but today she was warm “Come on, sit. I made stew.”

His father complied while carefully looking at her and Seokjin found himself chewing on a single grain of rice with his front teeth. “You look really pretty today, Haneul.”

His mom smiled a little before everyone started to eat from the pot. The stew was delicious, the meat melted in his mouth and the vegetables were soft and buttery, Seokjin found himself eating a little bit more than usual. Both he and his brother were surprised when his father offered to wash the dishes in the end. He went to his room and hid behind his bed to open his doll after dinner. His mom told him to be careful with it, that his father could take it from him, so Seokjin was careful when hiding it before climbing on his bed to sleep.

Seokjin was dozing off when his mother came into his room.

“Seokjin, you have to be good to your dad, all right?” She said while rubbing his back. “He loves you a lot, but sometimes he is so sad he hurts you. Try being good to him so he’s not too sad, do you understand?”

Seokjin vaguely remembers nodding.

His mother stayed with him for some minutes, holding him tight and kissing him warmly, before she stood and disappeared behind his door. He shifted in his bed a little so he could watch the door, it felt good when his mother hugged him that night, it almost felt like a dream.

Maybe it was a dream, Seokjin couldn’t tell.

OOO

The next day Seokjin took his doll to play with Yoongi. His friend eyed the doll a little weird, but didn’t say anything to Seokjin; he even brought his toys to play with him.

Seokjin was playing picnic with his doll while Yoongi’s toy soldiers guarded him from a lizard, when his friend told him to listen carefully.

“What is it, Yoongi?” Seokjin whispered.

“I think someone’s calling you.” Yoongi put his palms behind his ears to listen better.

Seokjin did the same, but didn’t hear more than insects singing and some fishes in the lake creating waves that clashed softly against some rocks on the shore.

“Yoongi, I can’t hear anything.”

His friend shushed him, “I think is your brother.”

It was some moments before Seokjin heard his brother calling him. He didn’t sound angry or irritated, he was desperate.

“I think I have to go. Can you take care of my baby? I don’t want my brother to take it from me.” he asked Yoongi as he dusted his shorts with nervous hands.

“Yeah.” Yoongi sounded unsure, but he pushed it afar when his brother got closer.

“See you tomorrow!”

When his brother found him he grabbed one of his arms to drag him into their house.

“What did I do?!” Seokjin squirmed on their way home. “You’re hurting me!”

His brother let him go. “I’m sorry. But dad really wants you home”

“Father is home? He didn’t go to work?” Seokjin asked, but his brother was tight lipped. “Is mom also home?”

“Let’s just go!”

At home his father was in the living room spacing out while sitting on the couch, grabbing a sheet of paper tightly in his hand. He quietly told them to sit beside him and turned the TV to a channel Seokjin liked.

“I just want you two here today, ok?” was all the man said when his brother asked him what was wrong.

“Just my two boys and I…”

Chapter Text

Yoongi kept the doll on his bed, by his feet.

For a pair of days he didn’t met with Seokjin, the older boy nowhere to be seen; but Yoongi didn’t panic too much, sometimes Seokjin wouldn’t show up for a pair of days but he would appear back again with a new bruise or a slight limp. Yoongi only got nervous while thinking what Seokjin would show up with now. A yellow bruise… maybe only purple or red this time, maybe a cut. Seokjin didn’t deserve that.

Yoongi’s grandmother had stocked full their pantry that week, so he sneaked some snacks under his bed to share with Seokjin the next time they met. That Seokjin deserved.

His window suddenly started to rattle quietly, a quiet voice muffled by the thick blanked covering the window for warmth. Yoongi hesitantly made his way to it, he was not scared though. Really.

“Yoongi…” The voice said and Yoongi’s heart leaped for a different reason. It was Seokjin!

Yoongi quickly pushed the blanked aside and pulled his window open to let his friend in. The wind was crying around the moonlight and a few snowflakes danced into his room as he helped Seokjin pass through the window. It was a full moon and he could visualize clearly his best friend’s face. When Seokjin was inside he quickly closed his window and rearranged the blanket over it again, leaving them in the darkness.

“Are you okay?” He asked the newcomer as he led them to the warmth of his bed “Why did you come so late? Did you really jump over my fence?”

Seokjin wouldn’t say anything; he just dusted a few snowflakes off his head and covered himself up to his chin. Yoongi then gave Seokjin his doll, trying to cheer him up. Seokjin stared at the doll in his hands for a long while, before he squeezed the plastic head fiercely between his hands and let it fall to the ground roughly.

“Seokjin!”

“She’s not coming back, Yoongi…” Seokjin started to sniff, “my mom is not coming back; my brother said she left us forever.”

Yoongi didn’t know what to say, so he just stayed frozen while watching Seokjin cry quietly. He felt Seokjin hold his hand and he relaxed a little.

“Can you please hold me, Yoongi?”

Yoongi numbly nodded as he laid down on the bed and shifted his arms towards the other boy. Seokjin went into his arms and hid his head between their chests. Yoongi pulled the blanket over them with an arm before shifting to a more comfortable position.

“Yoongi, you don’t have a mom. Does it hurt you like it hurts me?” Yoongi could barely hear the other’s voice.

“My dad and grandmother love me a lot, so I don’t really think a lot about her.” He rubbed sluggish circles on Seokjin’s back. “although sometimes I think how it would be if I had a mom…”

The bed was getting comfortably warm and Yoongi found himself wanting to move his arm from underneath Seokjin to less the numbness that was taking over it, but he didn’t have the heart to do it; Seokjin’s teary eyes were dropping.

“Do you have any pictures of your mom?” Seokjin asked as he shifted a little to look into his eyes.

“I have one that my grandmother gave to me last year. I can show it to you tomorrow if you stop crying and go to sleep.”

Seokjin nodded and sighed soundly once before shutting his eyes closed.

Outside, the night was cold and the wind blew as if weeping, but he found himself warm while embracing Seokjin inside his bed.

OOO

When Yoongi woke up, Seokjin was already awake. His friend was intensely watching the doll on the floor by the bed, with it’s empty plastic head disfigured.

“Are you hungry?” Yoongi took the snacks from under his bed and opened one choco pie for his friend. “I kept this for you.”

Seokjin smiled slightly at him before giving a small bite to the treat. Yoongi smiled back.

“Thank you, Yoongi.”

Seokjin went away a few hours later, after quietly contemplating the picture of Yoongi’s mom. Seokjin quickly leaned in to kiss Yoongi’s cheek before hurrying to his house. Yoongi looked at the picture of his mother, with her hair up smiling prettily beside his father, before looking at Seokjin’s figure going away.

This time, when winter break was over, Seokjin didn’t cry.

“I know you will come back.” He told Yoongi.

Chapter Text

When Yoongi came back in the summer, there was something different about Seokjin.

He was getting taller and lankier, but also more careful and quiet. Seokjin could notice how much Yoongi stared at him when words wouldn’t dare come out of his mouth, but he didn’t blame his friend, if Yoongi stopped smiling and talking as much as now, Seokjin would be worried too.

Their playtime now consisted of Yoongi talking the most when Seokjin started to space out. His friend was doing so much for him, Seokjin felt bad for Yoongi. But Seokjin just couldn’t stop hiding inside a shell, he didn’t know why, but nowadays he felt better when hiding in his silence. When Seokjin’s house was silent it meant everything was fine, it meant that he wouldn’t get hit or get screamed at or even get locked inside his room without dinner. Silence was good.

Seokjin still laughed a lot with Yoongi, though. They still held hands and made paper boats to throw into the lake’s shore, they still tried to climb trees together. They were still kids after all.

One hot day Seokjin was quietly playing with Yoongi’s new set of toy cars, his friend was inside looking for something to drink, beside his house pond, when a well posed man came through Yoongi’s house gate.

“Dad!” he distantly heard Yoongi’s brother shout somewhere inside.

Seokjin didn’t hear Yoongi shout, but he saw him run with open arms towards the man with the fancy hat. The man’s uniform had a lot of colorful patches and stars that clinked as he hugged the boys in his arms.

Seokjin was pulled by Yoongi into the house to sit beside him at a tea table, alongside his grandmother, brother and father. He quietly took a sip from his cup as he listened to Yoongi tell his father about school grades and exiting events. Sometime after tea, Yoongi’s grandmother told them to go play and leave Yoongi’s father alone so he could rest. Seokjin was halfway into a bow when Yoongi’s father told him to get closer.

“What happened to you neck, boy?” Yooseon asked and Seokjin froze.

Yoongi looked at his neck silently as Seokjin fidgeted in his place while absentmindedly touching his neck. It happened not too long ago, his father grabbed him by the neck to push him away, Seokjin doesn’t remember why his father got upset that time, but he remembers his brother rushing into the living room with wide eyes and a desperate “Appa!” on his mouth. When their mother was home Namseok didn’t really help Seokjin when their father went on a rampage with him, but now his brother started to actually give mouth at their father just to protect him.

“Nothing, sir; I’m just clumsy.” He managed to get the words pass the knot forming in his throat.

The man looked firmly into his eyes for a while, “Your silence gave yourself away, boy.” the man said but didn’t push after it.

Seokjin stopped going to Yoongi’s house after that, afraid of Yoongi’s nice family discovering his father’s violent habits. Maybe a little ashamed of his father too.

OOO

Yoongi didn’t come to meet Seokjin as much with his father staying at his grandmother’s house, so Seokjin found himself wandering the lake’s shore alone. In one of his lonely days he discovered he didn’t fear lizards anymore. When he was younger they looked cold, slippery and scary, but on those lonely days he appreciated when they just sat by his feet and just…stayed by his side.

He learned to listen to the song of the trees and to appreciate the beating of a wing.

One day Seokjin decided he would sleep by the clearing beside the lake just to look at the moon move. He saw in the news that in the night, the moon would look bigger than any other time of the year, and Seokjin once heard one of his schoolmates talk about how wishes came true when there was a full moon on the highest point of the sky.

He laid his body on the grass, staring up at the sky he counted the breaths it took for the moon to ascend it’s peak. Yoongi’s face came upside down at some point, and Seokjin sat up to stare at his friend with disbelief. Yoongi was breathing harshly, with his hands on his knees, as if he had run a marathon.

“What’s wrong?” he asked the peeved boy.

“Your brother came to my house to ask if you were there; my brother told him no.” Yoongi said after some jagged breaths. “I didn’t tell anyone I was going to look for you. I was worried…”

Some minutes later, when Yoongi was breathing calmly, Seokjin held his hand and told him about the full moon wishes. “Do you think that if I ask to the moon to make my mom come back… will she come back?”

Yoongi looked at him for a long while, his eyes slowly tracing his face, before shaking his head slightly. “I don’t think so, Seokjin.”

“But this moon is different!” Seokjin exclaimed. “Maybe if I wish hard enough…”

 “Let’s wish something else, Seokjin…” Yoongi held his hand tighter.

“Then… let’s wish for something together.” Seokjin looked up solemnly at the moon after some minutes of silent contemplation. “I wish for you to stay with me forever.”

Yoongi nodded at him. “I’ll wish for you to stay with me forever too.”

The boys didn’t know, but sometimes, when you wish hard enough on a full moon in summer, the moon may listen to your wish; only if it comes from your heart.

Chapter Text

Yoongi woke up feeling uneasy, a strange sensation settling in his guts. Like if there was fog inside his lungs.

It was the last day of summer break and he felt scared.

He ate breakfast with his grandmother and brother in silence, his brother urged him to pack his things for their return to Seoul after he ate his last bite. Yoongi scowled but complied and finished packing his things neatly, he was careful of the handmade beaded bracelet that he made with Seokjin a day before, and at the last minute he pulled the Mario figurine he made his dad buy for him, without whining, out. Seokjin deserved to keep this one at least.

He pushed the toy into one of his jean’s pockets and zipped his bag closed.

He went out with the intention of going to Seokjin’s house to say goodbye once again, but an uncomfortable feeling running through his blood told him to go somewhere else instead.

His legs carried the weight of his body nervously; his pace became more worked up as he heard a distinctive sound that didn’t belong to the lake’s fauna singing. As he got closer he recognized Seokjin’s hitched breath. He fell on his knees while hurrying to his best friend’s side, but the fear of what was making Seokjin cry was greater than the pain on his grazed skin so he pushed it aside.

Seokjin had his head between his knees so Yoongi couldn’t see his face, but he noticed how the other held one of his arms protectively.

“Seokjin, what’s wrong?” Yoongi managed to ask his friend while feeling his heart squeeze his lungs.

When Seokjin heard his voice he raised his head, and Yoongi wanted to run. That couldn’t be Seokjin, for some moments Yoongi refused to believe the bloody face belonged to his friend. There was blood running from his nose, somewhere below his scalp was bleeding too, he couldn’t even find his best friend’s eyes in the swollen mess that was covering his face.

“Yoongi.” Seokjin whined nasally and Yoongi froze.

He couldn’t move, his eyes were glued to the abnormally raw face in front of him. He fell on his butt as he saw his friend cry. He felt scared and helpless.

“It really hurts…”His friend said, and Yoongi made up his mind.

He slowly got closer and hesitantly held his friend’s hand as he cried. Seokjin leaned on him once he was close enough; Yoongi looked at the lake as Seokjin’s breathing evened, counting how many breaths it took for Seokjin to calm down.

“I was very hungry,” Seokjin started after he was calm enough to talk, “so I tried to boil water for a ramyun, but I spilled it on the kitchen when I tried to pour it in a bowl.”

Seokjin stopped for a few moments to show him his hand; there was a raw red mark with half the shape of a circular line. Yoongi’s bloodstream froze and his brow started to sweat nervously.

“My father…” Seokjin whimpered a little. “He got really angry and he made me put my hand on the stove grate as a punishment, b-but I started to scream because it hurt so much and he…hurt me more.”

He couldn’t understand how Seokjin’s father could be so violent and rueful. Seokjin was just eleven years old, he couldn’t protect himself; he never even played rough games with Yoongi. Why did Seokjin had to take the punches? He just spilled water.

Yoongi remembers spilling a bottle of juice on the new carpet at his dad’s apartment in Seoul, but his father just chided him and gave him some napkins to clean it off, his hyung snickered at him from the couch- Seokjin's brother, Namseok, maybe he could help!

“Seokjin, where’s your brother?”

“I don’t know.” Seokjin cleaned the blood on his mouth a little, “I think he got a job a week ago. He must be working.”

Yoongi slowly got up and pulled on the older boy’s good arm. “Come on, I’ll take you to my house. I can call my dad; he surely knows what to do with your cuts and-”

Seokjin shook his head.

“I can’t go with you Yoongi.” Seokjin started to cry again. “If I do, they’ll hurt my dad and they are going to take him away.”

“And what’s wrong with that? Look at what he did to you!”

“My dad is all I have!” the older boy screamed at him. “I don’t have a mom anymore and my brother says he’s going to Seoul next month!”

Yoongi could only stomp his feet on the ground, a lump in his throat making his eyes watery. “Seokjin, let’s just go to my house… my grandma can fix your hand and clean your face…”

Seokjin looked at him so intensely then, that Yoongi dreams with that moment every time he feels like leaving everything behind.

“Yoongi… if they take my dad they are going to take me too.”

“No! You can stay with me, I can talk with my dad and-“

“Listen to me!” Seokjin called out to him. “Remember I’m still your hyung.” his best friend then waited until he sat down again. “If they take me they won’t let me come back and if I don’t come back I’ll never see you again.”

Yoongi felt tears running down his face, he didn’t want to lose Seokjin forever, but he knew they needed to clean the cuts and run away from Seokjin’s father. He didn’t understand why someone would sacrifice so much. Why would Seokjin want to do it?

“You’re all I have left, Yoongi.”

Min Yoongi’s memory sometimes goes back to that day, to that sunny day where he found Seokjin changing forever before his eyes. He wonders what would have happened if he had done something differently, if he had pulled Seokjin into his house and called Sergeant Major Min Yooseon for a special case. Sometimes he wonders if he would’ve been able to hold Seokjin in his arms, just like he does now, or if Seokjin would’ve been able to kiss him on the lips just like he does every morning before going to work.

“Seokjin…” Yoongi calls the man sitting beside him on their small dining table.

Seokjin hums in acknowledge while reading the newspaper lying beside his breakfast.

“Remember the day your dad burnt your hand?” Yoongi asks and Seokjin fixes his eyes on him.

“Yes.” he calmly says, but after years of living with each other Yoongi can hear the sober tone underneath.

“Would you have been happier if I had… saved you that day?” Yoongi looks carefully at Seokjin’s shifting expression.

There’s something nostalgic about the way Seokjin looks at him in that moment, “Yoongi… you saved me way before that,” and there’s such adoration in the eldest’s smile that Yoongi can’t resist slipping one of his hands thru Seokjin’s slowly graying hair. “You saved me with a hiding spot behind a rock and a fistful of bubblegum… ah~ what a pretty day it was. I think it was a full moon day.”

“Seokjin…”

“Look,” Seokjin starts while giving him that reprimanding look he uses when Yoongi eats the last cookie or forgets to leave a window open for their cat on cold nights. “I truly believe our fate was sealed the moment we met, so do not think too much into it; I know we would still have found each other even if we were blind and de-”

Yoongi kisses him.

Chapter Text

Seokjin didn’t go to school for an entire week after the day his dad burnt his hand, in fear of a teacher pointing out his swollen face and bandaged hand. His brother stopped going to school and instead started working for more hours at two places, his father stopped going to work since he hit Seokjin really hard, and instead locked himself in his room, only coming out at night. 

One morning, as Seokjin came downstairs to get something to eat, he heard voices behind the living room doors. When he got closer he recognized his father’s voice desperately trying to explain something.

“…it up, mother.” he heard his father say distressed. “How could I live with myself then?”

“You knew it from the beginning, that a prostitute would only bring you shame, but you didn’t listen, son.” A woman said, her voice raspy and strained. “Now you must bear the consequences… I can find you a good match again; I can lie a little here and there, no one will know if the rumors of you running away with a low life woman were true after you show up with a diploma from America and a nice foreign lady by your side.”

A prostitute? Seokjin had never heard that word before, but by the way the woman spat it, it meant something bad. He did understand the rest though, but his father would never do such thing.

“What about my children?” Seokjin’s ears perked up.

“Children?!” Another voice cut his dad off, “You had more runts with the whore? I thought you only had one.”

“Don’t call her that!”

“I call her whatever I want, hyung! You left us when we most needed you to be with her!” the male voice barked only to laugh sardonically afterwards. “And now she left you. How honorable are you if even a prostitute left you? Ha, I bet she’s now having lots of fun with other men’s cocks, laughing about how she disgraced you and left you to rot with her dirty offspring.”

“Shut up!” His father was getting worked up, and Seokjin reflectively flinched.

“Your brother is right.” The raspy voice of the woman silenced the men. “You have no honor, and your children were born out of your disgrace, the offspring you had with her must be disposed of.”

“Disposed?” his father breathed. “They are not garbage, mother! They are also your grandchildren.”

“They have never been my grandchildren,” the woman raised her voice, making her sound bitterer, “and they will never be. How many do you have?”

“Two. The eldest is Namseok, and my youngest is Seokjin.”

“You didn’t even name them traditionally.” the other man said disapprovingly.

“How old are they.” the woman quickly evaded the last comment.

“Sixteen and eleven.”

“The youngest won’t be a problem; he’s young enough to forget the little he knows, we could send him off somewhere, to an orphanage maybe.” His father growled lowly as the woman talked. “The eldest, on the other hand…”

“What are you doing, child?”

Seokjin got startled as a hand found way onto his shoulder and a very fancy woman crouched by his side.

“Listening to other people talking, I see…” the woman said gently. “Have you eaten anything yet?”

Seokjin shook his head while covering his burning ears; he got caught red handed by a stranger. The woman stood up and extended a slender and jeweled hand.

“Come on I’ll give you something for your tummy.”

Seokjin distantly heard his father murmur “I can’t do that, mother” as the woman led him to his kitchen. She made him sit down as she quickly looked inside every cupboard in search of something eatable for breakfast, she found a cereal box after some tries, but there was no milk in the fridge. Seokjin looked at the woman as she moved around the kitchen with trouble. In the end she mixed the last load of yogurt she found in the fridge with the good parts of a banana that was on the counter and some cereal. She stared at him as he slowly chewed, avoiding more pain than necessary from his split lip.

“Who are you?” he asked as her eyes carefully looked at his bruised face.

“My name is Taehee,” the woman smiled at him, her cheekbones somehow very familiar to him. “I’m your father’s sister”

Seokjin only stared at her.

He had never met other family members before, his mother was an orphan, but he knew his father had a mom and a dad and three siblings. He found himself having trouble while swallowing afterwards, his mother once told them that his father’s family didn’t like them, but they were inside his house talking to his father about pros-tu-tuts and orphanages...

“My dad would never leave us.” he said defensively at the woman as he finished his food.

Taehee (his aunt?) looked sadly at him as she answered. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Kim Seokjin.” he said, saying his family name on purpose.

“Seokjin, don’t you have school today?” the woman asked.

Seokjin weighted his options inside his head, and stuck to the one he felt he could say more naturally. “I am not feeling very well today.”

“Why don’t you go rest then? Come on, I’ll help you to your room.”

Seokjin’s leg was still hurting, and he still limped a little, when his aunt saw this she put an arm around his shoulders and slowly helped him upstairs and into his room. Her perfume was powdery and strong, it reminded him of one of his mother’s coworkers’ heavy perfume, he could almost taste it on his tongue this close. The woman softly ruffled his hair before going back downstairs.

When he was sure the woman was downstairs, he got out of his room and sat at the middle of the stairs, nervously waiting for his father while caressing the bandage on his left hand. In moments like this he longed for a warm embrace from his father, one of those weird and awkward kisses on the forehead from his brother, or Yoongi holding his hand. What he wanted the most was his mother kissing his face, though.

He was dozing off on the staircase when the doors to the living room opened and the unknown old woman and man walked out of it with their noses held high, followed by his worn off father.  The woman was draped in somber colors with only a necklace on her neck and a hair piece adorning her low bun, low high heels on her feet. The man was tall, but not as tall as his father, with a lanky body and a bored face. They stared at him when they noticed him, and the man looked at his father once.

“What happened to his face?” the man scrunched his nose once. “A troublemaker for sure.”

“He is not” his father quickly defended him, and after a pause he added. “I-… I got a little out of hand with him some days ago.”

The lanky man snorted worriedly, the old woman averted her eyes.

“One more reason for you to not keep them.” the woman bitterly said as Seokjin frowned. “And he hasn’t even greeted us yet.”

“Come down and greet us, kid.” the fancy man demanded.

Seokjin stared at them for some seconds before looking at his father, who nodded at him to do it. Seokjin carefully went down the steps before bowing; his father pressed a hand on his back for him to bow lower. When his father let him stand straight, Taehee was standing behind the strangers.

“Seokjin, this is my mother, brother and sister.” His father said, and Seokjin felt a little overwhelmed.

What were this people doing in his house?

“He looks so much like my dad,” Taehee said. “their chins are just the same. Even their nose-”

“Enough.” the old woman said. “We are going now.”

The man stared at him once more before going out, Taehee smiled at him warmly before following them. When the strangers were gone, Seokjin launched himself at his father, holding on tightly at his father’s waist. “I know you will never leave us, dad.”

Seokjin always feels a bitter taste on his mouth when he thinks about the family that could’ve been his, when he thinks about that day, when he thinks about the family that was his. Yoongi’s mouth takes the bile away from his mouth with soft kisses at night, but the memories remain troubling his head. He remembers how his brother reacted that night when Seokjin told him about the strangers, Namseok’s eyes dropping a little with worry when the orphanage was mentioned, and anger taking over his face when hearing the word prostitute.

He remembers how his brother held on to him that night, reassuring him, telling him that he wouldn’t let anyone take him to an orphanage, that their father wasn’t that mad.

Their hearts didn’t settle until weeks passed and no more strangers came back.

His father went back to working and his brother kept shifting between his two jobs, Seokjin came back to school.

One day their father came home smiling and told them they were going to move to Seoul, to a better house and a better life. Namseok looked uncertain, but Seokjin got exited; Yoongi lived in Seoul.

Seokjin hummed with happiness as he packed his best clothes in the bag his father gave him, and he talked softly to the roses and lilies in their garden as he watered them for the last time. He told them about what he knew about Seoul, and how he was going to look for Yoongi at every boarding school he could find. The flowers looked a little sad that day, but Seokjin didn’t pay them too much attention as he took the weeds out and sang a song he learned at school some days ago.

His brother had a fight with his father the night before they went to Seoul, but he still went with them the next morning.

It didn’t occur to Seokjin until halfway through the country, that Yoongi’s only free time away from school was when he went to his grandmother’ house, and grandmother Min’s house was, in fact, not in Seoul.

OOO

Their new house was not a house.

It was a glossy apartment with actually more furniture than in their old house by the lake. There were no lakes or forests in Seoul; at least Seokjin didn’t see any. There were a lot of buildings and stores and lights and elevators. Elevators were fun, Seokjin liked them, the one on his new apartment was the first one he ever got on and it was absolutely terrifying and awesome at the same time.

His brother was still mad at his father, but at least they didn’t fight for that week.

The first week into their new apartment was one of the most fun times Seokjin remembers having with his father.

His father took them to every place they could in Seoul, from parks to museums, on their sixth day aunt Taehee tagged along, making Seokjin hold her hand when the crowds around them grew too much. His brother looked a little more relaxed, but Seokjin could still see some tenseness on his shoulders.

His father told him they were going to check out his new school on Thursday, so on the seventh day his father woke him up early in the morning, so early it looked as if it was night. Seokjin cleared his eyes and quickly picked an outfit from his still loaded luggage. Halfway thru dressing himself his father came into his room while holding a new change of clothes.

“Wear this.” his father said while avoiding his eyes. “and clean your teeth and face very well, you hear me boy?”

Seokjin obeyed and washed himself thoroughly, even cleaning the place behind his ears. He put on the outfit his father choose for him; the clothes were new, and a little too much formal for Seokjin’s taste, but he supposed his father wanted him to give a good first impression.

When he got into the living room his father was sitting on the couch next to aunt Taehee, who looked afflicted. She smiled when she saw him, though.

When they were putting their shoes on, once again Seokjin was shoved a new pair that actually fitted a little loose, but his father told him to endure it for a while. Aunt Taehee grabbed his father’s arm before they opened the door.

“Give him to me, brother.” she said, desperation in her eyes. “He looks like our side of the family, my husband won’t mind-you won’t even have to face us too much; you know I live in another country-”

“Enough, Taehee!” his father said, dragging Seokjin out of the apartment. “We’re going now.”

“Brother, please!”

His father closed the door behind them and quickly made Seokjin go with him to the elevator. He held Seokjin’s hand tightly while walking into a bakery store, a folder with papers into his other hand. There were so many cakes with different shapes and with so many stuff on them, Seokjin felt himself salivate.

“Choose one for your new school classmates, son.” his father said as he laid a large and warm hand on his back.

“Can I really choose any?”

“Go ahead.”

Seokjin chose one of the biggest cakes with a lot of strawberries on, his dad even let him get some cookies for the way.

“It’s pretty far away, so we better get a snack.” his dad told him while paying the cashier.

Seokjin was in charge of carrying the cake, it was heavy and he did his best to not move it around too much, he was so absorbed into taking care of the cake that he almost didn’t catch the address his father whispered to the taxi driver.

“…home for boys.” was what he managed to catch from his father’s lips. “I can pay you plenty for you to take me back and forth.”

The taxi driver looked at Seokjin once from the review mirror and sighed while shaking his head at his dad, but he started to drive though. The name of the school was odd, a “home for boys”. Maybe it was a boarding school, like Yoongi’s.

“Am I going to be in a boarding school, father?” he asked while playing with the cake box on his lap. “Is that why we are taking a cake to my new classmates?”

His father hummed lightly while looking outside the window.

“My friend Yoongi is in a boarding school, he says it’s not too bad.” Seokjin chatted to his dad while smiling big. In the past week he had felt as close to his father as never before. “I’ve never been that long without you and Namseok hyung, so I don’t know if I’ll be fine, but if Yoongi can enjoy his school, maybe I can too, right?”

“Of course.” his father quietly said while motioning to Seokjin to eat a cookie. “You are a good boy, you will do fine.”

“Yoongi is going to be so surprised when I tell him I’m at a boarding school like him.”

Seokjin got drowsy after some minutes, and his father let him put his head on his lap. Before falling asleep too deep the driver started talking to his father.

“You don’t look too bad-off and you’re still very young.” the old man said, “When you are old like me you will appreciate his company.”

His father said nothing as he absentmindedly played with Seokjin’s hair.

“Young people like you don’t really think about the consequences of giving something as important as your own blood away, but he is also a person, you know. Even this young, he has a memory on him and a lot of love, but as he grows he can hate too.”

“Just drive, please.” his father’s voice boomed inside the car. “I don’t really care anymore…”

The sky was a pretty shade of blue when his father gently shook him awake.

It was not like how Yoongi described his boarding school.

Seokjin’s new boarding school looked really deserted for a school day, a planting field on a side, a small playground on the other side, and no big buildings like in Yoongi’s boarding school. There was a small building with a logo on it, but his father quickly pushed him into a small house connected to it. An elderly woman and a boy his age greeted them with a smile as his father handed him the cake.

“Hyosang, why don’t you take Seokjin to your rooms and get started on that cake? His dad and I have to talk for a bit.” the woman pushed the boy towards Seokjin.

The boy gently pushed him a little out of the office, but his father’s voice stopped them.

“Seokjin,” he started, “You have to be good to the others and clean after yourself. Always be polite, take good care of yourself too.”

“Father, it's okay.” Seokjin smiled. “I’m just going to eat cake now, right? We're leaving after that, today you’re just doing paperwork, remember? Aunt Taehee said she is going to take me to the zoo tomorrow.”

Seokjin remembers the delicate way his father traced the contour of his face back then, how he ruffled his hair and told him to play nice. Seokjin also remembers accidentally running into his father a long time later in life, he remembers the stunned look his father gave him while sitting between a smiling woman and a young boy who called him “dad”.

But at that time he was oblivious to everything, it was only as he saw the taxi go away with his father inside that he came to the slow realization that he was being abandoned. He remembers crying a lot while sitting in the middle of the dirt path his father left by, one of the older boys scolding him for getting his nice pants full with dirt while Hyosang patted his back.

“He didn’t leave me here.” Seokjin would stubbornly tell them. “he will come back.”

But his father never came back for him, not even a hundred years later.

Chapter Text

Min Yoongi was good at a lot of things at high school, mainly basketball and math, but he had pastime that he didn’t share with his friends, who liked to horse play more than study. He loved to make poetry.

One particular day he was at one of the hallways staring outside the window, observing the way the never ending lines of cherry blossom trees in his school painted the grounds in a pastel pink. Verses started to form, slowly searing themselves into his head, getting arranged playfully.

The bell rang signaling the end of the break, but Yoongi wasn’t quite done with his day dreaming, so he found himself going to the rooftop, where he passed his thoughts into written words. He sighed heavily as he stared at the floor beneath; his eyes caught a boy from another school walking around the grounds trying to look for someone. Poor bastard; if a teacher caught him he would be in trouble. Yoongi was about to spread his body completely onto the floor to take a nap, but the boy beneath turned his head in just the right angle, light and colors clashing perfectly on him, so many verses boomed inside his head. His heart raced abnormally as he remembered a funny blue house by a lake and moist kisses on his cheeks.

His legs reacted faster than his brain, rushing by school hallways and wood carven doors, but not even when running as fast as he could he could catch the boy. The boy was gone, and before Yoongi could seek him better, a teacher chided him for not being in class.

That night he went to bed feeling heavy and conflicted, but at the same time full of hope and with the boy’s school uniform carefully noted inside his head. He would ask around about the school that uniform belonged to. He would ask around just like years before, trying to look for his missing best friend.

He promised himself he would never give up on finding a certain Kim Seokjin.

OOO

It took some time, but he managed to get some clues about the mysterious boy and his unusual uniform. The school the uniform belonged to was a public high school by the outskirts of the city; it was a special school by what his friends had said. It accepted a lot of children who wanted to go further than just basic education given at orphanages or troubled homes, not really the best school in the country either, but Yoongi thought it might have been better than not going to a school at all. He was puzzled though.

Why was Seokjin in Seoul? And why would he be in that type of school?

Maybe he didn’t really study there, maybe he borrowed that uniform from someone he knew to play a prank at another place, Yoongi had done that before, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was that. But he also knew Seokjin, and his friend’s heart would never let him play a prank on someone, Yoongi knew it deep inside.

He also knew that people change, but he had a lot of faith in Seokjin’s good heart.

Maybe Seokjin’s father moved to Seoul to have more job opportunities, he was a single parent of two after all, and single parents usually moved to bigger cities for better jobs. He idly wondered if Seokjin still wore bruises on a weekly basis while biting one of his nails.

“Earth to Min Yoongi!” his friend Sunjong pulled him out of their classroom as soon as the bell rang. He didn’t even notice the bell ringing. “Are you staying at the dorms or your father is going to be home this summer?”

“My dad and brother are not gonna be home this summer,” Yoongi told his friend while looking at the skies getting dark and cloudy outside. “But I would hate to stay here…”

“You should throw a party this weekend, dude.” Sunjong playfully pushed his shoulder. “Everyone would go.”

“Everyone is too messy.” Yoongi sighed “and I’m not really in the mood for a party. I need to do something this weekend.” like looking for Seokjin.

Sunjong said goodbye to Yoongi and reminded him to keep in touch as they opened their umbrellas and parted ways. Yoongi walked to the bus stop calmly for some minutes, usually he would walk all the way home, but today the rain was picking up pace very quickly, and he didn’t feel like getting too wet. As he saw the bus approaching two blocks down from the stop, he took out his wallet to pay his fee, only to find it empty of bus cards or any type of money.

Walking was then.

Seoul streets were a wet wash of neon dulled colors as he hurried along them with his school trousers soaked to the core and his shoes squelching obnoxiously. He tried hurrying when passing by one of the grimmest streets on his way home, but someone beside him slipped ungracefully on the pavement, and to Yoongi’s misfortune and the stranger’s fortune, his quick reflexes made him loose his grip on the umbrella to help that person stay on both feet. His hair was completely soaked as he let the other male’s arm go.

“I’m so sorry.” the other male said as he crouched to pick up Yoongi’s umbrella.

“It’s raining very heavy! You should be more…Seokjin?” both of their jaws went slack.

Umbrella forgotten on the floor, he raised his hands to cup the other male’s face, eyes going frenzy over the more defined features of his childhood friend. The male laughed and- of course it was Seokjin, that was the same dorky smile he remembered- in a spur of the moment they hugged. They were soaking wet and slippery, but they didn’t stop hugging until thunder boomed above them.

“Let’s get some coffee.” Seokjin told him while dragging him somewhere by the hand, just like in the good old times.

Seokjin took him to a cozy coffee shop a pair of blocks ahead; the place was not fancy enough to usher them out when they entered dripping water everywhere. They got sodas instead of coffee though, even when wet the weather was suffocating outside. They sat across from each other and for some minutes they just smiled stupidly, as if waiting for a nice joke to go off, Yoongi just couldn’t stop staring.

It had been six years of asking around town for the boy that lived in the lonely blue house by the lake, six years of lonely summers and cold winters without anyone to grow up with.

“I still can believe I found you.” Seokjin was wearing eyeliner and his eyes were puffy, as if he had been crying, but maybe some water got into his eyes because the black line over his eyelids looked smooth.

“Yeah, same here.” Yoongi smiled softly as he shook excess water off his blazer.

“Oh, you just came out of school?” Seokjin said as his eyes caught the logo on his uniform.

Yoongi then took in Seokjin’s casual clothing. “Yeah.”

“Do you still live at your school.” his friend smiled at him as his eyes shone under the limy light of the place.

“Sometimes I do, but nowadays my dad and school let me choose where to go after class.” Yoongi excitedly said as Seokjin took a sip of his soda. “I’m a big boy now, aren’t I?”

The other boy laughed, and Yoongi noticed his hair getting lighter as it slowly dried.

“You do look older.” Seokjin sighed nostalgically.

“You also do. You’re very tall now, even taller than me.” He said as his friend straightened his back and closed his eyes in a fake posh way.

“I guess I’m a big boy now too.” 

“How did you even end up here in Seoul? I looked for you all over the village; I never thought you would be here.” Yoongi asked, and Seokjin’s back deflated as he hung his head low as if trying to hide. “Where have you been all this time?”

Seokjin’s smile dimmed and Yoongi knew a bomb was about to crash. Seokjin looked softly into his eyes before sighing. “I guess I should tell you, dear friend of mine.”

“I’ve been looking for you all of this time. After my grandmother passed away my brother said I should just leave it; but I didn’t, and the doubt has been eating me since you left.”

“Your grandmother died?” Seokjin looked devastated.

“Yeah, two years ago.” But he wasn’t sad, his grandmother made him sit beside her the last day she breathed, she said that things happen for a reason and that he shouldn’t be sad when she left. She would always remain in his heart. “It was a quiet day, a week after her birthday.”

Seokjin stared at the table. “Oh, Yoongi…”

“What about your father? How is he?” he cleverly changed the topic.

His friend’s eyes looked up at him and his face softened, just like when Yoongi asked him about his bruises “I actually don’t know, I haven’t seen him for so long.” Yoongi frowned. “He left me in an orphanage six years ago, a little while after we last saw each other.”

Yoongi found his hand curling around Seokjin’s out of reflex. Seokjin didn’t even flinch.

He also discovered that night that Seokjin ran away from the orphanage he lived in when someone tried to adopt him. “I was scared of having another family… I guess I still am scared.” He started working at a bar, where he cleaned the tables and swept the floors all night long for just enough money to rent the small room he shared with another boy.

“Aren’t you going to school? I believe I saw you once at my school in a uniform.”

“You saw me?” his friend was surprised. “Sometimes I go, but most of the time I am so tired I can’t wake up at all.” Seokjin sighed before squeezing his hand once. “You should go, it’s getting very late.”

“Let’s go somewhere tomorrow, maybe breakfast?” Yoongi said before thinking. “Let’s catch up.”

He thought Seokjin wouldn’t say yes, but the other male smiled so brightly at him he felt bad for doubting. Seokjin had to work though, but he promised Yoongi to be at his house first thing in the morning.

“Breakfast it is, then.” Seokjin said as he handed Yoongi his beat up phone to exchange numbers. “I still can believe I found you.”

“Me neither.” Yoongi smiled.

That night they held hands all the times they could before parting ways, Seokjin back to his exhausting dirty job, and Yoongi to his cold and lonely home. As Yoongi laid his head on his soft feather pillow, he imagined how hard his friend’s head must’ve hurt from working so hard. He still fell asleep with a smile on his face while dreaming of milky lizards and colorful kites.

At last…

OOO

The next morning he spent a good half hour choosing something to wear, he didn’t admit it out loud but Min Yoongi liked to look good. He texted with Seokjin all the way to the restaurant they were going to meet at, when he got out of his complex the stray dog that was always hanging around his apartment complex started to follow him but Yoongi paid him no mind, he even tried to lightly push it away when he was almost at the front of the restaurant.

He spotted Seokjin sitting at one of the outside tables waving at him from his seat, and to Yoongi’s misfortune Seokjin gasped and radiantly smiled when he saw the stray.

“Where did you find him?” his friend asked him.

Yoongi scoffed, “He’s a stray from around my neighborhood.”

“He looks so clean, though.” and then the light haired one looked into the dog’s eyes. “You sure clean yourself.” and the stray barked at Seokjin, as in agreement.

“I bet the old lady from the first floor did it, she’s a little weird like that.”

“I bet she’s actually nice.”

“Maybe… but most of the time she’s scolding everyone.”

They spent the morning talking away about small things while Seokjin fed the stray bit of food under the table. Seokjin complained about the water leak on his roof, but he told Yoongi he used the water from it for two of the three flower pots he was nursing back to life after almost forgetting about them for one week.

“You wouldn’t believe how much you have to take care of flowers, specially the pretty ones.” his friend giggled as the puffy white dog licked his fingers.

Yoongi told Seokjin about his pranks and escapades into other schools, he specially remembered that one time he managed to walk casually along the pretty girls from the catholic school that was close to his own school. He told Seokjin about how his father brought him something interesting from every country he was sent to, the last object had been a very vintage-looking fancy Polaroid with lions painted on the front.

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t really remember…” Yoongi bit the inside of his cheek as he tried to remember. “Ah! England! I think it was England”

Seokjin dreamily sighed. “England must be very pretty.”

“I don’t really like it, it rains too much.” he said as he wrinkled his nose.

“I like rain.” the light brown haired one said while looking up to the sky. “Rain washes away dirt from my street and feeds my flowers for free”

The forecast said that it would be cloudy and a little windy, but it was mostly sunny, Yoongi liked it like this. The wind thrashed around Seokjin’s hair in messy puffs as they walked around a park after breakfast, the eyeliner from the night before smudged all over around his eyes, his clothes simple and baggy around his thin limbs. Seokjin smiled at him and Yoongi’s heart clenched a little before he smiled back.

He didn’t know it back then, but he had fallen in love all over again.

“Hey, Yoongi.” Seokjin pushed him playfully when they got closer to a big pond in the park, probably bigger than normal because of the rain the night before. “Let’s make a boat race!”

They put big leafs together with small frail sticks into the pond of the park as boats and decided that the winner would be the one whose leaf boat got the farthest away without sinking, the looser would buy ice cream for both of them. “If you lose, you’ll also pay my taxi fee.” Seokjin smirked to him. “I know you are secretly loaded.”

Yoongi laughed even when he lost.

Suddenly it felt as if they were ten years old again, eating ice cream by the side of an old pond, barefoot and openly smiling as the creamy substance melted inside their mouths. They talked about nothing and everything, it was strangely familiar, lying on a shaded tree and discussing the pros and cons of an eatable cone and an ice cream cup. Some hours later, as they cleaned their feet and put on their shoes, they pinky swore to each other to meet up again.

“If you don’t make time for me I will cut your finger myself!” Seokjin shouted at him as he crossed the street to grab a cab.

Yoongi smiled all the way home, and he didn’t get sad not even once for not being able to come back to his deceased grandmother’s house that summer. Once again he dreamt of milky lizards and rocking waves, but this time with the image of a smiling boy with puffy lips and smudged eyeliner clear in his head.

He still dreams with the same boy, but nowadays the boy is not a boy, and the messy eyeliner faded into gray streaks of gray hair by the time they reached fifty and Seokjin didn’t feel like hiding his age anymore. Yoongi smiles as he sleeps and holds his childhood dream close to himself.

Chapter Text

Seokjin was scrubbing a table clean of foul smelling alcohol, probably some kind of vodka or rum, when Hoseok barged in singing out loud, stepping on the just-mopped floor carelessly.

“Hoseok! I just mopped the floor!” he slapped lightly the back of his roommate’s head “If my superior comes and sees the floor with big shoe prints on it he’s gonna be pissed at me”

“Sorry, hyung” Hoseok actually looked sorry “But guess what?”

“What?”

“Ah, you have to guess!” this kid…

“I don’t know, Hoseok” Seokjin kept on scrubbing the tables clean “please grace me with your wisdom”

“My dad sent me money!” He stared at Hoseok as the other’s smile dimmed “really, he gave me a call and everything; he even said he would come and visit”

“That’s great!” Seokjin said while hugging Hoseok lightly.

His friend showed him one of his big smiles, the smile that made him look like a horse, “Hyung, don’t wait up for me tomorrow, I’m going to show my father this beautiful capital”

Beautiful? Seokjin had only seen some of the darkest and dirtiest places, the people here were impolite, living here was expensive and the air pollution was extremely thick; Seokjin didn’t like it, it was cold in summer and even colder in winter. He missed his past life, the life with a family and warm summers and clean winters by a clear lake, he even missed the lizards that liked to hang onto his windowpane. Maybe his city life was hard because he was an orphan now, getting a job was hard, going to school was harder, getting sick was easy, losing a job was even easier.

With the reminder of keeping his job, Seokjin ushered Hoseok out and kept on scrubbing the sticky tables clean. Hoseok was a good kid, a dreamer by nature, but his feet were firmly planted on the ground; Hoseok came from a hard-working family that accepted his dream of dancing professionally, Seokjin had never met them, but by what his friend told him they were very warm and tightly knitted. He sighed while carefully washing the leftovers off some plates.

At least he had Yoongi now…

OOO

Seokjin would never admit that meeting Yoongi left him worn out. They met very frequently nowadays, and it kinda screwed Seokjin’s sleeping pattern, which wasn’t very healthy to start with, but he could never say no to Yoongi’s requests. His friend had done so much for him; Seokjin treasured their moments together so much more than any sleep time he could get before a hard night at work.

“Here,” Yoongi handed him a bottle of water “you better drink it all, it’s very hot today”

“Super hot” he sighed while rising from the itching grass he was laying on “I don’t know how am I gonna be able to sleep today”

“You don’t have an air conditioner?”

“No,” he said while awkwardly swallowing a gulp of water “and my fan broke down some days ago”

“Stay with me” Yoongi stared at him, his eyes calculating something Seokjin missed, he felt some kind of déjà vu, “I mean, stay at my place today, my father and brother aren’t home and they won’t be home this summer, and I must admit it’s quite lonely”

Seokjin stared at Yoongi’s calm face for some seconds, his heart clenching inside his chest. Sweet Yoongi was offering him something he had constantly dreamed about when he lived in the orphanage. When it was nighttime at the orphanage, he used to lie on his back and trace imaginary stars on the mattress of the bunk bed above him; he would fall asleep while fantasizing about Yoongi dragging him to a glossy black car that would take them to his grandmother’s house. In his dreams his brother was always driving the car, Namseok would smile widely from behind the steering wheel as Yoongi gave him bubblegum on the backseat. But not all good dreams mean that he could have good days.

He would always wake up with a smile, but as he came back to himself and he noticed the bunk bed above him and the other seven boys he shared a small room with, he would fall into reality once more while remembering both of the parents that left him behind and the brother who broke his promise about not letting anyone take him.

Seokjin was quickly trying to make up an excuse to politely decline his friend’s offer, but Yoongi had already previewed this, he was faster than Seokjin somehow.

Yoongi firmly took one of his wrists and dragged him towards the bus stop. Yoongi didn’t look behind, not even when Seokjin went unusually quiet. He knew that Seokjin needed this moment to himself, he didn’t need someone comforting him with words, he wasn’t sad. Yoongi only held his hand nervously while waiting for the bus.

“Thank you, Yoongi”

OOO

Yoongi’s apartment was fancy and clean, and for some hours Seokjin felt like he belonged in Yoongi’s bed. He could clearly remember the last time he slept in the same bed as Yoongi, and how comforting it was to let someone take care of him. He felt in cloud nine when he woke up and his skin was dry, free of sweat, and with a soft blanket protecting him from a fan sitting on a corner. But what comforted him the most was Yoongi’s hand in his.

He wanted to cherish that moment, keep on holding Yoongi’s cool hand, and keep on smiling like an idiot, but he had to work.

Yoongi woke up when he tried to slip his hand from their hold “What? Where are you going?”

“I have to go to work” Seokjin quietly explained while giving his friend’s hand a last stroke with his thumb before letting it go.

“At what time do you have to be there?”

“I’m usually there before nine so I can clean the restrooms and help the bartender order his stuff before any customers come in” Seokjin said while looking for his button-up white shirt inside the bag he brought from his apartment.

“How many hours until you come back?”

Seokjin sighed lowly before letting Yoongi know about his schedule, he said, “Sometimes I get out at two, other times later. Occasionally, my boss asks me to help him close, so on those days I stay up with him until everyone leaves” Yoongi hummed disapprovingly and Seokjin felt bad for lying.

He actually got out at one sharp, but on lucky days his boss would find someone for him to “take home”. Usually half drunk men and women in their thirties or forties wanting to try something new. Seokjin was an orphan without a middle school or high school diploma and nobody wanted an illiterate young orphan to work for them when the sun was shining. But he was also full of youth and beauty, and apparently, that was what everyone wanted in the dark.

“That’s late” Yoongi frowned “You should look for a day job instead”

“Don’t worry too much, I’ve been working there for a long time now, so I’m used to it” Seokjin dropped his head a little while smiling at Yoongi “And this pays better too”

OOO

Hoseok beamed at his father from their table, Seokjin wanted to join in, but he was rooted to the floor outside. He slowly walked away while lowering his head to not draw attention to himself. He took out his phone and dialed his friend’s phone while biting his lips.

“Seokjin hyung! Where are you?” the bubbly voice of Hoseok picked the line.

“I-ah” He felt a little dizzy, so he stopped walking and pushed his back on a wall “Hoseok, I can’t go. Some-something came up at work and I have to help...”

“Hyung, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he lied “I will talk to you later” He wanted to push the red button to hang up, but guilt spread over him; poor Hoseok didn’t deserve Seokjin treating him coldly “Have fun with your dad”

“Sure thing, hyung!” Hoseok promised.

Seokjin let himself drag his back on the wall until his butt hit the concrete of the sunny sidewalk. The sun shone on his eyes mercilessly as he cursed himself internally. He stayed sprawled on the floor while thinking what to do next. He could hang around with Hyosang, but his friend always had other friends over who drank and smoked a lot, so Seokjin would be dragged to drink with them just to not be a misfit with one of the only good friends he had. GukJoo was too busy with her own rising celebrity life in that moment, so she was most likely to ignore him on the first ten calls.

His phone suddenly rang.

“Let’s get a coffee latter” it was Yoongi, with his sleepy dragged voice deeper than ever over the phone “I’m very bored and my dad sent me money today”

Seokjin blinked slowly while processing the events in his head. Yoongi was like an angel sent from heaven.

“You’re like an angel,” Seokjin smiled at the phone, which was stupid, because Yoongi couldn’t see him “I’m free today, let’s go anywhere”

Yoongi didn’t answer for some seconds, so Seokjin thought he had hung up, but just when he was about to end the call, Yoongi said, “Stay at my place today too”

“Okay”

OOO

They went for lunch and played at an abandoned playground when the sun started to set. The day was hot and Seokjin swore he could feel a sheet of dirt all over his body, but Yoongi was smiling so hard that his gums showed, so Seokjin decided to let loose and keep on playing. It was dark when Yoongi asked him out to a club.

“You don’t even have an ID to get in” Seokjin scowled, but Yoongi didn’t buckle.

“And you do?” the pale boy asked and he was left without words “I know you work in a bar, don’t tell me you don’t know places that don’t ask for ID”

Seokjin bit his one of his nails, but stopped when he tasted dirt, “Fine, I’ll take you to one, but promise me you’ll always be by my side”

“I promise.” Yoongi seriously said while looking directly into his eyes, “I will always be by Kim Seokjin’s side”

Seokjin wanted to laugh at Yoongi’s seriousness, wanted to tell Yoongi that he only meant to stick by him for the night, but the meaning behind the promise made his knees a little weak and his breathing shallow.

“It is a promise then.” Seokjin said while locking their pinkies together.

Chapter Text

Yoongi’s persistence was like steel. He didn’t leave Seokjin’s side not even when he went to his crappy apartment to shower and change. Maybe it was insecurity more than anything, but Seokjin didn’t think too much about it back then. After he took a shower he chose an outfit for the night and another to sleep in and shoved them into an empty backpack that had seen better days to be quite honest.

“Your apartment is really small…” Yoongi told him shyly after he came out of his shower.

Seokjin and Hoseok’s apartment was really, really small. It was literally a room with a single mattress on the floor, an all in one bathroom unit by a corner, a clothes drying line with some hangers on it and a plastic box as closet space, and a small coffee table with an electric stove on it as a kitchen. Seokjin’s apartment was half the size of Yoongi’s bedroom.

Seokjin shrugged at Yoongi while drying the excess water off his hair with a towel.

“I could be worse,” He said to Yoongi, who was looking at the potted plants sitting close to the actually decent sized window, “I know some friends who live in half the space I live in”

“Is that even possible?” Yoongi laughed a little.

“It is,” he said while looking into the contents of a shoe box under the small table for his makeup bag, “I lived in one of those when I started to live here in the city. But then I met Hoseok, and together we started to rent this place.”

“Hoseok is your roommate, right?”

Seokjin nodded, “We are both very clean so the place is always very tidy, and even though we share the bed I don’t find it too uncomfortable anymore.”

Yoongi looked thoughtfully at the bed when sleeping together with Hoseok was mentioned, a small scowl on his face.

“How long have you lived together?”

“For seven months or so, I think.”

Yoongi stayed eerily quiet before he asked him, “Are you… are you two dating?”

Seokjin made a chocking sound in his throat before looking at Yoongi with wide eyes, “He’s younger than you and me, and I don’t think I could date a fifteen year old. A really dorky fifteen year old.”

“The flowers are blooming on some of the pots,” the fair boy told him, trying to change the topic, while moving around some of the small pots, “You should change some of them to bigger pots, the roots are starting to break thru beneath them.”

Seokjin could only stare at Yoongi’s red face.

OOO

When they arrived at Yoongi’s apartment his friend went to take a shower while he dressed up and fixed his hair and put on makeup. It was a little ridiculous, a boy taking so long to fix his hair and using makeup, but Seokjin still had a lot of baby fat around his cheeks and his eyes bulged out too innocently without the sharp look the eyeliner gave him. He had finished fixing his hair when Yoongi came out of his bedroom’s bathroom, a towel on his neck to protect his black button-up from excess water.

“Dry your hair and I’ll fix it for you,” he told his friend.

“Can’t I do it myself?” Yoongi asked him and he sighed.

“You can, but I’ve seen your way of fixing your hair, and it’s not the kind of style people at night clubs use.” Seokjin told him while rubbing some BB cream on himself.

Yoongi stared at him and scoffed a little before going out of the room, “Fine”

He heard some drawers being opened and closed in the room next door, some things falling and then his friend’s steps coming into the room. When Seokjin finished drawing a thin line of black on his right eyelid, he raised his head from his small pocket mirror to look at Yoongi plug a hair dryer in a wall. Seokjin was in the middle of contouring his face a little with a dark but subtle blush when he saw Yoongi drying his hair messily. He almost face-palmed, but he suppressed it and stood up from Yoongi’s big fluffy bed to help his careless friend.

“Here,” he said while carefully taking Yoongi’s hand away from the hair dryer, “You need to do it constant and patiently so your hair stays the way you want,” he said while softly brushing his fingers thru the shorter boy’s hair. Yoongi stayed still and quiet as Seokjin brushed his fingertips on the younger boy’s scalp so it could dry up faster.

After some time, Yoongi’s hair started to dry up, so Seokjin warmed up a small amount of hair gel on his hands and evenly spread it all over Yoongi’s hair before grabbing the closest comb(more like the only comb Yoongi had) and styling his best friend’s black hair up, “Where did you learn to do this?”

Seokjin pursed his lips a little while making a stray lock of hair stay in place, “I used to have a roommate that showed me how to do this. You know, she was older and she really tried to help me to learn something that I could help myself with later.” Seokjin turned the hair dryer on once more to seal the gel on place, “She said that there will always be vain people who’ll want their hair done, so I would always have work. I almost got into a cosmetology school to learn how to do this right, with a diploma and everything, but it was too expensive for me back then.”

He remembers going into the house of his very first assigned client from the bar he worked at and regretting with his whole heart not paying the beauty school’s course back when he had been fifteen years old. He remembers that noona warning him about the stuff he would be getting into if he chose a wrong path, but Seokjin only half-listened to her, his need had been bigger than his fear. He was not as needy anymore; he was instead desperate to crawl out of the hole he had dug himself into.

When he was done with Yoongi he couldn’t believe it.

“Look at you, superstar!” Seokjin half-heartedly mocked him, Yoongi scowled at him before reaching up to touch his hair and reaching down to fix the clothes Seokjin chose.

“You are actually good at this.” Yoongi shoved him away while reaching for his fancy camera to take pictures.

It was kinda cute, seeing his younger friend all excited about going to a night club for the first time. Seokjin didn’t remember being that exited for night clubs. Actually, the first time he got into one was to look for a job, and he had been nervous and desperate for the pay rather than the taste.

“Come take a picture with me.” Yoongi said and Seokjin complied, sitting beside his friend on the floor. Yoongi took a picture when he was close enough, but the Polaroid came out with most of Yoongi’s face and half’s of Seokjin. Yoongi looked at him shyly, “I think we need to get closer”

He snickered a little while his friend fidgeted on place, “Alright, I get it,” he said while sneaking his arms around the black haired boy’s tensed shoulders, “You just wanted me to hug you.”

Seokjin heard Yoongi swallow thickly beside him before he opened his mouth to spit back a comeback at him, but when he turned his face their cheeks brushed and he swiftly shut up and looked at his camera instead, “I’ll… take the picture”

The picture came out so good Seokjin told the younger boy to take another one for him. Each one of them own a Polaroid of that day, the big smiles on their faces and closeness on the pictures were kept almost as a secret for years. Neither of them ever admitted it, but they wanted that moment to be only theirs for no one else to see.

Seokjin took them to one of the moderately safe zones in the city, being mindful of Yoongi’s tenderness. Yoongi was very new to nightlife places with neon lights all over the buildings and alcohol sold like rice at day. Even if his friend’s tongue was sharp when boasting about mischief and past pranks, Seokjin knew his friend was born and raised in a nice family, clean and polite. Yoongi’s father was a high ranked and much respected person in the military who never laid a hand on his children for nothing else than caresses, shown by Yoongi’s protectiveness and confusion when Seokjin showed up with scrapes and bruises from his own household back when they were children. Seokjin could even swear Yoongi had never gotten drunk before.

The club Seokjin chose was a mainstream one where you could always spot a teenager going crazy every now and then. Police never came this way, the drinks were moderately cheap and the people were more or less friendly. It was a relatively safe club, so safe it didn’t require a bouncer at the entrance.

Yoongi stood by his side very closely and silently nodded when Seokjin told him which drink he should get first. When their drinks came to their table, Yoongi looked intensely at the phosphorescent blue drink Seokjin got him and then at Seokjin’s clear glass.

“Is yours vodka?” his friend asked him while stirring his drink with the thin straw in his glass.

“No, mine is whisky.” Seokjin sipped his drink, “Yours is vodka, remember?”

“Right,”

Seokjin could notice the younger boy holding back a grimace as he ignored the straw and took a relatively big gulp of his drink, unaware of the sourness. He had to feign interest in another spot so he wouldn’t laugh at Yoongi’s childish act. It didn’t work.

“This is terrible,” Yoongi told him, now taking small sips instead of big gulps, “why would you make me pay so much for this shitty drink?”

“It gets better, I swear!” Seokjin managed to say without laughing.

“I bet your first time was like this too!”

Seokjin remembers his first time drinking something other than a cheap can of beer; it was with a young man his boss had assigned him for a night. That one client had been not as old as his usual ones, but definitely bolder than him. He had sweet talked him into drinking some shots at his hotel room before even getting started, and the only thing Seokjin remembers is a shot glass being refilled repeatedly in front of him while the room spun and contorted around him. When he came to himself he was in the same gritty hotel room with angry marks on his back and neck and no extra pay for them. Not even the room was paid for.

“I actually had shots,” Seokjin said while remembering the sting of his boss’ hand hitting his cheek and the shame he felt of his coworkers’ eyes watching him cry for his foolish mistake, “they were vodka shots. You are drinking vodka now, so it’s basically the same. The more you drink the best it gets.”

Yoongi stopped drinking from his glass to stare oddly at him for some seconds before scoffing halfway into another gulp, “Liar.”

Seokjin only kept on sipping small amounts out of his own glass.

The rest of the night was spent with Yoongi begging him to let him buy more drinks, but the older boy only let him buy two more drinks, but he knew that Yoongi sneaked a tequila shot behind his back. He feigned ignorance and let his friend be, if only for tonight.

He had to drag Yoongi out of the nightclub after he got a little funky on the dance floor.

Yoongi somehow managed to climb onto his shoulders in the middle of an empty street, his feet stubbornly bumping onto Seokjin’s heels. The night was damp but the air made up for it, Yoongi’s hot torso did not. “Yoongi, you’re too heavy for me. Not even because you look so lithe…”

“Seokjin,” Yoongi drawled out breathy and Seokjin hummed in acknowledge, “WHY do you let me call you by your name? I should be calling you hyung.”

Seokjin’s mind whirled while shifting Yoongi arms off the suffocating grip they were pulling on his neck, “I had never thought about it, we had always been so close I always end up forgetting you are younger enough to call me hyung.”

“I like being close with you,” Yoongi tightened his arms around his neck again.

“Me too,” he chocked when Yoongi folded his feet in the air, putting all of his weight on his shoulders, “but not when you get clingy like this. Come on, why don’t you better hold my hand and let my shoulders rest for a while.”

Yoongi obeyed and slipped his arms from Seokjin’s shoulders to press their hands together. They walked for some minutes in relative silence, Seokjin helping Yoongi regain equilibrium every now and then.

“Seokjin, look,” Yoongi stopped dragging his feet on the floor and pointed to the sky, “It’s a full moon”

Seokjin looked up, and there it was, the moon shining in its entire splendor shining over them. He smiled.

“Let’s make a wish.” Yoongi solidly told him while looking at his lips. Seokjin shifted awkwardly on his place. “What are you going to ask for?”

Seokjin chuckled a little while retaking the pace they had, although with his blood a little bit more rushed, “for you to not drown in your sleep today.”

“I won’t. For you I won’t.” His friend pulled him to himself, “Seokjin, there are a lot of things I would do for you,” Yoongi licked his lips and Seokjin looked at the floor while listening to his friend’s drunk blabbering, “only if you would let me… Do you know what I asked to the moon to let me have in this moment?”

The shorter boy was getting closer and closer, and even though his words were getting sloppy, his steps were not. Seokjin didn’t have it in himself to back up against the wall behind him and melt into it. He knew what was coming, and as Yoongi flushed their chests together and bumped their foreheads carefully, his heart beat faster but his breath got slower and farther apart. There were some seconds were he thought he would pass out from holding his breath so much.

“A k-kiss?” he offered.

Yoongi shook his head and tenderly held his cheeks between his warm and heavy hands. Seokjin felt every single breath and small sigh the other boy gave as he shifted even closer.

“Courage.”

And then it came: while his toes curled and his ankles twisted, his heart burst into flames.

Chapter Text

Yoongi never got mail; his friends made him calls that lifted his spirits after a long day, promising a nice night out with them when his service was done, his father also called him, but he picked those up with cold and composed syllables; his brother visited him from time to time; Hoseok visited him once to ask about Seokjin’s whereabouts, but not even Yoongi knew where the other boy could’ve been at.

It didn’t matter how much Yoongi begged his father to tell him where Seokjin was, the older man wouldn’t even part his lips. The only information he ever got was a cold and short, “He will be fine, do not worry for him anymore.” But Yoongi’s heart was still restless and waiting for any kind of information from his childhood friend.

So when a letter from Seokjin was given to him at night by the postal clerk of his area he was more than thrilled, also a little confused but his confusion dissipated as he read Seokjin’s words eagerly. It was written on two notebook sheets, and Seokjin’s handwriting was a little shaky and chunky, as if he had forgotten how to write by hand and he was practicing from scratch, but at least he had written to Yoongi.

It read:

To my dearest officer, Min Yoongi:

I’ve come to know you are now doing your service, I’m glad. I’ve heard it’s quite exhausting and a little lonely, but I’ll be cheering for you. I’ll be waiting for you if you let me.

You won’t believe how many times I wrote this letter because I made a few mistakes when writing. But a friend helped me and I hope I don’t screw it this time. I’m sorry I cannot send you a nice paper sheet, but now that I’m back in Seoul I need every single coin I get on my hands, no matter the size or quantity all money is needed and carefully used. I hope you do not get sad while thinking about me because when I think about you I feel happy and excited to see you again. I don’t care what your father said; I’ll meet you again no matter what. Of course, only if you want me to.

It’s been quite some time, right? I still can’t believe four years went by so fast. I have been through so much during that time, good and bad, but I think it has been for the best. Now I can see life with a different perspective. A more positive perspective. I was sent to an aunt in some small town in Daegu, my mother did have family after all, and she told me as much as she remembered about her. I still don’t know what I would do if I ever find my mother again, but I know I will eventually forgive her.

I worked in a strawberry field picking the biggest strawberries I’ve ever seen with a friend in Daegu when he told me he was going to audition for some modeling company in Seoul and that I should give it a chance, and after thinking a lot about it I quit my job to go with him. Life is quite funny isn’t it? Now I work for a cosmetics company whenever they call me. They do not call me that often though, so I also work as a waiter on the weekends. The pay is minimum, but my coworkers are nice and fun. I’ll try to be more careful at work from now on so I can treat you to a nice café next time. But most importantly, how are you? How have you been? Are you happy? I always ask myself these questions every day. There’s not a single day I don’t think about you, Min Yoongi. My dearest friend.  

Let’s meet up when you finish your service, I’ll pay this time. Pinky promise.

Missing you terribly,

Kim Seokjin.

Yoongi stared for a long time at the papers in his hands, they were folded neatly and if Yoongi sniffed close enough he could scent the quaintest whiff of hand lotion on the sheets. Seokjin must’ve been nervous enough to pass the thin paper sheets from hand to hand, folding and unfolding, waiting to deposit them inside the envelope to seal it with a quick flick of his tongue.

Yoongi smiled as he wrote down his answer on a white paper sheet given to him by a lower rank new boy named Jimin, who followed him around like a puppy even though Yoongi made their squad frown from pain at least a hundred times a day.

He found himself happier than ever after sending his first letter while in service. He found himself giddy and exited, the mere thought of Seokjin waiting for him made him feel warm and alert. It had been so long since he could say he had someone waiting for him, he had a house under his name thanks to his father’s guilt, and he didn’t lack money after his brother’s small business went big and got millions. But he had no home, because home is where the heart is.

Yoongi’s heart left with Seokjin, and he was sure Seokjin would soon come back to him once more.

Chapter Text

“Sometimes I feel bad thinking that,” Seokjin told him once after nervously wetting his lips and biting his tongue, “that there aren’t a lot of firsts I can give you.”

It was past midnight and it was slowly becoming a pillow talk night, nights where Seokjin would agonizingly open up to him, the sharp chip encrusted in his heart raw for only Yoongi to see. He remembers every single one, they are of utmost importance for both of them, they help them heal their souls even now when their worn bones and skin can’t.

The old wall clock would tick and pause before the tack came, an old malfunction that they never fixed, and Yoongi remembers it as clear as how clean water tastes because that was the night he said it for the first time.

“I love you.” He said as he let Seokjin play with his hair.

The hand in his hair slowly retracted with a stagger, but Yoongi steadily guided it towards his chest, right over the left side of his ribcage, where his heart was beating like hummingbird’s wings, like how it always beat when he was with a certain Kim Seokjin, just how he always wanted it to beat. “You already gave me one of the most important firsts in my life,” Yoongi said as he slowly prepared to make his cheeks feel on fire and his face feel like hiding, “my first love.”

Contrary to what he thought Seokjin would do, like laugh and hit him on the arm he wasn’t lying right on, tears bloomed on the rim of his lover’s eyes, making him panic for a full second until a frail smile speared on his pretty face. “Can you feel how you make me feel? You are the first person in this entire planet that can make me feel good while making me feel like dying at the same time.” Yoongi dragged the words all he could, trying to not disturb the post coital calm hanging over their bedroom, “And I want you to be the last.”

“You’re unbelievable Min Yoongi,” Seokjin giggled as he curled on his chest, his hand still over his beating heart. Yoongi breathed out a small giggle as he caressed a flushed damp cheek.

“Only and always you.”

“I love you too, Yoongi.” Seokjin told him as his shoulders shook once, his voice was shaky and he could feel as the other man breathed out the words and tenderly kissed his ribcage, ascending his kisses little by little until he stopped by his lips “I love you more than everything. It has always been you and it will always be you.”

“Always?” Yoongi asked amusedly as Seokjin deepened their kiss but still left it as tender as before.

“Always.” And there was no hesitation.

Chapter Text

Corporal Jimin was attracted to lieutenant Min.

Yoongi had been longer than him serving the country. He once heard that lieutenant Min was the son of a very famous lineage, and that he had the need to serve in his blood, so Jimin thought it was very interesting. He came from four generations of store and restaurant owners that pretty much didn’t accomplish enough to be listed in South Korea’s best galas as a VIP invitee. Lieutenant Min’s family did.

Jimin’s parents owned a small and cozy café in Busan, which was passed down from a great grandmother, who in her golden years used to own several cafes and a small hotel.

Lieutenant Min didn’t have the body of a soldier, not really, but he had the presence of an ice cold ruler. Every time Lieutenant Min entered a room everyone would straighten their backs, newbies would tremble with just a look from him without even knowing who he was. If Jimin was a puppy then his tail would resemble a blender from how exited he found himself when Lieutenant Min said he was now in charge of their squad.

Jimin felt like in a haze every time the pale man bossed them around, and there was something warm inside his stomach when he saw the lieutenant laugh for the first time. Min Yoongi’s laugh was expressive and hearty, his gums showed and his eyes would become a tight line from how big his smile reached his cheeks.

He knew he had a crush on the lieutenant, healthy or unhealthy, it didn’t matter. All that he needed to know was that his own two years of service would be less painful and lonely if he had someone to think about.

He knew everyone knew he was the lieutenant’s pet, it was clearly visible. But it was alright, because it allowed him a level of confidence with the lieutenant that no one in their whole building could achieve.

That’s why when Lieutenant Min allowed him to deliver a letter for him Jimin complied without blinking.

He knew the letter that he was about to deliver to their military equivalent of post office was extremely personal, which was very strange and borderline unusual. Min never got letters, Jimin knew as much. He knew Min Yoongi the individual was only visited by a handful of friends and his junkie of a brother. He had never received a letter and had never acted as coy as he did when he handed him a white envelope to deliver. Jimin had seen him when the lieutenant read the first cheap yellowish envelope sent to him, everyone got personal mail delivered to them each Monday night after paying respect to their flag and their daily routine.

Even Yoongi couldn’t believe it when an envelope was shoved into his personal space by the postal clerk of their area. When he saw the name a smile appeared on his face and he finished his daily check early to go outside. Jimin followed him. Lieutenant Min stood under a lamppost to read the letter, the faint and probably unconscious smile on his face surfacing once more. Jimin’s heart fluttered when he saw Lieutenant Min kiss the letter once he was done. Only then Jimin could weigh the magnitude of the importance of that letter.

It was a letter from a lover.

Stone hard Lieutenant Min had a loved one, he was human after all, but Jimin didn’t know why it surprised him so much. Maybe it was because the image he had of ruthless Lieutenant Min on a pedestal was kicked down by a simple kiss on a piece of paper.

When the lieutenant asked him to deliver a letter in his place, Jimin did so while trying to low down his anxiety, it didn’t help that Min Yoongi himself had smiled at him and patted his back after he placed the letter in his hands with the upmost care, as if he was trying to not wrinkle it.

 Before he reached the postal clerk’s office, he dared to satisfy the curious cat inside of him and he inspected the name and address on the envelope.

It was for a certain Kim Seokjin, who lived in Seoul. Jimin didn’t recognize the area, he didn’t know Seoul that well, didn’t know Seoul at all to be honest, but he made sure to remember the address to ask someone else later. He knew for a fact that Sergeant Major Min Yooseon had to live in a very expensive and nice place, so Lieutenant Min Yoongi also did, and the person he was sending this letter to probably was a very nice lady, the daughter of a chaebol or something alike.

A bitter taste crawled on his throat as he drowned in the knowledge that he, Park Jimin, son of the owner of a small café in Busan, would never achieve being in the place that a beautiful high class woman could by Min Yoongi’s side.   

It was some days after that a new batch of letters was delivered, and a new beige letter was given to their Lieutenant. This time he didn't excuse himself early, but he was actually less harsh than usual. After the man left, his roommates started to chat animatedly among themselves, but Jimin didn’t have time to chitchat. He needed information.

So he faked oblivion and faintly mentioned the address of the letter Lieutenant Min sent, and his small group of roommates went gaga.

“Seriously?” Sungkyu, a boy older than him by two years, asked him with disbelief all over his face, “He sent his letter to that address?”

“Yes,” Jimin said while shifting on the bed he was lying on, faking nonchalance, “Why?”

Jun, the youngest in their group, but the more mischievous and hyperactive, looked at the door nervously before dipping his head into their gossip circle, “that’s actually a very bad area. I think that’s where the ant communities live, it’s also very close to the red light district up north.”

Okay, that was surprising, very surprising. Why would Lieutenant Min, who came from a nice family with a high social status, send letters to someone living in an ant community? Close to the red light district!

“Do you think he’s sending letters to…” Minjae gulped and made his sharp Adam’s apple bob up and down his chubby neck, “to a whore?”

“Don’t say shit like that,” Jun shoved Minjae’s shoulder, “Lieutenant Min is too preppy to fall in love with someone like that.”

“But it might be true. He is a man after all, and I bet almost every man has paid a whore’s services before joining the army.” Sungkyu said, “I did.”

“Oh my God, Sungkyu,” Jun covered his face with both hands.

“Not my fault you’re still a virginal teen,” Sungkyu shrugged, “It’s scientifically proved that almost every Korean man will visit a brothel at least once in their life, there are stats and everything,”

“I’ve never been to a brothel before,” Jimin said, “and I wish I never have to go to one.”

“You will go to one,” Sungkyu smirked cockily, “You’ll see. You’ll go to one and when you do you will remember me.”

OOO

The next time the Lieutenant asked him to deliver a letter for him, Jimin nervously complied.

The letter was heavier than last time, or maybe it was a psychological weight, he was sure his mind was playing with him. It was probably because his hands were hyper aware that the letter he was holding was unsealed, just like every letter that had to be sent from their camp. They had to be unsealed so the postal clerk could read the contents and make sure no important information was being sold to the enemy. Who was the enemy? Jimin still didn’t know, the closest enemy his squad had fought were the terrible mountains of snow they had to dug away from the street every once in a while.

But his enemy right now was the itching he had to open his lieutenant’s personal letter.

“Don’t be like this Park Jimin,” he said to himself, trying to will his curiosity away.

But he was weak.

He found himself hiding behind a set of stairs with the contents of Lieutenant Min’s white envelope held between his trembling fingers.

His eyes scanned the neat words on the paper with a speed his pretty elementary school teacher would have been proud of. It felt wrong and intrusive, but he wanted to know, he needed to. He longed to have a taste of how did Min Yoongi treat a dearly beloved. He wondered if this letter had been kissed before being given to him.

The letter was sweet but apparently unsubstantial, just like how lovers would feed up each other with everyday words. It started with a sickening sweet “To my dearest Jinnie”, and there were other small endearments sparkled here and there as if on a messy birthday cake. Jimin was about to sigh in disbelief, when a certain line stuck out to him.

“About this Taehyung you live with,” Jimin read for a second time, not believing what he silently read the first time, “I’m sure he loved the haircut you gave him, you are a nice hairstylist, I’m sure. I’m not surprised you got the courage to cut his hair by yourself; you have always been a very brave guy, even when we were little boys. Especially when we were small boys.”

A brave guy. Small boys.

Was Seokjin even a female name?

“Always thinking of you,” Jimin read the farewell, “Your dearest best friend forever, Min Yoongi.”

Chapter Text

If Min Yoongi was Seokjin’s first love, Kim Namjoon was his first heartbreak.

It was raining and he was sitting once more outside the only convenience store in the whole village he had been sent to live in. It rained so much around there, if it wasn’t raining then the heat was so damp and overwhelming that he found himself taking a shower trice every day. His light blue shirt had been damp and his cotton sweatpants were so wet they were dripping on the steps of the store when Namjoon stepped for the first time into his life.

He could’ve walked home under the rain to his shy aunt and his slut-shaming uncle, he was soaked to the bone after all, but he couldn’t find it in himself to go back, not yet. At least outside the calm and desolated store he could calmly stare into space while eating cheap potato chips without being reminded of how useless he was. He sighed as he opened the bag and started on munching -quite aggressively if he was honest- the salted thin eatable ovals.

Stupid alcoholic uncle, Seokjin truly felt a repulsive feeling towards him. He had never felt hate for anyone that hard, not even to the men that treated him way too rough and rude back when he was an escort. At least those men paid him for it, but his uncle got paid to take care of him, as if he was a charity case that not even the government wanted.

He suddenly stopped munching viciously on a chip when he realized that he was indeed a charity case that not even the government wanted. His mother gave him to his father, his father gave him to an orphanage, and the orphanage tried to give him to a couple that had too many bad reviews by the children and teenagers they formerly fostered. He fled and he found himself being rejected from every reachable day job he applied to with a heavy heart and a weightless stomach. His pretty face saved him and gave him a nice spot in a bar where people was sold more easily than alcohol, but the bar got busted and he was given a fine for misdemeanor that Yoongi’s father oh-so-kindly paid before telling him to never seek out his sweet son ever again while he drove him to his new guardians’ home very, very far away.

He felt like crying but he refused to do so and stuffed his mouth full with chips, “what a shitty life,”

 “Have you ever thought that maybe the shitty one is you?” a boy said standing right beside him and Seokjin almost chokes with the exorbitant amount of chips he just stuffed into his mouth.

The boy had a good sense of guilt because he offered Seokjin the bottle of soda he was holding in one of his hands. He patted Seokjin’s back for around three minutes until they were both sure that he wouldn’t die of suffocation by potato chips. That would’ve been a good headline: “Young teenager chokes to death with a potato chip.”

 “Jesus, man sorry,” his almost murderer whistled, “’didn’t know you’d be this jumpy.”

“You almost killed me,” he told the teen as he patted his own chest.

“Not my intention, really,” the other said as he stared at his dripping clothes, “man, you’re dripping water everywhere.”

“No shit,” Seokjin said as he looked at the other’s mud stained black shirt and worn jeans, he said, “you’re not any better than me,” and cleaned the spit around his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Huh, well,” the black haired teen shrugged and he took back his soda bottle, “at least I have an umbrella.” He told Seokjin as he pushed a black button on the handle of his umbrella and the red cloth expanded at its fullest. The black haired teen looked him over once more and turned around to step under his umbrella with a smirk on his face, as if trying to prove a point, “See you later rain boy,”

Seokjin waited until the other teen disappeared under the thick layers of rain to comment, “What an asshole!”

OOO

Seokjin hated the sweet and bitter smell of the strawberry farm his uncle made him work in. He had to pick five wooden boxes full of strawberries everyday for so much less than what he made in a night at his last job in the bar, without the extra pay of his outside tricks.

The farm was big and the first day he worked there he almost cried around the start of his second box, but he got used the second week. There was something calming into doing the repetitive process of picking good fruits and putting them in a box, one after another. He indulged into daydreaming as he filled the boxes of the day.

Sometimes he liked to imagine himself in a school acing his grades all morning and part of the afternoon, a nice outing with friends after it, maybe window shopping at a mall or going for ice cream with Yoongi, and then he would go to a certain blue house once the sun started to hide. The brother he once had would greet him at the entrance as they both took their shoes off and dropped their bags, salivating for the delicious dinner waiting for them at the kitchen at the end of the corridor…

Sometimes, when he felt anger and sadness to the core, he would imagine himself as a successful man. A lawyer, a CEO, even a doctor, he would be good at everything he did, even at parking his car. He would come into his own building in the morning and he would be greeted by three personal assistants that would obey his every word immediately; at afternoon he would have a majestic lunch exported from any country he wanted to eat from and at night he would go home in a nice shiny car to his own penthouse. Seokjin remembers that one of his clients once took him to a penthouse; it was so high on the sky that he was afraid of falling when the man started to kiss him by the edge of the balcony. Seokjin wanted to live in a place like that, a luxurious glossy place like that man’s penthouse or Yoongi’s apartment, or romantic and classy like grandma Min’s big hanok.

He sighed as he finished his fourth box and started on his last.

“Hey, Jin hyung,” Taehyung, the weird younger boy that worked with him called him as he ate one of the strawberries in one of his filled boxes, “I was thinking about joining this modeling agency I found the other day, which is very nice according to a friend who is in Seoul working under it-”

“The agency is in Seoul?” he asked, “you want to go to Seoul?”

“Yes, and I was thinking…” Taehyung hummed a little as Seokjin stopped picking strawberries to look at him, “that maybe, maybe super maybe, you’d want come with me to try it out.”

Seokjin snorted a little as he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with the back of a gloved hand, “I don’t know. I’m not very fond of Seoul…”

“Well, anyhow, what are you doing today after this?” his friend said after a while.

“Nothing much,” he said as he watched enviously Taehyung’s full boxes, “maybe I’ll go to that store near my house and buy a soda or something…”

“Come to my house!” the brunet told him, “I got a new movie, but I don’t want to watch it alone…”

Seokjin snorted, “Another horror movie, Tae?”

“Well, this one sounds less scary than the last time, I promise!” the boy smiled embarrassed as he helped Seokjin fill his box.

Seokjin looked at the sky for some minutes before taking off the facemask he liked to put on to not get burnt by the sunrays, “Alright, but I’m not holding your hand this time!”

OOO

Kim Taehyung was a terrible liar, the movie he had rented was way worse than the last one. On a particularly gory scene Taehyung quickly went to his kitchen to “refill” their glasses, but Seokjin could hear him whimpering on the kitchen’s threshold. Seokjin only gulped once and managed to bear the rest of the movie with his younger friend going away or holding his hand every now and then. If anyone knew Seokjin clutched his arm tightly on the loudest scenes, everyone would somehow know Taehyung yelled frightened by his own grandmother entering the living room.

“I think I should go,” he told Taehyung as he picked up the light blue backpack where he stored his extra layers of working clothes in, “my aunt might get worried if I get home too late.”

“See you tomorrow! Be careful, I think it’s going to rain.” Taehyung told him as he laced up his boots at the entrance, “Think about the modeling company thingy I told you about, okay?”

“...Yeah, okay, see you tomorrow.”

The walk from Taehyung’s grandmother’s house to his aunt’s house was long, but he didn’t mind walking. The gray roads from the more civilized part of the village became more muddy and brown as he stepped onto the outskirts, to his house. His way home became darker as the sun sat and clouds heavy with water danced all over the dirt road and beyond, but he didn’t mind a little water on him. Somehow every time it rained he could reminisce about wild-hearted Yoongi kissing him under it in some alley in the heart of Seoul, and sometimes he could almost hear his mother sing an English song out of tune with a terrible accent in his head.

He didn’t know the lyrics, he never bothered to understand them, and not even the basic English classes that his father used to give him and his brother back when they were younger helped him understand a word of it, so he only whistled the few parts he remembered. A few drops of rain started to fall on his head and face as he happily skipped over the slowly mudding road.

 He kicked a puddle as the rain got heavy, fat drops fell on him but he liked the slight pain that tickled his uncovered skin. His working uniform, which was a thick denim jumper, was getting darker the more wet it became, just like his long sleeved shirt, and he was sure even the contents of his backpack were soaked, but never in his life could he have cared less. Not even when he was a child he jumped into puddles. As the rain got louder he raised his voice to sing nonsense in a never ending loop of the same tune.

“I’m laughing at clouds so dark up above!” a voice suddenly boomed behind him and Seokjin froze. It was the rude boy from the time he almost choked to death. The teen was holding the same red umbrella over his head, but the rain still managed to soak his dark jeans and light shirt almost completely. “The sun’s in my heart! And I’m ready for love… Singing in the rain, right? A classic, I would have never guessed you liked classics, English music for that matter. You look more like a more modern kind of guy, you know.”

The only thing that Seokjin knew in that moment was that he was completely nuts. Embarrassment was burning his face and he couldn’t feel his limbs. Oh, God, he had gone mad. He had always expected himself to go crazy at some point in his life, a life of abandonment, abuse and prostitution could do that to a young person; he had seen it himself. But he had expected a more violent and breathtaking scenario, like destroying an room and being put into a straightjacket with a lot of belts on it, or simply shutting himself so much a mental institution would have to come and get him to make him eat. Of course none of those two would happen because he was too self-conscious to break a thing, never mind a room; and he loved eating too much, even when his appetite didn’t greet him on some days.

“I’m crazy,” he snorted and turned around to keep on his way home, trying to ignore the small embarrassing stunt he just pulled, “totally over the top.”

“You don’t look too crazy though,” the black haired guy told him as he caught up with him, small streams of water slipping from the material of his umbrella onto Seokjin’s head.

Seokjin snorted, “You’re also nuts,”

“What? Why?”

“I was screaming full lunged a senseless song and you joined me. You even did it louder!”

“Hey,” the rude boy whined, “Singing in the rain is not a senseless song. And I’m pretty sure your kind of crazy is different than my kind of crazy!”

“Oh that’s right,” Seokjin sarcastically laughed as he remembered their first encounter, “You have an umbrella. That totally makes a crazy person different than another crazy person.”

The boy huffed, but there was a certain glint in his eye as he got closer to him and placed the umbrella above their heads. With the umbrella stopping the falling water from interrupting his hearing range he could hear the boy’s voice closer and deeper, “Look, now we are two crazy people under an umbrella and I still think your kind of crazy is different than mine.”

Seokjin scoffed as he kept on walking, now with the warmth of the other male against his shoulder.

“I’m Namjoon,” skinny black jeans said as he watched him from the corner of his eye, maybe afraid of turning his head and bumping their noses together, “and you are cute, so you can call me Hyung.”

“What year were you born in?”

“Nineteen ninety-four,”

Seokjin cackled, “I’m two years older, little one.” He laughed and the boy’s jaw went slack, “I’m Seokjin, but you’re cute, so you can call me hyung.”

The other laughed quietly as he lowered his eyes.

“Can I walk you home?” black jeans told him and this time he turned his head, a weird glint in his eyes that Seokjin knew too well.

“Are you flirting with me?”

“Does it bother you?” the boy stopped and stared.

Seokjin looked him up and down. The other male was tall with a nice face and seemed to walk with a slight slouch but otherwise he carried himself well, he had both ears pierced and a black chocker on his neck… Huh, he should’ve noticed it sooner.

“No, I don’t mind at all.”

OOO

If Yoongi was soft spoken and sweet to him, Namjoon was harsh and blunt.

He liked to kiss him roughly, with too many teeth and a strong, eager tongue. Every time he said hello he gave him a smirk, and every time he said goodbye he left him a new red and round mark around his collarbones. Seokjin knew how to get rid of hickeys, he learnt the way of doing it way back when he was fifteen and one of the bartenders at his first bar saw a pretty big one shining purple on his neck, “my older sisters showed me how to do this around your age, use it well Jinnie,” the young man had told him as he gave him a big colorful marker and explained the art of getting rid of a hickey to him. Seokjin knew how to use make up to cover them up too, but with Namjoon he basked in joy every time he caught sight of the blossoming marks around his chest and collarbones, it made him feel important and happy. It almost made him feel loved.

At work he didn’t fantasize about riding race cars and eating ice cream with Yoongi anymore, his fantasy time became less of “What if?” and more of “What’s next?”. Namjoon time became his favorite time for some calm long months.

But he also sadly learnt that it doesn’t matter how much you look forward to meet someone, there will always be something that you won’t look forward with that same person.

Namjoon had studs of steel and he didn’t think twice before opening his mouth and spilling whatever he had in his mind. He had a nice form of speaking, very calculated and well formed, but still careless. His way of thinking was free and fluid and if he didn’t like something he said it without tiptoe-ing around it.

“I hate people that get whatever they want by their looks, they feel so fucking important and it bothers me.” He spat as Seokjin laid his head down on one of his arms, “Like those celebrities that are terrible at acting or singing and they only get to be where they are through sex, like dirty prostitutes.”

Seokjin suddenly became stiff, but Namjoon didn’t even notice, “Is being a prostitute a bad thing?”

“Of course,” Namjoon scoffed, “they could win as much money in other less shameful jobs, but they choose to degrade themselves by being objects to be used. They are not meant to be treated as people by their clients, they are meant to be treated as toys, a material thing to be discarded after everything’s done. It saddens me, but it also disgusts me, to be honest.”

“I have to go,” Seokjin said as he quickly stood up and made his way out of the old forgotten church they always slipped in to not be seen.

“Wait,” Namjoon grabbed his wrist, and he tried to pull it free but the grip was strong, “does it bother you that I talked about whores?” Namjoon asked him skeptical.

Seokjin shook his head disbelieving, “Namjoon please, I have to go.”

“Why, Seokjin? Do you know one? I’m sorry if it makes you feel awkward, I just can’t stop myself when I talk.”

“It’s not like that…I,” he knees felt like jelly and his heart was burning, but he had nothing to be nervous of. He had given this same speech in the past, “I was a dirty prostitute.” He quietly said and Namjoon quickly let go of him, as if he had been hurt by a serpent’s bite, “Back when I lived in Seoul.”

“I’ve had sex with you.” Namjoon said after what seemed years of silence.

“Yeah, but I-I’m clean, uh I got tested every six months or so…”

“Every six months or so?! Does that mean you where in it longer than a year?”

“Well, yes, but I had always been very clean,” he tried to explain, but Namjoon’s face got redder by the second and Seokjin knew how that would end.

“I’ve had sex with you and you didn’t think it was important for me to know that you were a whore!” the taller male straightened his back and raised his neck, his hands balled into painful looking fists by his sides, “I trusted you! Don’t you know how bad this is?”

“I also trust you enough to tell you this, Namjoon. It’s not that bad. Please, just let me-” he tried to said while trying to place a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder, but Namjoon had enough of his blabbering and a fist collided with his cheek.

“I’ve been so stupid! This is not how you tell someone you are a prostitute, Seokjin. Much less after having exchanged sperm and saliva and- How disgusting, I can’t believe it…”

“Was,” Seokjin voice cracked as he held in tears in his eyes, a hand tightly holding the slowly swelling cheek, “I was a prostitute, I’m not a-anymore. There is a difference.”

The church was so silent that he could hear when Namjoon swallowed hard in anger, “Please don’t meet me again. I don’t think I can see you without feeling bad.”

Seokjin had felt like an object and not a person while being a prostitute, he had also felt ashamed of being called one by Yoongi’s father and Hoseok, but he had never felt so bad about being one until that chilly night of December.

He cried for hours inside that church before walking home alone. When he came into his aunt’s house he was greeted by his meek aunt and a very inebriated uncle. His uncle’s face lighted up in mirth when he saw his bruised face and puffy eyes.

“Did your little boyfriend give you his Christmas gift forehand?” the drunk man slurred as he took a gulp of his beer can, “too bad I wasn’t there to see it.”

“Seokjin, are you fine?” his pale aunt asked him as he rushed into the room they gave him.

“Yes, it’s nothing.”

He quickly unbuttoned his jacket and was about to throw it on the bottom of the small closet he had when his uncle came into the room through the thin slide door, a mocking smile on his moist lips.

“So he did leave you, huh?”

“Please uncle, I am going to sleep now.”

“Why did he?” his uncle leered as he grabbed him by the hair and pushed him on the floor, Seokjin fell on a heap on his futon as the man pushed his head down harder. The larger man smelled awfully of alcohol as he got closer and his hands clutched at his crotch and painfully squeezed and tugged, “I bet you tried to grab him like this, you disgusting pig, and he fucked your face up.”

The pain was terrible and Seokjin screamed all he could, even though he knew there was no one around that could help him, not even his aunt would help him. This was his uncle’s boiling point, Seokjin knew it, tomorrow he would go to work all bruised up and harassed and he wouldn’t be able to hide it. He could do nothing more than cry and beg, as always. He would forever be the useless Seokjin no one wanted, the family punching bag that no one helped.

“They say whores are only good for fucking, and it’s true for your aunt, let me check if it’s true for boys too, even if it’s a stupid boy like you,” the man said and Seokjin heard the tingling of the man’s belt come undone, “Huh, what does it feel to know that you’re the third generation of a looong line of whores? Your grandmother was a whore, your mother was a whore, even your aunt was a whore. I know that you are a whore too. The police tuh-told me before they begged me to keep you, you ungrateful piece of shit.”

Seokjin screamed and thrashed around looking for an opening between the man’s limbs, big fat tears running down his face and his scalp hurting from all the pulling the man was doing on his hair. He didn’t want to get raped by his uncle, he felt like throwing up from desperation and he wanted to curl into a ball.

“Please, uncle don’t!” he begged with his sore throat constricting as the man started to undo the buttons of his denim jumper, “I don’t want to! Stop!”

“Honey please, come to bed! Leave the boy alone, I’ll do it!” He vaguely recalls hearing his aunt say as his uncle froze.

“Bitch, you just ruined it!” The man said and quickly went up to scream at the woman. Seokjin stayed down, face first on the floor in shock, but then he quickly pulled his jumper up and secured one of the buttons of it. He grabbed his keys and ran out of the house by the back door, not even bothering to put on some shoes.

He ran as far as he could until he stopped in front of the lake where he used to swim with Namjoon when the weather was nicer. The wind was chilling and he regretted not bringing his jacket for a few moments, but then another thought came up into his brain. It crawled slowly into his core and made him walk closer to the small lake’s shore.

No one would miss him, he decided as he dipped inside the freezing water a socked foot. His parents abandoned him, he told himself as he sank his other foot into the lake. His closest friends in Seoul had not even called once to ask about him, they also didn’t care, he thought as he started walking deeper into the water. Namjoon already told him he never wanted to see him again, he sobbed and he slipped further in, his lower body feeling painfully cold. No one even remembered his birthday some weeks ago. Yoongi-

Yoongi, sweet Yoongi. He stopped.

He shook himself out of his trance as he recalled Yoongi telling him sweet nothings and holding his hands.

“I don’t like seeing you hurt,” the younger boy sternly told him once.

He stiffly walked out of the lake with numb legs and a sore torso. He cried for a while, but then he felt a rush of determination rush through his head and he stood up and cleaned his cold, wet face with one of his palms. He took off his soaked socks and he made his way to the dirt path closest to the lake.

He would do it for Yoongi.

OOO

A few knocks on the backdoor of his house woke him up. For a moment a terrible dread gave him goosebumps, but he decided he would open it before his grandmother woke up. Only God knew how much she needed to rest. He grabbed a baseball bat on his way to the door, but he realized he wouldn’t need to use it when he opened the door and a wet and shivering Seokjin appeared on his doorstep.

“Taehyung, please help me.” His hyung sobbed, “I don’t want to die.”

Chapter Text

Jimin was living a dream.

He had a comfortable job at a bakery, he had a cute little dog to cuddle when he came home, and even better, the man of his dreams to cuddle at night.

All because of a few letters that never reached the man.

It was a hassle at first, making sure Yoongi never got his letters, but with a few favors and bribes here and there anything was possible. And as he extended his lies and falsely put trust, he managed to get a certain Min Yoongi all to himself.

After his military service, he convinced the older man to live together. They started as friends, but all it took for him was to put a lot of effort into doing things and remembering dates important for the other man. Like for example, he knew that his grandmother’s death anniversary was on May 15th so he had to be specially sweet and supportive; he would also get pretty spacy every December the 4th, and with time Jimin learned to let him be, even if he was curious about it.

Finally one winter afternoon, as they were coming back to their apartment with grocery bags in their arms, Jimin finally met the end of his dream life.

Yoongi suddenly stopped, as if thunder had struck him. Jimin didn’t notice at first, but then a man froze in front of him. Cans and boxes fell to the ground and Jimin scowled at the man as he rubbed his chest, right over where a can had smashed onto him.

“Watch it!” he yelled as he kneeled to pick what he had dropped.

He was oblivious to the desperate look exchange between the two frozen men. He noticed with disdain that a box of cereal had been smashed in, and their bag of soap had burst open, spilling bluish powder all over the asphalt.

“Hyung, what are we gonna do? I need to wash our uniforms today and we don’t have any soap left at home. Shall we go back and buy another bag?” he babbled before he stared at Yoongi.

The older man was shocked, staring straight into the eyes of the man that had dropped their groceries. Jimin stared incuriously at Yoongi, who was too preocupied with staring at the other man to even give him a glance.

“Yoongi,” the man hovering over Jimin said after a while of opening and closing his mouth, like a fish out of water. “Hi.”

The lampposts started to light up as the sky turned darker.

When Jimin raised his head to stare at the other man, a chill ran down his spine.

It was the Seokjin. Yoongi’s dearest Jinnie. He vaguely recognized his face thanks to the polaroid shot Yoongi kept hidden in a shoebox inside their closet with their names underneath. The same shoebox that had all of the letters Jimin couldn’t take in time, a beaded bracelet and, funnily enough, a plastic baby doll with a pink onesie and beanie. The person hugging a younger and chubbier Yoongi in the shot could’ve been anyone else, but Jimin just knew. There were other pictures inside that box as well, of a cheeky Yoongi with another kid, but he daren’t believe it was the same person as in the polaroid.

Anxiety slowly started to take over, making his fingers twitch over the hold he had on the empty plastic bag.

“Seokjin…” his boyfriend said as in a spell.

Confirmation made his eyes drop to the floor. He pretended to be brushing powder soap with his palms to scoop back into the plastic bag, but he was listening at every word and movement between the frozen men.

“Is it truly you? I-I’ve… well,” the Seokjin swallowed when his voice started to crack. Jimin then noticed with a scowl that his boyfriend’s childhood friend was quite drunk, judging by the smell of the man’s breath when he talked. “I’ve waited for you. I’m so happy; you finally came.”

He stood up on firm legs as he saw the man walk towards Yoongi to wrap him in his arms. Jimin felt an ugly feeling bubble in his stomach when he noticed that Yoongi didn’t do a thing to push the other away. His boyfriend placed his hands on the other’s waist instead.

“Hyung,” Jimin said, the hint of a warning underneath his tone.

Jimin bit the inside of his mouth as Yoongi frowned lightly, before asking oh-so-softly, “Are you drunk? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, it’s okay.” Seokjin said, and although Jimin couldn’t see his face, he heard a smile in his voice. “Let’s go for a coffe, I’ll treat you this time, eh. How does that sound.” The tallest of them(Jimin jealously thought) released Yoongi from the hug, to pull on his arm. “I always go to a place a two blocks from here. It’s really nice, you’ll like the cof-”

“You do look pretty drunk and in desperate need of a coffee.” Jimin interrupted, bristling as he pushed Seokjin away from Yoongi, not caring if the other man lunged at him. “Yoongi hyung, who’s this?”

Instead of being violent towards Jimin, Seokjin looked mildly nervous and confused as he rubbed with a palm the shoulder where Jimin added pressure to separate him from Yoongi.

“Yoongi hyung…” Seokjin mumbled to himself and he stared at him for a long while, “Who are you? I don’t think I know you…”

He huffed at the man before staring at Yoongi, as if challenging him to say it.

I’m your boyfriend, go on. Tell him! He though to himself while frowning at his boyfriend.

Yoongi sighed, as if his head had cleared, “Jin, this is Park Jimin…”

Jimin frowned harder at his boyfriend when nothing else was said.

“I’m his boyfriend, of two years if you don’t mind me saying so.” He leered at his boyfriend.

“Oh,” Seokjin’s face suddenly went really pale and one of his hands gripped Yoongi’s right shoulder superficially, “This is your-your boyfriend, then?”

“Yeah…” he had never seen Yoongi so guilty and sad at the same time, “we have been dating for almost two years now. We live a few blocks from here.”

“Of course you have a boyfriend now,” the other man’s eyes suddenly spaced out. Both of his hands grabbed Yoongi’s shoulders, “I’m really happy for you… I guess I better get going.”

It was a strange scene, watching Min Yoongi crumble internally with just a few words.

Seokjin smiled so nostalgically then, that even Jimin could notice there was a lot more happening that what it seemed.

“Don’t get sick and…” Seokjin whispered to Yoongi so softly that even Jimin heard the sound of his heart breaking. Jimin felt oddly smug, until he saw his boyfriend’s stern face. “Let’s be happy.”

Seokjin gave his boyfriend a tender look before letting go of his shoulders and stumbling away.

“Seokjin, please wait.” Yoongi quickly grabbed the other’s wrist. “Let’s go for coffee another day.”

“I’m sorry.” Seokjin curled his spine as he pulled his wrist free. He never looked back as Yoongi called his name through the moving crowd of strangers walking around them. Jimin just stayed back with a somber look on his face and his red boots completely smeared with powder soap.

He had never felt so rejected in his life.

Chapter Text

He had a big fight with Yoongi when they reached their apartment. Reclamations and exclamations bouncing all over their walls as they both vented. One of their shopping bags was dripping, its contents melting inside it. But they were too immersed in their match that they forgot about everything but themselves.

In the end Yoongi went for a walk and Jimin tried to calm himself with a bath. A bath with three of Yoongi’s favorite bath bombs. The water was hot and the scent coming off it was so strong that he had to take a shower afterwards just to wash some of the smell off.

He ignored the groceries on their breakfast table as he went to their bedroom. He wrapped himself in cold sheets and cried.

OOO

Taehyung had been taking a coffee at his favorite café, making some colorful doodles on a sketchbook, when he noticed a familiar mop of black hair approaching his table.

“Taehyung?” the man asked him.

He squinted his eyes suspiciously until recognition sparked and a smile blossomed on his lips. It was the guy from his modeling company’s sales dept.!

 “Jimin-ssi, hello!” he greeted the other enthusiastically with a bow.

He offered a seat at his table after he noticed the guy shifting awkwardly. They chattered for a few minutes about work and the terrible fashion sense of the new intern at the sales department. His name was Jihoo, and his colors and cuts were always clashing in the most terrible ways, even if Taehyung thought it wasn’t that bad. But he was a fast learner and a proficient worker, and they both agreed on that.

Taehyung’s beat up phone on the table lit up with a vivant vibration as they discussed if wool coats could match a silk shirt.

Jimin was a curious person, so he took a quick glance at the caller, even though it could’ve been a complete stranger. To his surprise, the caller ID showed the name “Jin Hyung”, and the very familiar face of a known stranger.

Taehyung excused himself for a moment as Jimin’s blood boiled.

“Please, not him.” He shut his eyes and rubbed his hands on his face, “This can’t be a coincidence.”

There was a happy tune revolving around everyone in the café, a pop-y song of love and time, but Jimin wasn’t feeling as lovey-dovey as the couples sitting around him.

When label-partner came back, he managed to loose a smile on his face and tighten his forehead, so he wouldn’t look too off. Even when he felt like spitting his own blood. Taehyung was unfazed, happily munching on a donut covered in dark syrup. The other man placed a small box of treats on the table before sitting down.

“Sorry,” he said and gave a few taps on the Donut box’s clear top, “I just had to run an errand for my hyung.”

Jimin’s eyebrows went limp for a moment as he tried to recall his workmate doing mention of any family members, “Your brother?”  

“Not really,” the other man said while scratching his nose, “but we’ve grown to be like brothers these past few years. He helped me a lot when I came to the city, showed me the ways around here. He’s a really nice person to have as a brother.”

“That’s nice,” Jimin said, while vile thoughts kept popping in his head as the other spoke well about a man Jimin never wanted to be acquainted to, “You speak so well of him, makes a man wish for an older brother like him. Are you two…dating?”

“He’s a great hyung, but not in that way.” Taehyung laughed. “We’re just really good friends.”

“Are you an only child, Jimin-ssi?” Taehyung asked with round eyes.

“I have a younger brother.” He sighed as they went back to mindless themes. “Let’s drop the honorifics as well. Call me Jimin.”

Taehyung’s smile widened in a endearing way that could have made Jimin feel better, had he not been grandiosely scheming in his head a web of cold deceive.

“Really?” the other asked in a glee that seemed to go well with his overall personality.

“Yes, yes.” He smiled back, his lips as tight as before. “We are the same age, aren’t we?”

“Yes!” The other’s face slacked a little, as if in worry, “You do know that that would make us friends, right?”

“Of course I do, silly!” he methodically widened his smile, if he managed to do well, he wouldn’t have to worry about Yoongi abandoning him never again. He tried to remember the information exchanged between the cursed letters that never reached his partner. “Neh, Taehyung-ah,”

“Yes, my newly-made friend Jimin?”

“This friend of yours,” he curved his eyes in the way he knew made him look naïve, “Does he know any good restaurants around here?”

OOO

Kim Seokjin tried to be an optimist through and through most of the time.

There were ups and downs in life, some better and some worse, but that didn’t make him want to leave everything behind and never come back. Some times it rained and the place he shared with Taehyung would smell a bit moldy for days, but that made them go out more and spend time together. Some times he felt like a good bottle of vodka and a pair of questionably-acquired pills were the only thing keeping him sane after a bad night, but the aftermath would mix him like mush and ugly thoughts would turn around his head until he repeated his venomous cycle. Some times he needed to repress bizarre thoughts of abstract existentialism to keep his functionality at a working minimum. Some times, when he felt particularly bad, he wondered about the whereabouts of people that had left him and cursed his name for entire days, just to think about something other than himself. But he managed to smile after all.

Because he would always have Min Yoongi.

He had the memory of his cute nose wrinkled in joy by a blue house. He had their first kiss and first night together forever engraved in his dreams. He had Yoongi’s gorgeous eyes looking sternly at him when something bad happened to him. He always held a promise made by a full moon very, very close to his heart.

He knew Yoongi would never hate him, no matter how much he spiraled down and down and down…

Even if Yoongi had built a life with nice people who loved him. Even if Yoongi was better off without having to remember good ol’ masochistic Seokjin and his fucked up upbringing full of traumatic experiences for both parts. Even when he knew he could never live with his childhood friend in a pretty hanok and chew bubblegum by a lake for the rest of his life, have a safe menial job and mess with an old radio on their free days.    

He might have been delusional, but he liked to believe that if he always remembered his first love and never held hateful thoughts towards anyone, God might grant him a single wish and mercy him in the way of never forgetting good memories.

Because he was a realistic person some times too. He knew that a life beside him would never be fully enjoyable. He was still a prostitute, he was pretty bad economically-and probably would always be-, he kept too much to himself and got roped into a drug addiction that not even his best friend suspected of. He could never give Yoongi a family, or a happy healthy life.  He had nothing good to offer to the other than some fleeting small moments of happiness through the years.

Even if they ended up together forever, he didn’t want to taint Yoongi with rumors of his past-jobs, the agony of going through an imminent withdrawal, the heat of his frequent nightmares, the burden of having to help him get a basic education certificate to get a merely decent job and his infinite commitment issues.

So he decided that, as long as Yoongi had a nice, happy life, he was willing to never go back into his life and keep on reviving old scenes to better a nightmare.

Because Yoongi taught him that there were people willing to love as you are for the rest of your lives, no matter how much you could destroy them.

OOO

Yoongi felt stuffed.

Jimin had been on and on about going to a certain chicken joint around a specific part of town, and not wanting to go into another argument, he had agreed to accompany him. He was made to dress as if they were going to a club, which he found fishy, but Jimin liked to go out and dance. They hadn’t gone clubbing in quite a while, so he thought his boyfriend wanted to make some peace with him and get drunk together, so he complied pretty easily.  

The chicken wasn’t as incredible as his boyfriend had said it would, but the other ate it as if it was the most amazing thing to happen to him. He noticed his boyfriend being in an oddly joyous mode, a thing he hadn’t seen  since they fought a few weeks ago, so he let himself get dragged to a karaoke place afterwards.

The place looked like it was trying too much, even for a karaoke in a location as good as that one, but he didn’t mention it. He got suspicious when a few well-dressed fellas were loitering around watching them with assessing eyes. When Jimin asked if the guys they had went 2 cha at the front desk he clicked his tongue and stared hard at the joyful gelled head of his boyfriend. They were given a few amenities and a pair of condoms when Jimin asked for a room for two and the best guys they had. He stared at Jimin chirpily thanking the clerk, a silent brood overcoming him.

“Jimin-ah, I don’t know what you want me to do, but-“

“No, no. Hyung, it’s okay, we’re not actually doing anything.” The other giggled as they took a seat at one of the plastic-covered couches. Ugh, seedy. “A friend of mine once told me all men must come to a place like this at least once in their life. Besides, you don’t actually sing much, so I want a helping vocal to aid me in duets.”

“Then, what about the 2 cha and the condoms?” he scowled, “do you actually want us to bang someone here?”

Jimin’s face actually turned somber as he answered, “That’s what I wish the least in this life. But if I didn’t ask for it they wouldn’t show us their best guys, duh. If I’m paying for someone to sing and drink, I better get some celebrity-look-a-like.”

He huffed as hard as he could while Jimin shed his coat and fidgeted with a few options on the screen.  

He knew places like this existed everywhere you could think of, but he was averse to going to them and giving more fuel to the industry. He felt bad about it, because he knew how it could—

“Today’s selection, sirs.” A smiling man entered their room with the bottle of the nice whisky Jimin had ordered at the table and a line of better-looking men. The men, raging from quite mature to borderline underage, were dressed in a variety of styles but their main aesthetic screamed “looking for some sexy fun”. “You can choose whichever you want. We have a few more if you don’t like this ones.”

Jimin frowned as he passed his eyes on the faces of the men. He hummed and shook his head when none of them called his attention. “A friend of mine said you had the best around here, is this the best you have?”     

Yoongi actually saw one of the guys in line roll his eyes and tried not to smile. He too, felt somehow like that guy as another row was made to enter and his boyfriend wasn’t satisfied with any of the presented. He thought all were pretty decent, even more than some of the average idol on TV. Some obviously more plastic and baked in make-up than others, but still human enough to be considered handsome. But apparently not to Jimin.

He stopped paying attention when the third row began to enter, so he grabbed one of the glasses on the table and poured himself half a glass. He was in the middle of emptying his drink in one go as his blond companion gave an exclamation and called for “the third one from the left and the guy next to him”. He sighed in relief and served himself another drink, not paying mind to the guys in front of him.

 When he raised his head to take a look at the poor bastards that were chosen for Jimin’s little karaoke whim, his heart clenched. His face slacked in surprise as a frozen Seokjin stood right in front of the blaring screen displaying a list of songs. His childhood friend was wearing a low v-neck shirt with loose, long sleeves, black trousers hugging his thin legs and trim waist in a playful way that got Yoongi’s blood boiling with shame and regret.

“Come sit with us, third guy from the left!” Jimin smiled bloody wide and gestured for Seokjin to sit between him and Yoongi. He absentmindedly noted that the other guy was picking a song while already seated beside Jimin.

Seokjin turned very slowly to look at Jimin, in his eyes suspicion and incredulity. His childhood friend’s legs were trembling as he finally took his assigned seat between a happy Jimin and a shocked Yoongi.

He turned to look at his boyfriend’s ecstatic face looking straight into Seokjin’s hesitant eyes and everything clicked inside his head.

“Ah, I’m Leo and my friend is Cho, but you may call us as you wish.” The unknown man said as he eagerly served drinks.

“Pseudonyms, huh,” His boyfriend giggled. “Then I’m Milk and this is Sugar. Do you mind if I choose a song for you, Leo?”

“Go ahead, Milk-ssi.” A hesitant smile spread over the unknown youth’s face.

“Oh, please, we’re all friends here, right Cho?” Jimin gave an airy laugh as Leo filled the glasses that remained empty.

A song blared through the speakers and Jimin tossed the bejeweled microphone to the guy beside him with a sly smirk. The guy passed Seokjin and Jimin a glass of whisky and refilled Yoongi’s before standing up to dance along the song he was meant to sing.

Seokjin’s hand was shaking as he grabbed his glass and took a small sip.

“Come on,” Jimin said as his smirk tightened, “We’ll leave you good tips, so drink up!”

Seokjin’s face and neck flushed red as he stared at Jimin and emptied his drink in a single go. Jimin giggled and raised the bottle to drip more liquid into the other’s glass. They spent the rest of the song in a tense silence. The sound of Leo singing merging with the static growing behind Yoongi’s eyes, that still couldn’t believe the situation he was in.

“I-” Seokjin quietly said as Jimin brought a newly-refilled glass to his way.

“Come on, now you go sing something!” the blond passed a mic to Seokjin. A very thin frown between his eyebrows. “We’re paying you for it, aren’t we?”

Seokjin’s mouth moved, probably to refuse, but no sound came out of it. Leo’s face looked puzzled as he pushed Seokjin up and to the front. A somber look settled on his face as Jimin chose the song “Adult Ceremony”.

“I hope you know the choreography, Cho!” Jimin laughed, but his lips turned a little downwards as he turned and noticed Yoongi’s glare. “What’s wrong, Sugar?”

At some point that night, Min Yoongi had started to uncover Park Jimin’s hidden face. He was having a hard time assimilating that the sweet chubby face he first met was nothing like the one being slowly peeled off. For a second he daren’t believe it, but the blatant hatred hidden behind smirks and fake-airy laughs was obvious to someone that had spent years living and witnessing the real gentle side of the other.

“Jimin, why are you doing this?” he bluntly asked as Seokjin’s quivery voice tried to do its best at singing a song that he couldn’t bear.

“Why am I what, Sugar?” the other leaned closer to him as if to murmur a secret, but his loud voice next refuted the idea of doing it for privacy. “Making the Doumi sing? Isn’t he paid for it?” 

 “Eh-” Leo widened his eyes as he sensed the tension.

A tight wall of piercing needles settled around them, the unanswered question hanging around everyone’s heads. Seokjin had stopped singing and was only staring at the floor as the tension grew. The doumi sniffed once, but his eyes remained dry and emotionless. Leo glanced uncertainly at everyone in the room before taking a swing of his glass.

“How about I sing another song instead, Cho.” The young man with the garish neon jeans stood and quickly motioned for SeokJin to seat himself.

Yoongi thought his blood couldn’t turn even hotter as it was, but then Jimin opened his mouth once more, and Yoongi couldn’t believe the lengths his boyfriend’s jealousy could reach to aspire to something so vile.

“So, Cho-ssi.” Jimin gave a faux-smile to Yoongi’s childhood friend, well trimmed nails clacking against the glass in his hand. “I asked if you went 2cha and they assured me you do. I’m quite curious, you see, are you allowed to leave if I asked you to come with us to one of the hotels on this street?”

“Yes.” Jin’s lips imperceptibly curled, giving the phantom illusion of a smile. Yoongi’s eyebrows met as he noticed the way his childhood friend clasped his hands and rubbed his left palm with his right thumb in silent distress. Yoongi remembered eating ice cream with that man so long ago.

“What if I wanted to bend you over right here? Would I have to shoo your friend there away?” Jimin methodically grabbed the bottle on the table and filled Seokjin’s glass to the brim. “Or do you not mind a small public as long as we pay you well? They did give us some condoms.”

Yoongi used to play and swim with the man being subtly humiliated by his actual boyfriend.

“Neither Leo or I would mind, sir.” Seokjin answered politely, even when he knew Jimin was younger than him and wasn’t asking casually.

Yoongi used to love that man.

No, Yoongi decided as he saw Seokjin grab his glass in a tight grip, amber liquid spilling all over his scarred left hand, he still loved that man. He remembers being a child and praying to God by a lake, begging for someone to love him for life and promising to love them as long as he lived. He remembers meeting Seokjin mere minutes after his prayer.  

He would always love that man.

And now that man was looking even more handsome but still as strong as he remembered, taking everything bad thrown his way with a smile and an iron backbone. But he knew that wasn’t the Seokjin other people knew, instead of strength and resilience they would blind themselves and ignore the willpower it took for someone to take blows and not punch back, no matter how capable they were of it. Yoongi was tired of it.     

“Come on then,” He stood and grabbed Seokjin’s arm. “Let’s go, hyung.”

“What?” Jimin’s fake smile was shed to give way to a gloomy smile.

“We’re going to talk later, you and I, Park Jimin. Please, don’t make me get more angry at you.” He furiously glared at his boyfriend, waiting until the other’s shoulder’s slumped and sat back down.

“It’s fine, Leo.” He heard Seokjin try to mollify his coworker as the other glanced uncertainly at Yoongi and Jimin. “Milk-ssi’s bottle is getting empty, bring him another one and make sure to treat him well. I’ll be going first.”   

“If you say so, hyung.” The neon jeans said with a hesitant smile as they hastily left.

“Yoongi, wait here a moment. I need to get my coat.” Seokjin pulled away and walked away from his sight for a minute before coming back with a long black coat on.

Seokjin panted as they climbed down stairs and went through back exits, but he didn’t complain when Yoongi didn’t stop.

Yoongi’s vision tunneled as he dragged the other away from ostentatious lights and buildings blaring music. He only stopped at a park and saw Seokjin catching his breath while holding his waist. Yoongi supported his arms on his knees as he started sobbing.

“I’m so sorry.” He said breathlessly as he felt hot tears on his cheeks. “I truly didn’t know he would take us there and do this.”

Seokjin’s eyes still didn’t meet his as Yoongi took one of his hands in his.

“You know I love you more that anything, right? Even after all these years. I have never wanted for you to be hurt in any way.”

Seokjin nodded as a few tears ran down from his downcast eyes and fell on his coat. “Yes, Yoongi, I know.”

“I truly wish things have gone differently with us, you know,” Yoongi huffed as he dragged his old friend closer to him. He usually didn’t initiate body contact, not even with his boyfriend and past lovers, but he naturally rotated towards Seokjin, who always fell into him so pliantly. “I used to wait for a letter from you, even when I moved to my own place I still had the stupid hope you would find out where I lived and send a letter. I never knew why you stopped sending them, I’ve even looked at every Kim Seokjin on social media like a madman—"

Seokjin’s pretty chocolate eyes finally looked at him, but shock and confusion brimmed at their corners, “But Yoongi… You were the one that asked me to stop contacting you.”

OOO

Yoongi didn’t come back home that night, so Jimin cried himself to sleep and went to work the next day, in the idle hope that the day would go as usual if he willed it to do so.

Taehyung was as clingy as always and Jimin tried to amuse him, but he could barely muster a smile and simple answers. It slowly ate him on the inside, the small seed of doubt that he himself grew the night before. He walked slowly from the station and even decided to take the stairs, to give Yoongi more time in case he still wasn’t home. He pulled his hair back once before he opened the door.

And found their apartment upside down.

The contents of all of their drawers and storage closets were strewn all over the place. Shoe boxes and bags and their luggage carelessly open, their bellies gaping open. Why would Yoongi even—

His blood ran cold and he felt a thousand ants crawl on his skin as he entered their room and saw Yoongi sitting on the floor with at least a dozen letters and a few open envelopes surrounding him. His boyfriend looked up at him somberly once before turning back to the letter in his hand.

“I’m breaking up with you. I want you out of my apartment by the end of the week.” Yoongi said coldly. “I can’t be with someone willing to hide stuff from me and lie enough to hurt me. I’m not a saint Jimin, I’m sorry but I don’t think I can love you anymore.”

“Everything I’ve done… I done it for you. For us.” Jimin sobbed as he dropped to his knees, “You can’t end this relationship we’ve fought so hard for. I love you!”

“You don’t love me.” Yoongi calmly said, as if talking to him about the weather.

“Yes, I do!” Jimin tried to get closer to Yoongi, but the paler man just leveled him with a, ice cold stare that made him stop halfway. “I love you more than anything, you have to believe me!”

“You love owning me, but you don’t truly love me, Park Jimin.” Yoongi shook his head as he gently folded the letters and deposited them in an already packed duffel bag, “I’ll be staying somewhere else the rest of this week. If I find you’re still here, I’ll personally tell my father to find some way to arrest and sue you for trespassing and I’ll ask my brother to hire me a good lawyer to sue you.”

“Yoongi, please…”

“Thank you for all you’ve given me, Jimin. I hope you lead a long, healthy life somewhere else.”      

And then Min Yoongi, his dream come true, stepped out of Jimin’s life forever.