Chapter Text
It almost comes naturally now. Digging into carefully curated data to find the perfect script for the situation. Nodding, smiling, humming along. Asking the right kind of question, giving an interesting enough answer, nodding and smiling some more.
It almost comes naturally but it never really feels comfortable. Like spending the day in an itchy sweater and ending up forgetting about it — not because it stopped being so awfully itchy, but because stumbling upon something even more uncomfortable at one point or another is almost inevitable.
Still, there’s always this one red spot on Taehyung’s skin reminding him that although he forgot about the itch, his skin never really did.
The heavy bass barely hurts his ears anymore. When Taehyung walked into the apartment earlier, he had wanted to cover his ears and run. Now, the pain has subsided to something he can almost forget. He does, for a while, when he dances in the middle of the crowded room, in the middle of Seoul, in the middle of so many other things just as uncomfortable as an itchy sweater.
The drinks help, too — one and then two and three, just enough to feel the good kind of dizzy. It loosens his limbs and maybe his tongue, too, because people smile wider and laugh harder at the jokes he cracks. It makes him feel good— to make people laugh. To have people’s attention, to have smiles directed at him, blooming on stranger’s faces because of him, small light flickering in their eyes because he found a way to make them happy.
Feels almost as good as the drinks, sometimes even better.
It takes four drinks and a shot for Taehyung to realise that tonight, alcohol might not be enough. The bass doesn’t hurt, the conversations don’t feel like four walls closing in on him as he’s chained to the floor, yet — it’s just wrong. Tonight feels wrong and Taehyung doesn’t understand why.
He abandons his drink on a sticky coffee table before dancing his way out of the room with as much grace as he can muster. His words are slurred when he greets some people whose names he doesn’t even remember. Water might be a good idea at this point, but Taehyung bites his lips and closes the front door behind him.
The place belongs to a bunch of literature majors Taehyung doesn’t recall befriending, but they always invite him to their parties. He goes for the free food, for the free drinks but also for his favourite staircase in Seoul.
It’s raw concrete and always cold no matter the season, with lights bathing the area in the perfect shade of yellow. It takes nothing off the coldness of the place, because Taehyung learned the hard way that warm light has nothing against the lifeless feel at the heart of everything humans build.
Taehyung scoffs, patting himself on the back for still walking somewhat straight after having so many drinks. The staircase is silent, eerily so, but nothing echoes in this closed space — even if it did, no one ever takes the stairs anyway. Even less at almost three in the morning.
The line rings twice before Seokjin picks up. Taehyung smiles to himself, hugging his knees tighter against his chest. “Don’t you ever sleep?” Seokjin’s voice sounds tired, but Taehyung can picture the close-lipped smile on his face as if they were together.
“Never on Thursday nights.” Taehyung tries to ignore the sigh he hears on the other end of the line. “So. Tell me about your day?”
Most of their conversations start like this — they don’t even bother with hellos anymore. They just dive into whatever story they want to share, eyes closed, both trying hard hard hard to imagine the other’s face as he talks. Sometimes Taehyung even strains his ears to pick up the background sounds, trying to guess what Seokjin is doing or even where he is, where he is heading to, what kind of colours are reflected in the clouds that watch over him.
“Remember my colleague Minyoung?”
But nothing matters as much as Seokjin’s voice, in the end. Taehyung likes listening to it the most. There’s something about it, something he has never been able to put into words. It’s something about the way Seokjin sounds when he talks, the way his voice rings just the right way in Taehyung’s ears, the way Seokjin breathes so much more meaning into every single sentence he lets out than anyone Taehyung knows.
“Her wife’s brother might be able to get me that stupid expensive graphics card.” Seokjin continues. His excitement makes Taehyung’s skin buzz with happiness, too. “‘S gonna be either from Japan or from the USA, but anyway — might get it by the end of next month!”
Seokjin’s exclamations, too. The sounds he makes, the ones that are so inherently his punctuating his stories and the way Taehyung so easily lets Seokjin’s voice envelop him in familiarity.
“Your turn?”
Taehyung breathes in, as deep as he can, eyes closed and lips pinched in a straight line. He tries to go over his day, its colours almost fading already, and he looks for anything worth telling. “Someone snored so loud at the library that it covered the sound of the A/C,” is what he goes for.
Seokjin snorts. “They were supposed to replace it ages ago. Glad to see some things never change.”
“You’re talking as if you graduated last decade,” Taehyung deadpans, “it’s been, what? Seven months? Eight?”
“Almost a year, sunshine.”
Ah, there it is. Taehyung’s hold on his phone grows tight tight tight, almost as tight as his chest — preparing for the blow.
“Speaking of which!” Seokjin chirps, and Taehyung can make out the sound of cupboards banging close, breaking the silence in Seokjin’s apartment. “I managed to get Wednesday off next week…”
The question hangs in the air and Taehyung knows knows knows.
“That’s nice, Jinnie.”
“Do you want to come over?” Taehyung hates the way Seokjin’s voice breaks in the middle of the sentence. A clean cut, but God— does it hurt.
“I’ll see if I can manage, yeah?”
His voice sounds too eager, he knows. Too fake.
He knows he knows he knows.
And Seokjin does, too.
They both know Taehyung won’t go, that the refusal will come with weak excuses, that Seokjin will take it with grace— that he will try again.
Taehyung has already come up with an excuse by the time he reaches the bottom of the stairs. His knees hurt from their earlier position, joints so tight Taehyung wouldn’t be surprised if they snapped. The hope in Seokjin’s voice by the time they hung up still hurts in the very centre of Taehyung’s being, an ugly wound tucked somewhere between his lungs and his ribs.
He smiles, still. At half past four in the morning, he grins when some party goers hold the door for him on their way out. He smiles when the bus driver pulls over his stop, he smiles when he sees the sun coming up just in time to catch a last glimpse of the moon, painting the sky a lighter shade of indigo.
And Taehyung— he smiles big, big, so much bigger when he finally gets to campus around five. The gymnasium lights are on already, doors half open, eager shouts interrupted by the sound of a ball bouncing on old floorboards. He makes out only two voices, both familiar but out of reach, and Taehyung imagines them behind the washed out green concrete walls of the building.
The setter's piercing eyes set on his teammates moves, observing and calculating and drinking everything in. The spiker's knowing smile, the confident way he carries himself on the field and the silent words he speaks.
(The invisible thread tying them together and stretching beyond training sessions, beyond secret attacks and distant memories of past championships.)
The sounds die down as Taehyung walks away from the building, the dorms coming into view only a few minutes later. He has sobered up, he thinks, his steps only half as clumsy as they were earlier. His thoughts run at a peculiar pace and he gets to grasp a few of them—
Like the longing for some more company, the echo of Seokjin's voice too faded already—
The buzzing coming from under his skin at the thought of the aces of the volleyball team training so early—
The faces of people he barely knows blending together, almost shapeless, barely visible under the neon lights—
Bodies all around him, dancing the night away with Taehyung right in the middle, losing himself to the music, drowning his senses until it hurts so much that he doesn't feel it anymore—
A mask he has spent so long shaping and colouring and glueing to his face that peeling it off might hurt more than Taehyung is willing to accept.
When he pushes the door to his dorm room open, the mask melts on Taehyung's skin like candle wax and even though he's used to it, it burns burns burns, still.
The familiar scent of home hits him and releases the last of the knots weighing his limbs down. He’s wide awake now, arms reaching up as he stirs, facing the window, facing the sun and all its colours bleeding over the clouds.
It’s almost six in the morning and he thinks about the day ahead, Taehyung. About the classes and the papers due and the responsibilities looming in the horizon, careless in the way they collide with him like angry winds on a freezing winter night. It all splashes the orange and pink morning skies with nasty shades of red, but Taehyung still looks out the only window in his dorm room with a tenderness only the earliest hours of the day can elicit from him.
He sighs, still, peeling his eyes off the early morning canvas before him, reaching for fresh clothes and his towel, ignoring the headphones discarded on his comforter until—
Until it clicks and he gasps, and it feels like turning the lights back on when it’s too hard for the eyes to get used to the dark. “Friday,” he lets out in a giggle, throwing himself on the small loveseat in the corner of the room.
A popular girl group song is playing when Taehyung opens the app on his phone, and he plays with the volume until he’s happy with it. By the time the radio host takes over, Taehyung’s worries for the day are tucked under the pile of clothes he threw over his desk chair, out of sight and out of mind.
“Good morning to the ones who just arrived,” the host chirps, “and thank you for joining us today.” It’s a familiar voice, one Taehyung has been religiously listening to on a weekly basis ever since his first year on campus. “Make sure to stick around for a very special interview coming up in a couple of minutes. But before that let’s go over the SNU’s— the news from our beloved campus.”
Taehyung loves the way the host speaks— the way his tone always lives with the stories he tells, the way he chooses his words with the utmost care, the complex yet effortless way he builds sentences. And his thoughts, too. Unfiltered words built up from experience, from carefully crafted opinions, nuances brought up with just the right amount of emotions.
It’s inspiring, he thinks, getting to listen to someone as good as Kim Namjoon doing something he genuinely likes. Taehyung often wonders what it feels like— finding something he likes so much that it sticks with him through the seasons, through his seasons. Through the ups and downs of a life he often struggles to navigate without a few bumps, a few falls, a lot of shortcomings.
Taehyung closes his eyes and leans his head against his seat the moment the news segment is over. Kim Namjoon briefly introduces his guest, volleyball team coach Choi Hajun, before he lets her take over the microphone.
“Thank you for having me,” she starts, her voice as strong and confident as Taehyung remembers. “I regret not coming here sooner, but better late than never!”
“Right, I did extend the invitation a few times before you accepted.” Namjoon jokes. “The last few months have been busy for the team, though. How was it?”
Coach Choi hums. “Our boys were amazing in the last championship, weren’t they? Losing at the semi finals was a hard blow but trust me, they’ve been training harder than ever.”
Taehyung smiles, the fresh images of earlier popping at the back of his eyes, at the front of his mind. The encouraging shouts, the ball bouncing hard hard hard against the floor, the gymnasium lights shining so much brighter than usual, clashing with the early morning dark skies.
“I think your reaction as the coach was really inspiring.” Namjoon pauses, as if he were looking for the right words, or perhaps as a way to let coach Choi know she can step up and keep going from here.
Namjoon’s silences are even more meaningful than his words, sometimes. They’re layered with so much more than the lack of things to say that Taehyung often wonders what it would feel like, having a conversation with him.
“It was genuine,” coach Choi replies, her voice half here, half hidden behind a veil of memories. “Getting the team to where it is now has been hard… To me, it was not a game lost. It was a clear picture of where the team is now compared to where it was when I took over as the coach.”
“No wonder the team trains so hard then— your positive insight on things is what always stood out from you. Even as a professional player.”
Coach Choi gasps, chuckles flowing out easily. “So you did your research!” She’s the one taking a pause then, and even though it’s a radio show, Namjoon never tries to force words out of his guests. “Positivity is in my nature, it’s true. But one of the team members made it even easier for me this year. He’s not even the team captain, but he’s an anchor for all of the players.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s a brilliant player— and he’s as good with words. Brings out the best out of everyone…”
The voices fade out then, and Taehyung’s mind takes over. He knows who they’re talking about even before they speak his name or describe his spot on the team. Taehyung pictures him as clear as ever, too, memories of his voice standing out in a room full of others even though he never screams. Team players orbiting around him during games, during training, his presence bigger than most.
Taehyung has always been fascinated with the setter’s job in a volleyball team— no matter what kind of game he attends, no matter which team is on the field, his eyes always follow the setter.
It’s even harder to take his eyes off this one, Taehyung comes to realise every single time he sees him play—
Like today, watching from the double doors of the gymnasium as he silently but oh so carefully makes sure that everyone in the team is doing okay.
Coach Choi's words echo at the back of Taehyung's mind. Weeks have passed, yet nothing she said that day faded with time. The whole team works harder than ever, like clockwork, enveloped in a togetherness that Taehyung has only ever been able to imagine. And the setter—
It always feels like he knows more about each team member than what is useful for the game.
Taehyung steps further into the gymnasium when he realises he won't be able to peel his eyes off the court. Exhaustion weighs his limbs down but he blinks, hard, willing that last of his strength to let him have a look at one of the things he loves most.
There are so many things that he loves, Taehyung thinks as he walks closer to the bleachers, but nothing compares to the joy volleyball releases in the deepest parts of his heart.
Training sessions are his favourites. The volleyball team's training schedule is one of the first things he looked for, back when he started university here. He had it all figured out even before knowing how to get to the main library on his own. Now, he tries his hardest to attend at least one training session per week.
He always climbs to the highest seats when everyone else tries to be as close to the court as possible, cheering for their friends as they train hard hard hard. But Taehyung, he loves seeing things from high up. He loves roofs, loves the back of the amphitheatre, loves hills and mountains and the views that come with them.
The big picture, the world from somewhere out of the frame, from above, from the one place Taehyung loves the most—
That in-between state of being in the world yet watching it from afar, one foot in and one foot out.
And when it comes to volleyball, Taehyung loves climbing up up up and sitting on the bleachers, waiting for the team to warm up and start playing. He loves analysing games, loves to see how balanced their offence and their defence seem to be, how the setter and the wing spikers don’t seem to need words to move like one, to move like their bodies are all tied around the same thread, making it so pleasant and exciting to watch during a game.
The neon lights are especially uncomfortable to Taehyung today, fatigue building up tension under his eyelids, yet he tries his hardest to stay awake.
He leans against the wall behind him, folding himself as small as he can, the hood of his jacket almost comfortable enough to cushion his heavy, heavy skull.
The familiar sounds of running, shouting, of the ball bouncing and colliding with the players' hands end up lulling Taehyung in a peaceful slumber.
He drifts in and out of consciousness, his brain alert enough to navigate thoughts that he grasps with weak fingers. He thinks about the last time he visited Seokjin, about the food they prepared together and the feelings of safety and unconditional love imbued in the four walls of the apartment.
Taehyung thinks about the pretty crinkles by Seokjin's eyes when he smiles and the worried crease between his brows that never seems to go away.
He knows it's his fault, Taehyung. He knows it's him Seokjin is worried about, he knows his decisions carved those worried marks on his friend's face, but he has to—
To prove that he can push through without breaking—
To prove that he can stand on his own—
To prove himself.
When Taehyung opens his eyes again, it’s long past nightfall. The neon lights are harsher now that the late spring sky let the moon take over. When he looks around, the place feels even emptier than usual. Too big for one, two, three people, he realises.
“We should try a little higher,” the ace of the team shouts from the back of the court. “I’m sure I can jump higher.”
The ball bounces on the floor twice before the setter shrugs, passing it over to his teammate. “Being able to jump higher and being able to attack higher are two very different things, Koo.”
“Just— let me try,” he whines, throwing the ball and running towards the net, each step almost too powerful and calculated even after so long spent training.
Taehyung loves watching these two the most. The setter gets along with everyone, but there’s something more about him and that spiker, something only friendship can bring to a game. If the team as a whole doesn’t need words to communicate, these two are on a whole other level— they bring out the best out of each other, knowing when to push or when to lend a shoulder to lean on, knowing exactly what to say or when to swallow back the words and sit in silence.
It must feel good, Taehyung thinks. To have this kind of bond with someone else, with a teammate, something so precious that it goes beyond the four walls of the gymnasium, that it doesn’t stop as soon as they take off their team jersey.
They play some more and Taehyung stirs, looks at his watch and knows that he’ll have to head back soon. The spiker glances his way sometimes, shy smile on his face and big big eyes full of wonder.
Taehyung smiles back with that one smile he gives everyone. The one that keeps people at arm’s length, the safe one, the one that is slowly melting on his face instead of remaining as what it was always supposed to be—
A mask.
The spiker keeps asking for one more toss, and then one more, and “a last one, for real, promise!”
He heads to the exit at last when the clock dangerously nears eight in the evening, playfully bumping his shoulder with the setter’s on his way out.
Taehyung gathers his things and carefully climbs down the bleachers, trying to make as little noise as possible, looking around and finding the best way to get to the main door while walking as far away from the setter as possible and—
“Hey,” the setter says as he jogs towards Taehyung, “Jungkook locked that door on his way out… We’re gonna have to use the back door.”
Taehyung freezes. “I don’t —”
“I’ll show you the way?” Taehyung nods. “I think we’re headed in the same direction anyway so…”
“Huh? How would you know?”
The setter throws his bag over his shoulder with one hand while he fishes out his key from the pocket of his shorts with the other, gesturing at Taehyung to head out first. “Saw you around my dorm building,” he says, low, “you’re kinda hard to miss. With your blue hair… And stuff.”
“Oh,” Taehyung says in an exhale as he buries his hands in the pockets of his jeans. His shoulders are hunched, fatigue clinging to his limbs. “Never saw you at the dorms… Sorry.”
The setter chuckles, shaking his head. “Why d’you apologise?” a pause, then, “I’ve always wanted to ask… Did you play? In high school?”
“Volleyball? No,” Taehyung answers easily. After all, everyone always asks the same question and maybe, just maybe, Taehyung’s words come out less clumsy when he talks about the thing he loves the most. “I just enjoy the game. Watching and getting to know how each team’s strategy plays out… I like it a lot.”
Their dorm building comes into sight, at last.
“I could never,” the setter says, his voice filled with something Taehyung can’t quite name. “Watching would never be enough for me... Have you ever tried?”
Taehyung shakes his head. “Don’t want to. What if I grow to hate it?”
They climb the stairs, get to the front door and wait for the elevator together.
“But what if you love it even more?”
Taehyung remains silent in the elevator and steps out the second it gets to his floor. “Thank you for walking back with me,” he whispers, bowing his head slightly, “have a good night.”
“Wait!” the setter lets out, louder than Taehyung has ever heard him talk. He blocks the elevator doors with his foot, scratching the nape of his neck as he lets out a sigh. “What’s your name?”
“Ah. I’m Taehyung…”
“Yoongi.”
Taehyung smiles but this time, it isn’t meant to keep people at arm’s length. Not this one. This smile is meant to keep them even farther, somewhere that Taehyung will never, ever get to reach.
“I know.”