Chapter Text
Monster won the last one, and honestly, Yoongi is disappointed when he wins this battle as well. Not like it's his fault. Rent is due and he's working like a dog to get enough money from the shitty little coffee place he works at. It gives him less time to be Gloss, to work on his lyrics, his flow.
Monster, though, he's probably got all the time in the world. He has that air, like everything is trivial. It makes Yoongi want to punch the goddamn sunglasses off Monster's face. "Get a life in the real world," he wants to shout. "You can't live underground, idiot!" The stupid rich boy is just trying to look cool, has probably never had to work so hard for anything. Even his rap is screwed up, completely controversial. English is mixed in with the Korean, and Yoongi swears it's to mock him but what lyrics he understands seem to be half dissing Monster himself. Yoongi as Yoongi would go tell Monster to go fuck himself, his rap is stupid.
The battle is over though, so Yoongi slips back into his Gloss attitude. Gives Monster a nod and a glare, then slips offstage. The bright stage lighting is a bitch, making his head pound. Are these people fucking blind to need those?
Gloss's two stagehands are waiting for him. In reality, they're Yoongi's dancer best friends. Hoseok is a year younger than Yoongi, and he owns a dance studio. Jimin, a student, just happens to go to that studio. They're grinning, giddy with both the pure adrenaline that came from the so called "Rap War" between Gloss and Monster, and also the alcohol that is currently being downed by Jimin. Hoseok, despite his ever sunny nature, tries to look a little sad. "That sucks, hyung. You'll win next time, though!" He darts a hand out and takes the bottle of soju from Jimin. "You want some?"
"I don't drink." And Yoongi doesn't. He used to drink coffee, but serving it every day for half a year has made him give up on any drink but water.
"I feel bad for you," Jimin pipes up. Yoongi levels a stare at him, raising a water bottle to his lips. Pausing. Throwing the contents of the bottle onto Hoseok and Jimin instead.
"Don't get drunk on the job. I'm expecting you to help me just beat Monster and win this shitshow, then you two can give yourselves as many hangovers as you want." The smile on his face marked it as a joke.
"Hyung," Jimin said with a straight face, water dripping down his hair, "I will smash the soju bottle over your head if you ever do that again. And you have to pay the rent. Which means you have to work. You cannot work if I smash your head with this. So. It is most definitely in your best interests to not do that."
Yoongi shakes his head, laughing a little. There is no one else back here to see him joking with his two ‘assistants’. He can afford to be just Yoongi -their friend- instead of Gloss -their employer- for a little while back here. “Yah, Hoseok, tell Jimin-ah to respect his hyung!”
“Jimin, listen to Yoongi-hyung. For now, he’s our employer.” Hoseok keeps a perfect poker face.
“Are you serious? ‘For now’?” Yoongi shakes his head, smiling. “As your employer, I say pack up and let’s go. I’ll be on stage glaring at all the sucky cameras till they fix the lighting.” He stands up, flicks water onto Hoseok’s head, and climbs back onto the stage. Figures no one was there for his conversation with Jimin and Hoseok. He’s wrong, he realizes when a hand grabs the collar of his dark jacket. Yoongi makes sure the hood still covers his face, then turns. It’s Monster, his expression blank, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. That bastard. Of course he’s going to brag about his win. It’s what enemies do.
“What the hell do you want?” Yoongi drawls, thickening his Daegu accent to hide his voice. Not that he’s unrecognizable, he drops the accent when he raps, but better safe than sorry.
“Do better next time,” Monster says, his fingers still gripping Yoongi’s collar loosely. “You fucking sucked, Gloss. Do better. I fight you for a challenge. Give one to me.”
“Let go of me, you son of a bitch.” Yoongi shrugs Monster’s hand off. “You want a challenge? I’ll give you a goddamn challenge. I challenge you to go and kill yourself.”
To his surprise, Monster actually laughs. Or maybe it’s not a surprise. What a jerk. “I’ll do that, Gloss. I’ll do that. And you can set fire to your house… Or do you not have one?”
“It’s bigger than yours,” Yoongi fires back. “What’s your place, a shack?” It’s probably not, damn that Monster, he acts like a rich kid.
“Save that for the diss track,” Monster smirks, turning to leave. “My challenge still stands. Set fire to your shitty house, and the we’ll see how big it is when it’s just a pile of firewood.”
“I’ll do that, Monster. I’ll do that.” Yoongi mimics him. “And you go commit suicide somewhere so that don’t even notice you’re gone, because no one in the world gives a damn whether you’re alive or not. Stop deluding yourself.”
A laugh comes from near them, and there’s a cameraman turning the recording off. It’ll be all over the net soon, another offstage skirmish, another part of the war. Yoongi glares. Monster flips the camera off, and Yoongi only wishes the recording was still going.
Hoseok and Jimin come up with their stuff packed, soju bottle in hand. “Hyung!” Jimin calls, his face lighting up.
Monster grimaces when they come up. “Fag,” he mouths at Yoongi, his face unreadable.
“Takes one to know one,” Yoongi hisses back at him, turning away before he gets a reaction, because yes it’s childish, but he doesn’t have time for another round of pissing Monster off. Hoseok and Jimin follow him. None of them see Monster flinch.
Yoongi sighs, leans against the counter. No one will come in at this time, not to a crappy cafe like this one. Except maybe the one guy who always arrives at the most idiotic moment possible and orders a cinnamon latte, then sits on his computer doing whatever the hell he does and leaving the coffee for the trash can.
Then again, that’s Yoongi’s fault for suggesting the drink to him, and now he’s stuck playing janitor. That’s not a problem though. He gets extra for working overtime, he needs extra, and the kid is quite honestly kinda cute.
It’s been a week since the last battle versus Monster, Yoongi’s managed to get his rent paid off with help from Hoseok, and now the rich guy is gonna pay hell. They’re going to the same place as last time, and Yoongi knows the stage, knows where to avoid because of the lights, he’s gonna burn Monster to the ground.
His head has other plans for him though. It’s apparently trying to fucking kill him from the inside, because his headache is going to split his skull open right now. Looking at the lights makes it worse, so he turns them off, looking away from the blinking green light of the ancient coffee maker and the open sign which he wants to turn off but isn’t legally allowed to.
It’s sort of a dizzy feeling when Yoongi hears the door open, and he looks up at the person who just walked in. It’s Cinnamon Kid with his computer again. “Ah! It’s still open. Ahh… Can I have a cinnamon latte?”
“You realize you can just say ‘the usual’, right?” Yoongi bites out, ignoring his headache as he turns the coffeemaker on.
“The usual?” Cinnamon Kid frowns. “But I come here at, like, such varying and awful times. So, the same person isn’t always there.”
“You do come at every unholy hour, but I’m here a lot, kid,” Yoongi says, “so just say you want the usual, okay?”
“Umm, sure. But I’m not a kid!” Cinnamon argues. “I’m nineteen.”
“Are you still in school?” Yoongi asks. Cinnamon nods. “You’re a kid.”
“Fine,” Cinnamon says. Yoongi gets the milk out. Technically what he’s making isn’t really a latte, but the store is crap anyway so it doesn’t matter. His hands are shaking for no reason, and he spills the milk, but most of it ends up in the cup and that’s good.
“I’ll add the actual cinnamon after I clean this,” he tells Cinnamon. The guy nods.
“I’d help, but I destroy everything I touch,” he apologizes. He’s got a low voice for a nineteen year old, but Yoongi’s tone is too raspy for a twenty year old who’s never smoked despite his underground shit, so he can’t exactly judge.
“What’s your name?” Yoongi asks, cleaning the counter with slow, lazy, circular strokes. The motion makes him a little dizzy.
Cinnamon tilts his head. “It’s Namjoon, why?”
“Because I can’t exactly keep calling you Cinnamon Kid,” Yoongi laughs. Namjoon gives him a wide-eyed stare, then starts laughing too.
“Hey, you’re the one who suggested that thing,” Namjoon defends.
“Yah, whatever,” Yoongi mutters, throwing the paper towel into the trash can. He winces as it slams shut. Namjoon looks at him, seems sort of concerned.
“Hey, you okay, hyung?”
Yoongi raises an eyebrow, ignoring the protest from his skull. “‘Hyung’? Really?”
“You call me kid,” Namjoon points out, “but seriously, are you okay?”
“Fine, kid.”
“You don’t look fine, hyung.” Namjoon frowns. “Ah, thank you!” He accepts the cinnamon latte, but makes no move to occupy his usual table, instead putting the computer down and returning to the counter. “Whoah, this is good!”
“And you’ve never realized that before?” Yoongi drawls. Well, damn, he really sounds like he has asthma or something now, but it’s never been a problem when he raps.
“Riiiight.” Namjoon rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, and goddamnit he’s adorable right now. “I guess I never really actually drank it before.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Yoongi tells him, leaning on the counter again. “Oh, damn, I just cussed in front of a kid.”
“Twice,” Namjoon points out, “but I’m nineteen and I know more cuss words than you, hyung. Even some stuff in English”
“Yah, brat, don’t get cocky,” Yoongi grumbles. He gets up to turn the sign light off because finally this damn shop is closing. “Hey, you wanna go now? I have to leave.”
“Of course, hyung. Sorry,” Namjoon adds, getting up. Yoongi switches off the sign light, and he doesn’t expect the shop to be so fucking dark, and he trips over thin air.
Namjoon manages to stop him from falling, pulling him upright. “Hyung, do you have to go wherever?”
Yes, and I don’t give a shit what you’re going to say, Gloss would have replied. But Yoongi is tired, no, fucking exhausted, and that damn idiot Monster can wait tonight. “No, it’s sort of a show up if you want to thing,” he says, and his words are a little slurred, and great, now Namjoon looks even more worried.
“Can you get home?”
“Sure, if I can drive,” Yoongi replies. “Wait, no forget it, I don’t want a ticket.”
Namjoon smiles. “I’d take you, but I can’t drive.” He scowls. “Oh, shit, I hate asking this… Should I take you to my place? It’s walking distance, that’s all!”
Namjoon’s house is, in Yoongi’s eyes, the size of Mount Olympus. There’s a gate with a code out front, but Namjoon just takes him through the back door. He looks nervous, checking for other people -probably his parents- every so often. Yoongi figures he shouldn’t exactly be with Namjoon right now, but he’s too tired to talk.
Namjoon takes him to the second floor, showing him the location of the bathroom and guest bedroom. Asks Yoongi if he wants water, and Yoongi just nods.
It’s not that late, and Yoongi would love to sleep but his head isn’t letting him, despite the aspirin he took just now. Namjoon says he should just go to sleep because it’s sort of plainly obvious at this point that he’s sick, and he has a fever. Yoongi can’t though, so he finds himself walking over to Namjoon’s room at eight pm, which by all standard’s really isn’t late, but in the current situation is probably ridiculous.
Namjoon is hunched over his computer, perched on the edge of his bed, and he looks up, startled, when Yoongi comes in, quickly shutting the screen. “Hyung! Do you need anything?”
“Nah, I just can’t sleep.” Yoongi sits down next to him. “What’s that?”
“Oh, ummm… You know the Gloss vs. Monster rap war?” Namjoon asks hesitantly. Yoongi nods. “I follow the results, and there’s another battle scheduled for tonight.”
Oh,shit, Yoongi thinks, that bastard Monster is going to win again, I technically forfeit this one, damnit.
Namjoon opens the computer again. “Do you follow the war as well, hyung?” Yoongi nods again. “Are you on either side?”
“No, I just want to hear the rapping,” Yoongi says. Probably best to keep the fact that he’s Gloss to himself.
Namjoon’s eyes light up. “Finally! Someone who isn’t biased! I listen for the rapping as well.”
Yoongi points to the screen. “It’s the Gloss vs. Monster designated announcer. I seriously can’t believe they have one of those, but it makes it pretty easy to tell when those two are gonna battle.”
“Yeah,” Namjoon laughs. “Wait… hyung, look! The announcer… He’s saying it’s tie.”
Yoongi looks at the screen, frowning. “Wait, how is it a tie? They haven’t even…?”
“It’s a tie by forfeit.” Namjoon looks shocked. “What? Both of them forfeit? Seriously, is this announcer dude joking or something?”
“Ugh, now they’re just playing clips of old battles and arguments.” Yoongi manages to act annoyed. Yes! That son of a bitch didn’t win this one!
“Hey, hyung, I was there when that happened.” Namjoon points to the screen. It’s the spitfire exchange Yoongi had with Monster the previous week, the video uploaded by some cameraman calling himself “V”. Yoongi is going to guess he’s the guy Monster flipped off. “They missed out on the best footage,” Namjoon scowls. “Gloss was like, shooting daggers at the camera with his eyes, and then Monster flipped off the camera.”
Yoongi whistles, then winces as his head protests. “Hey, Namjoon-ah, you got anywhere other than that guest room?”
“The only other place is my closet, sorry.” Namjoon fiddles with his hair. “And I sincerely doubt you wanna- oh, shit!”
“What?” Yoongi is already up when Namjoon leads him to the closet, leaving the computer with him, and turns off the lights.
“I’m sorry, hyung, but it’s my parents. I’m really sorry!”
Yoongi curls into himself, shutting out the noises of the gate opening below. He’s out like the closet light five minutes later, exhaustion taking over.