Chapter Text
I pretend I’m good at distance,
but I’m the worst at stayin’ away.
I act cold,
but you warm me in ways
I ain’t got language for.
chapter three: stay until the dawn
The metronome clicked like a stubborn heartbeat.
Yoongi sat behind the console, hands steady, everything else not. The rookies filled the booth with restless energy—snacks crinkling, sneakers dragging, a half-argued hook looping too many times from a phone speaker. He should have told them to settle, to focus, to treat the room like it deserved. Instead he stared at his own wrist, still half-expecting the warmth of a hand that wasn’t there.
“PD-nim?” Minjae’s voice carried careful through the mic, cautious where his peers were not. “You okay to roll?”
Yoongi toggled the talkback. “Again from the pre.” His voice was flat, controlled. No waver. Wavering felt like treason.
The beat restarted, clean and mechanical, filling the glassed-in space with sound. Yoongi’s fingers tapped the fader once, twice, keeping count, but his other hand betrayed him—hovering near the pen at his elbow, twitching with the itch to move. To write. To catch the melody already curling, unwanted, through the synth line: soft, secret, the shape of a hum against a temple.
He clenched his fist against his thigh, knuckles sharp white. Not now. Not here.
The pen stayed where it was.
His phone buzzed facedown on the desk.
One line lit the screen when he flipped it:
Jin
He woke. Ate a little. Sleeping again. We’ve got him.
Yoongi dragged in a breath through his teeth, heavy, the sound almost lost under the metronome’s tick. His thumb hovered over the screen, caught between answering and smashing it black again. Through the glass, the boys were already watching him, waiting for his signal.
He pushed the phone aside.
“Again,” he said, low, each syllable flat as iron.
The track rolled on, merciless, while his pulse lagged somewhere else entirely—half a city away, anchored to a boy asleep on a couch.
The session should have sounded alive. Instead, every note felt forced.
Yoongi leaned back in his chair, eyes on the console, the rookies’ voices filtering through the glass. They were trying—he couldn’t fault them for that. Minjae hit the harmonies dead on, Hyunwoo spat his verse with a little too much fire. But the spark wasn’t there. It was in the way they shifted their weight between takes, in the stolen glances toward the booth as if waiting for his nod.
He gave them nothing. Only clipped instructions, each one shorter than the last.
“Again, tighter.”
“Don’t over-push the vowel.”
“Keep the consonants clean.”
At first, their laughter filled the breaks—snacks traded, jokes tossed between them. It was the kind of noise Yoongi usually liked, proof that the room was warm enough to work in. But today, it scraped. His patience thinned, and the kids felt it. The chatter dulled, their voices dropped, until even the crinkle of candy wrappers sounded hesitant.
By the last take, the silence in the room pressed thicker than the bass line.
“Good enough,” Yoongi said, toggling the talkback off before he could hear their relief. He stacked the papers on his desk into neat, meaningless piles, waiting for the sound of sneakers scuffing the hallway tile.
One set didn’t go.
When he finally looked up, Jeahyun stood frozen by the door, one hand gripping the strap of his backpack. His eyes were too wide, his voice small enough that Yoongi almost missed it.
“We’re sorry if we gave you a hard time, PD-nim.”
The words landed like a stone in Yoongi’s gut. Jeahyun looked like a kicked puppy, shoulders rounded in on himself, his bravado stripped down to nothing.
Yoongi stared at him a beat too long. Then the breath left him, sharp through his teeth, like he was puncturing something he hadn’t meant to.
“It’s on me,” he said at last, his tone softer than he intended. He pushed a hand through his hair, let it fall. “I did take it out on you, right?” A pause. His mouth twisted once before he forced the rest out.
“I’m sorry, kid.”
Jeahyun blinked, startled, as if apologies didn’t belong in this room. Then his shoulders loosened a fraction. He nodded, quick, clutching his strap tighter.
Yoongi turned back to the console before he could see more. The kid didn’t need to carry his ghosts too.
The shuffle of sneakers had all but faded down the hall when Yoongi realized one pair hadn’t moved.
He turned.
Jaehyun still stood by the door, backpack strap pulled tight against his chest, eyes darting between the floor and the console. His lips parted, closed again. He looked every bit the kid he still was, uncertain, chewing on words that didn’t want to come out.
“PD-nim,” he said at last, soft, like he was testing whether the title still held weight after Yoongi’s clipped tone all evening.
Yoongi lifted a brow. “What is it?”
Jaehyun hesitated, shoes squeaking faintly against the polished floor as he shuffled a step forward. Then another. His arms twitched at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them until, suddenly, he closed the space between them and hugged him—brief, awkward, careful. A single pat landed against Yoongi’s shoulder, tentative as a heartbeat.
“Thank you, PD-nim,” he mumbled, voice so small Yoongi almost didn’t catch it.
And then, as if afraid to stay long enough for regret to catch him, Jaehyun darted back. The door swung open, then shut with a soft thud and a sharp click. His footsteps faded fast down the hall.
Yoongi stayed frozen where he sat, the ghost of the touch still warm on his shoulder. Two beats passed, then three. He exhaled slowly, closing his eyes against the sudden burn behind them.
For once, the silence in the studio didn’t feel like discipline. It felt like a weight pressing from the inside out.
Yoongi stayed frozen where he sat, the ghost of the touch still warm on his shoulder. Two beats passed, then three. He exhaled slowly, closing his eyes against the sudden burn behind them.
The studio was silent now—too silent. No laughter, no rustle of snack wrappers, no sneakers skidding across the floor. Just the faint tick of the clock on the wall and the low hum of the monitors. The quiet pressed sharp, leaving him alone with the ache he’d been holding down all evening.
His fingers twitched. Restless. He dragged a hand across his face, exhaled again, and reached for the notebook half-buried under a pile of lyric sheets. The cover bent easily, worn smooth by years of being shoved from place to place. It fell open like it knew where it belonged.
He stared at the empty page for a long moment. His wrist itched. The pen hovered.
And then, before he could stop himself, he was writing. Short bursts at first, uneven, as if the words had to fight their way out. Then longer, sharper, threading into rhythm, into breath.
embers, breath—don’t let me choke on the smoke of what I never said—
The lines bled onto the page, ink dragging fast as if it had been waiting, as if Jaehyun’s small, puppy-voiced “thank you” had cracked something open.
Yoongi’s jaw clenched as he bent over the notebook, the pen moving faster, the rhythm of his pulse catching in the scrawl. He wasn’t thinking anymore. He was letting it spill.
When the metronome clicked to life on the console—his finger hitting the button without thought—it was like a heartbeat syncing with his own. The room filled with it, stubborn and steady.
For the first time all day, Yoongi didn’t fight the sound. He let it guide him, let the pen chase the pulse until the page wasn’t empty anymore.
The pen had stopped moving but the rhythm hadn’t. It pulsed in his chest like a second heartbeat, stubborn, refusing to let him rest. The notebook was a mess of ink scars now, words overlapping, half-crossed, rewritten until they looked less like lines and more like a wound torn open on paper.
Yoongi leaned back in the chair, eyes closed. The studio was empty but not quiet—the storm track he’d layered under the beat hissed through the monitors, low thunder rolling like it remembered everything he wanted to forget. A muted 808 kicked under it, steady as breath, his breath, and the piano chords bled minor against the edges. Strings held it together, just barely—fragile threads pulling across the silence like they might snap at any second.
Hip-hop. Alternative hip-hop. Maybe emo rap. Maybe not anything at all. He didn’t care about the tags. He cared about the weight in his chest, and how to bleed it into sound before it killed him.
The verse came rough, half-rap, hushed like a confession he hadn’t earned the right to speak out loud:
Storm passed, but the smoke stayed, lungs full of ghosts I couldn’t chase…
His voice cracked around the consonants, low and gritty. He let it. This wasn’t meant to be clean—it was meant to burn.
He layered the next verse harder, faster, syllables tumbling over each other like they were running out of time. He spat them into the mic, each one a strike:
Streetlights flicker on nights I can’t sleep,
memories bite like wolves at my feet…
The words hit the back of his throat like glass. He swallowed them down anyway.
By the time he reached the chorus, he wasn’t rapping anymore. His voice broke into something closer to a plea—half-sung, raw, shaky on the high notes but alive, too alive:
Breathe with me, just one more time—
pull the smoke from my lungs,
turn the ashes back to light.
The monitors carried it back at him, ghosted and doubled by adlibs he hadn’t even realized he’d recorded. His own voice echoing in his ears like someone else was answering him.
He didn’t stop. Couldn’t. The bridge tore itself out like a shout, closer to rage than rhythm, spitting the words between his teeth until his lungs hurt.
I break and rebuild in the same damn breath,
choking on words I ain’t spoken yet.
If I tell you now, will it set me free—
or burn the last piece you left in me?
His knuckles were white around the pen still in his hand, his other hand clenching the mic stand as if it could hold him steady. By the time the final chorus collapsed into overlapping rap and vocals, he was half whispering, half gasping, almost begging:
Breathe—breathe—before I choke again.
Fight—fight—for something more than pain.
Hold—hold—the ember in your hand.
Don’t let it die—don’t let it die.
And then the storm swallowed everything else. Piano fading, synth warped, the rain track still hissing. He kept the mic live just long enough to whisper the last line, almost too quiet to catch:
Smoke in my lungs, fire in my veins…
If I’m burning, at least it’s in your name.
The red light on the console blinked off.
Yoongi stayed where he was, head bowed, breath raw in his throat. He didn’t play it back. Not yet. He already knew what it sounded like—like bleeding into air.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even finished. But for the first time in years, he didn’t feel like he was writing for the label, or for charts, or for anyone else at all.
He’d written it for the boy who’d asked him, all those years ago, to hum a melody until the storm went away.
And for himself—because this time, he needed to breathe too.
The last line left him in silence.
No playback, no click track. Just the storm hiss still bleeding faint from the monitors, the ghost of his voice caught in the air.
Yoongi’s shoulders slumped forward, head bowed, breath ragged. He hadn’t even noticed the heat on his face until a tear slipped down, stinging as it cut through the sweat on his skin. He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes, rough, like he could grind the weakness out.
And then—
A sound. Small but sharp in the heavy quiet.
Clapping.
Yoongi flinched hard, spinning toward it, chest seizing like he’d been caught with blood on his hands. For a second he thought it was the echo of his own heart, but no—someone was there, just beyond the glass.
Soojin.
Her hands were pressed together, clapping once more before they faltered, trembling. Her face was streaked, her cheeks flushed, and she was crying—quiet, helpless tears spilling faster than she seemed able to stop.
Yoongi blinked, stunned, throat closing tighter. He hadn’t realized anyone had stayed. The door had been shut, the light dim, his world narrowed to nothing but breath and beat and storm.
But she was there. Watching. Hearing every word he hadn’t meant for anyone else.
For a heartbeat he couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe.
Her voice cracked through the comm after a few muted seconds, soft and raw.
“…that was… Yoongi-ssi…” She shook her head, pressing her fingers to her mouth as if the rest of the sentence might shatter her. When she dropped her hand, her smile was trembling. “That was the most honest thing I’ve ever heard.”
The tears kept sliding down his cheeks before he could stop them. He hated being seen like this. Hated it—and yet he couldn’t turn away. His hand hovered uselessly near the console, trembling like he’d never held steady in his life.
Yoongi swallowed, hard, the salt thick on his tongue. His voice when it came was raw, cracked open and unguarded.
“…I didn’t know anyone was still here.”
Soojin only shook her head again, tears dripping, her palms pressing flat against the glass like she could bridge the distance. Her smile broke wider through the wreck of her face, not pitying but proud, so achingly proud.
“You needed to sing that,” she said, simple, sure. “And I needed to hear it.”
Yoongi looked down at his hands, the pen still clenched in one, knuckles white, the other damp with tears. He let out a sound caught between a laugh and a sob, the kind that hurt more than either.
The red light on the console blinked off. The storm track faded to nothing.
And still, he stayed there, crying in the recording booth while Soojin cried in the control room—two people split by glass, bound by the same song.
The door hissed open when he finally left the booth. His eyes burned, lashes still damp, but his face was composed into something flatter—something almost steady.
Soojin was waiting. She’d wiped at her cheeks, but the tracks were still fresh, a raw shine under the studio lights. She clutched her tablet against her chest like a shield, but her voice betrayed her when it cracked, hopeful and trembling all at once.
“Why don’t you release it?” she asked. “I’ve always known you had a good voice, Yoongi-ssi. You can do it without the label—I’ll help you out.” Her words tumbled too fast, excitement tripping over grief. “Please. The world needs to hear that.”
For a heartbeat, Yoongi just looked at her. His throat worked, the words stubborn behind his teeth. Then, slowly, the corner of his mouth tugged up—not a smile, not really. Something bitterer, like the memory of one.
“They aren’t for others to hear, Soojin-ssi.” His voice was quiet, hoarse from the song. “Can you keep this as a secret too?”
Her breath hitched, but she nodded. Soojin’s nod felt heavy, like a vow sealed in silence.
Yoongi zipped his bag and straightened, movements sharp, practiced. He should’ve walked out without looking back. Should’ve left the studio door swinging on its hinge. But his eyes betrayed him—dragged once more toward the desk, toward the notebook he’d tried to shut away.
That single scar of ink burned through the paper.
please love me so i can breathe again
His chest clenched. He shut his eyes as if that would erase it, but the words followed him anyway—etched behind his lids, etched deeper still in the hollow of his ribs.
He tore himself away, finally, and left. The hallway was sterile, humming with fluorescent lights. His footsteps echoed too loud, like they belonged to someone else. But the line chased him down every step, softer than a whisper, harsher than a scream.
please love me so i can breathe again.
By the time he reached the night air, the city pressed close around him—neon bleeding against the wet asphalt, a thousand voices rising and fading. But beneath it all, he heard only that line, circling like breath he couldn’t release.
He lit a cigarette out of habit, fingers trembling too much to hide. The smoke curled in his lungs, harsh and hollow. It wasn’t enough. Not close.
Because the truth was this: no melody, no rhyme, no silence could drown the words now.
They had followed him out.
And they weren’t leaving.
His phone buzzed in his pocket—three messages from Jin.
He woke again. Asked for water.
He’s calmer now.
He asked if you were still working.
Yoongi froze.
Something shifted inside him in a slow, quiet collapse—the kind that didn’t hurt until it all settled.
He typed one reply.
Tell him I’m coming.
The wind carried his breath away as he unlocked his car. He sat inside, bag beside him, notebook pressing lightly against his thigh.
He didn’t start the engine right away.
He rested his forehead against the steering wheel and whispered into the dark:
“…wait for me.”
The steering wheel creaked softly under Yoongi’s grip.
His knuckles were white where they wrapped the leather, tendons tight, wrists aching. The engine was off, the dashboard dead, but he hadn’t moved since he’d shut the door behind him. The parking lot outside the label was mostly empty now, just a few lonely cars under flickering streetlights. Somewhere, far off, someone laughed—sharp, bright, not meant for him.
In here, it was just the tick of the cooling engine and the ghost of Jungkook’s voice, clinging like smoke.
He exhaled slowly, forehead tipping forward until it rested against the heel of his hand on the wheel. His wrist still remembered it—the faint, stubborn weight of Jungkook’s fingers wrapped there like they belonged.
“Don’t go yet.”
Yoongi squeezed his eyes shut.
The silence was too loud. It throbbed in his ears, filled his ribs, felt like it might crack him open. He could turn the radio on, he thought distantly. Let some late-night DJ’s voice fill the space, or a ballad from some trainee he’d never meet. Instead he stayed like that, bent over the wheel, pulse slow and heavy.
The first breath he dragged in tasted like dust and car freshener.
The second came with something else.
He saw it before he meant to—the passenger seat, the dashboard, the windshield smeared with the reflection of streetlights. And in that seat, younger, brighter, hair still too long and messy: Jungkook. Grinning at him through the blur of rain on glass.
The present slipped.
The city outside his windows blurred, the parking lot lights smearing into motion, and when the world sharpened again, he wasn’t in this car anymore.
He was in the old one. The one that rattled when you took corners too fast and smelled faintly like cheap coffee and guitar strings.
It was pouring that night too.
The rain came down in sheets, hammering against the windshield so hard the wipers could barely keep up. Yoongi’s car heater wheezed unevenly, blowing lukewarm air that fogged up the glass faster than it cleared it.
He heard the passenger door before he saw him—a clumsy yank, a muted curse, then a rush of wet air as it flew open.
“Hyung,” Jungkook gasped, half-laughing, half out of breath. He tumbled into the seat like he’d been thrown by the wind, the hood of his jacket plastered to his hair, backpack soaked. “I thought I was going to drown in the parking lot.”
“You’re dramatic,” Yoongi muttered, reaching across him to yank the door shut. Water clung to Jungkook’s lashes, his cheeks flushed pink from the cold. He looked like some half-drowned puppy dragged in from the storm.
Jungkook shivered, then grinned at him, teeth bright. “You still came.”
Yoongi snorted, starting the engine again. “You think I’d let you walk home in this? You’d slip and crack your skull open. Then I’d have to deal with Jin-hyung haunting me.”
Jungkook laughed, loud and immediate. It filled the tiny car, made the rain sound softer. He scrubbed his hands through his hair, droplets flying. “He’d haunt you anyway. You ate the last dumpling yesterday.”
“That was Taehyung,” Yoongi said.
“You covered for him.”
“Details.”
Jungkook’s laugh turned soft, overspilling into a breath that fogged the glass. He twisted in his seat to look at Yoongi properly, knees drawn up, socked feet pushing against the floor mat.
“Thanks,” he said, suddenly quieter. “For coming to get me, I mean.”
Yoongi kept his eyes on the road as he pulled out of the lot, wipers squeaking in frantic arcs. “You texted,” he said. “I had the car. Not exactly a heroic act, kid.”
“It is for me.” Jungkook shrugged, staring out at the smeared city lights. Water slid down the windows in glowing trails of orange and white. “The subway was delayed. Everyone was pushed together. It felt like… like the air wasn’t mine anymore.”
There was a little hitch at the end, almost invisible. Yoongi heard it anyway.
He didn’t push. Just flicked the heater up one notch. The fan groaned in protest, trying its best.
The car filled with a damp, quiet warmth. The storm roared outside.
“Plug your phone in,” Yoongi said. “You’re getting water on my seat for free. At least pay in music.”
Jungkook’s mouth curved again, that small, grateful smile that always hit Yoongi harder than the big ones. “Yes, sir.”
He dug his phone out, the screen smeared with raindrops, cable tangling around his fingers. In a moment the car filled with the faint hiss of rain again—but now it was recorded, layered over a soft piano loop and distant thunder.
“What’s this?” Yoongi asked, brow furrowing as he flicked his eyes to the stereo.
“Something I found online,” Jungkook said. “It’s like… storm study vibes.” He rolled the window down a fraction, listening to the overlap of real and recorded rain. “Feels less lonely if it’s on purpose, you know?”
Yoongi didn’t answer. But his hands loosened fractionally on the wheel.
The track shifted—piano deepening, a low 808 kick muted under the sound, like a heartbeat buried in sand. Jungkook hummed along without thinking, voice threading in between the notes.
Yoongi’s chest tightened.
The kid wasn’t trying. That was the worst part. Bright, nimble voice sliding over the melody like it lived there, vowels softened by tiredness. He messed up a line of nonsense lyrics he improvised and laughed at himself, shoulders shaking.
“Idiot,” Yoongi muttered.
“Your idiot,” Jungkook said instantly.
The words hung there, loose and thoughtless.
Yoongi almost missed the turn.
He jerked the wheel a bit too sharp, and the car dipped, tyres splashing through a deep puddle. Jungkook yelped, bracing a hand on the dashboard, then laughed again, eyes squeezed shut.
“Hyung, are you trying to kill us?”
“Maybe just you,” Yoongi said. His pulse, however, had jumped to his throat. “You’re too noisy.”
“Lies.” Jungkook tipped his head back against the rest, grinning sideways. “You like my noise. You told me to put music on.”
“I said music,” Yoongi corrected. “Not whatever this vocal pollution is.”
Jungkook gasped, clutching at his chest. “I’m deeply wounded.”
“Good.”
He turned the next corner more gently.
The rain thudded against the roof. On the track, it did too, just a little softer, pushed back by the strings that had secretly joined in. Jungkook went quiet for a moment, watching the droplets chase each other down the glass.
“Hey, hyung?”
“Hm.”
“Do you ever… think the car is the only place you can breathe?”
Yoongi shot him a quick glance. Jungkook’s expression was open, brow furrowed just slightly, lips pressed together like he’d startled himself with the question.
“Subways are too tight,” Jungkook went on, voice softer. “School’s practice rooms are too loud. Campus dorm is—” he cut himself off with a small shrug. “But here it’s like… I don’t know. Like the world can’t get in if you don’t let it.”
Yoongi’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel.
He thought of all the nights he’d sat in parked cars alone. Head tipped back, engine ticking, some demo looping on low volume while he tried to breathe past the weight in his chest. The way a steering wheel could feel like a lifeline and a cage both.
“Yeah,” he said, after a beat. “I get it.”
Jungkook’s shoulder relaxed.
“Especially with you driving,” he added, quieter now, turning his gaze to Yoongi’s profile. His voice cut through the rain like a line drawn in ink. “Feels like… even if the world catches up, it’ll have to go through you first.”
Yoongi’s throat worked.
He didn’t answer that. Didn’t know how to, without letting too much slip between his teeth. So he lifted one hand from the wheel and flicked Jungkook’s forehead with two fingers.
“Don’t make me crash with your cheesy lines,” he said, forcing his voice dry. “If we die, you’re writing the apology letter to Jin-hyung from the afterlife.”
Jungkook groaned, rubbing his forehead, then cracked up, the sound bubbling like it couldn’t be held back. He turned the track up a little, humming along off-key on purpose now, trying to break the thickness in the air.
Yoongi let him. He let the storm rush around the car, and the music fill the space between them, and Jungkook’s voice stitch itself into all of it like it had always belonged.
(...)
The school’s practice room’s fluorescent lights were unforgiving, but somehow the seven of them made even that look golden.
Yoongi sat with his back against the mirrored wall, notebook balanced on his knee, pen in his hand. He wasn’t writing so much as pretending to—lines half-formed, chords sketched in shorthand no one else would understand. No one was watching him anyway.
They were watching each other.
Hoseok stood in the center of the room, clapping out the beat, cheeks flushed from dancing. “No, Tae, you’re half a count late on that shoulder,” he said, stepping forward to adjust Taehyung’s stance with hands that knew the shape of rhythm like breathing. “You’re thinking too much but we don’t have too much time left in our hands until the spring festival.”
“I am thinking,” Taehyung replied, indignant. “That’s the problem.”
Jimin cackled, dropping bonelessly to the floor beside Yoongi. “You’re using your brain?” he asked, wide-eyed. “Since when?”
Taehyung stuck his tongue out, then immediately tripped over his own foot as he tried the move again. Hoseok sighed, long-suffering, then laughed when Taehyung did.
Namjoon, off to the side, almost knocked over a water bottle with his ankle while attempting the same sequence. “I’m thinking too much and too wrong,” he muttered, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“You’re thinking with your feet again,” Jin called from the corner, where he was stretching his long legs. “That’s your first mistake.”
Yoongi watched it all in the mirror—the chaos, the laughter, the way their bodies moved around each other like they were parts of one slightly dysfunctional machine. He watched Jungkook most of all.
The kid was a blur of energy, hair damp with sweat, oversize shirt clinging to his shoulders. He nailed the sequence on the second try, then kept going, throwing in extra flourishes on the turns just to make Taehyung groan.
“Show-off,” Tae muttered.
“Hyung said to go all out,” Jungkook said, breathless but beaming, looking to Hoseok for confirmation. “Didn’t you?”
Hoseok pointed at him like he’d just discovered fire. “Exactly. Look at his lines. You feel that? That’s committing.” He glanced at Yoongi in the mirror, eyes bright. “See? This is what your bridge needs in the choreo. Exploding and then—”
“Collapsing,” Jungkook cut in, dropping to his knees dramatically, hand over his heart as if shot. He slid across the floor, nearly crashing into Yoongi’s stretched-out leg. “Hyung’s song is all—” he mimed a soaring motion with his arms, then flopped onto his back with a wheeze. “And then—” he stuck his arm straight up, fingers twitching. “Like the last firework.”
Yoongi’s lips twitched.
“Who told you to dramatize my lyrics, punk?” he asked.
“You did,” Jungkook said instantly, rolling onto his side to grin up at him, eyes crescented with mischief. “In my heart.”
There was a collective groan.
Namjoon dropped to the floor beside Jimin. “Someone take his phone away,” he said. “He’s been scrolling romance quotes again.”
“They’re inspirational,” Jungkook protested.
“They’re rotting your brain,” Jin countered.
Jimin scooted close enough to rest his head on Yoongi’s shoulder, eyes still on the others. “He’s been like this all day,” he murmured. “Too much happiness. Something’s wrong.”
Yoongi snorted, but his hand, almost without thinking, came up to pat Jimin’s hair once before dropping again.
Everywhere he looked, there was noise. Movement. Life.
Namjoon and Taehyung arguing over whether a certain line sounded better sung or rapped. Hoseok clapping out an alternate rhythm. Jin stretching in the mirror, counting under his breath. Jimin stealing glances at Hoseok when he thought no one was looking. Jungkook—always Jungkook—taking it all in like a kid at a festival, eyes bright, soaking up everything at once.
“Yoongi-hyung,” Jungkook called suddenly, scrambling up and jogging over, nearly slipping on a discarded hoodie. He stopped in front of him, a little too close, breathing hard. “Can we try the second verse slower? I think if we break it down, I can hit that run you wrote.”
“You already hit it,” Yoongi said.
“Not clean,” Jungkook replied, earnest. “Not like you hear it. I can tell.”
He said it so simply it knocked the air out of Yoongi’s lungs for a second.
He hears what I hear.
Yoongi flipped his notebook closed, pushing himself to his feet. “Fine,” he said, ignoring the way his heart had stuttered. “Come here.”
They moved to the corner, away from flailing limbs and shouted counts. Yoongi tapped the beat out on his thigh, humming the line under his breath. Jungkook followed, matching pitch immediately, then faltering on the last jump.
“Again,” Yoongi said.
They did it again. And again. And again.
On the fourth try, Jungkook nailed it—voice sliding up and over the last note like it had discovered a place it had always been meant for. He held it, eyes widening a fraction, then let it go with a breathless laugh.
“Like that?” he asked, turning to Yoongi, sweat shining at his temple.
Yoongi felt it then—that stupid, helpless swell in his chest. Pride. Relief. Love, threaded under it so quietly he could still pretend not to see it.
“Yeah,” he said. His voice came out rougher than intended. “Like that.”
Jungkook’s grin did something dangerous to the room. It brightened everything, even the flickering light in the corner that needed to be fixed. “Then I’ll do it on the festival stage,” he promised. “For you.”
Yoongi rolled his eyes, looking away before he could drown in it. “Do it for your academics, idiot.”
Jungkook laughed, stepping back, already humming the line under his breath. But he threw one more look over his shoulder, something softer in it. Something Yoongi pretended he didn’t notice.
“Same thing, hyung,” he said.
The rooftop was cold that night.
(...)
They’d finished late. Rehearsal for the college showcase had dragged on, Hoseok refusing to let them go until the bridge sat right in everyone’s bones. Saying “Professor Han will flay us alive if this bridge isn’t clean before Friday.” and whatnot.
Namjoon and Jin had argued over lyrics until Jin threatened to throw his water bottle. Taehyung had nearly fallen asleep mid-stretch, Jimin tugging at his hood every time his head dropped.
By the time they spilled out of the building, the city had quieted to that in-between hour where it wasn’t late enough for the drunk crowds and not early enough for workers. The sky was clear, pollution beaten back for one small mercy of a night.
“Home,” Jin declared, already shepherding Taehyung and Namjoon toward the subway. “I have an early schedule.”
Hoseok yawned, looping an arm around Jimin’s shoulders as they walked. “We’ll crash at the campus dorm. Come by if you can’t sleep, Yoongi.”
Yoongi raised a hand in vague assent, but his eyes were elsewhere.
Jungkook lingered by the building entrance, hoodie pulled tight around his face, hands stuffed in his pockets. He shuffled his weight from one foot to the other, glancing at the others, then at Yoongi, like he wasn’t sure which direction to move.
“You going?” Yoongi asked.
“In a bit,” Jungkook said. His voice was softer now, not performing. “I think I’ll… hang around.”
“Don’t loiter like a stray,” Jin called over his shoulder. “Security cameras exist.”
“Love you too, hyung!” Jungkook shouted, smiling.
The others disappeared around the corner, their chatter fading. The night settled over them, colder now that there was nothing to distract from it.
Yoongi jerked his chin toward the side door. “Come on.”
Jungkook brightened instantly. “Rooftop?”
“Unless you want to sit in the stairwell like a raccoon.”
They climbed in silence, the stairwell echoing with their footsteps. Yoongi’s lungs ached pleasantly by the time they pushed through the rooftop door. The air up here was sharper, cleaner somehow. The city spread out in a patchwork of lights below them—buildings like dark teeth, neon signs buzzing, the distant blur of headlights tracing rivers of movement.
Jungkook walked straight to the low wall and leaned his arms on it, staring out like he always did the first few minutes. Like he had to absorb the whole skyline before he could speak.
Yoongi crossed to the small box where employees hid their illicit cigarettes and half-empty coffee cans. Instead of a lighter, he pulled out a set of battered earbuds and his phone.
“Here,” he said, settling beside Jungkook and offering one earbud. “Payment for making me listen to your vocal pollution all week.”
Jungkook snorted, but took it, tucking the bud into his ear. Their shoulders almost touched. Not quite. The space between them pulsed with awareness.
Yoongi hit play.
A low piano line seeped in first, then a muted kick, almost swallowed by the ambient crackle of a vinyl effect. It was one of his own demos—half-finished, lyrics still in fragments in his notebook. Warm. A little nostalgic. The kind of thing he didn’t share unless he’d been cornered.
Jungkook recognized it immediately.
“You updated it,” he said quietly. “The chords… they’re softer now.”
Yoongi shrugged, staring out at the city. “Too sharp before. Didn’t fit.”
“Fits now,” Jungkook said simply.
They fell quiet, letting the track breathe between them. When the beat dropped, Jungkook’s head began to nod instinctively, body catching the groove. His shoulders relaxed, his weight leaning a fraction closer.
“Hyung,” he said, after a while.
“Hm.”
“Do you ever think… this is what forever feels like?” He gestured vaguely at the skyline. “Us. Music. Nights like this.”
Yoongi’s hand tightened in his pocket.
He’d thought about forever too much lately. It crept in during small moments—the way Hoseok counted beats, the way Jimin fell asleep sitting up, the way Namjoon always forgot his umbrella. The way Jungkook’s voice cracked when he laughed too hard.
“Forever’s a long time,” Yoongi said finally.
Jungkook hummed, somewhere between agreement and protest. “I know. I just…” He exhaled, breath visible in the cold air. “Sometimes I’m scared it’s going to end before I even know it started.”
Yoongi looked at him then.
Jungkook’s expression was bare in a way he rarely let anyone see. Even in the dim rooftop light, Yoongi could read the strain around his mouth, the faint line between his brows, the insecurity that crawled up whenever the others weren’t around to blunt it.
“Nothing lasts forever,” Yoongi said, because he didn’t know how to lie when it mattered. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real now.”
Jungkook’s jaw tightened.
“I’m not good at… this,” he admitted. “At believing good things are real. That they’ll stay. I…” He laughed once, short and humorless. “I always feel like I’m one mistake away from messing it all up.”
Yoongi’s chest ached.
He wanted to tell him the truth—that he could trip over every chord, botch every step, butcher every line, and Yoongi would still be there. That the group would still be there. That the world would have to go through all of them before it could touch him.
Instead, he nudged his shoulder lightly.
“You haven’t messed it up yet,” he said. “And you try more than anyone I’ve ever met. That counts for something.”
Jungkook’s eyes shone, catching the reflection of the city lights. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, then smiled—a small, shy curve of his mouth that looked nothing like the showcase grins he’d been practising.
“With you,” he said, voice almost lost to the wind, “it’s easier to believe that.”
Yoongi looked away before he drowned in it.
“Flattery won’t get you out of cardio,” he said.
Jungkook choked on a laugh. “You are the worst.”
“Yup.”
The track looped, piano circling back to its first question. Jungkook hummed along under his breath, finding the melody without thinking. After a moment, he added words—nonsense ones, half-English, half-Korean, all feeling. Yoongi let himself listen.
“I feel like I can breathe here,” Jungkook said, somewhere between lines. “Up here. With you.”
It hit hard enough that Yoongi had to close his eyes for a second.
He memorized it. The exact tone. The exact arrangement of words. The warmth threading through fear. Because he knew, even then, that someday he would need to hold it up against a darker night. Against a different sentence.
I couldn’t breathe. Not there.
The notebook on Yoongi’s desk in the present lay close, the ink of Almost dried years ago.
(...)
One of those days when the school gave them extra rehearsal time and cracked open just enough to let them breathe. Not long—an hour, maybe—between their mid-semester evaluations with their performance assessment and a last-minute meeting, but Hoseok had declared it sacred and Jin had backed him with the authority of a reluctant parent.
So they piled into the empty cafeteria.
Yoongi had come last, notebook still in hand, intending to steal a quiet corner and scribble a melody before it slipped away. But the second he stepped inside, he forgot what he was looking for.
Because Jungkook was in the middle of the room. Alone. Singing.
Not for practice. Not for evaluation. Just… singing.
The late afternoon sunlight poured through the cafeteria’s tall windows as if someone had spilled gold across the floor. It caught Jungkook square in the center, haloing his entire figure—from the frayed ends of his hoodie to the curve of his neck where his hair brushed, still damp from the learning center.
His voice floated across the room, warm and clear, lifting into the stale air like it belonged somewhere better.
“Hyung! You’re finally here,” Jimin called from the table they’d hijacked. “Kook wanted to try the new run you added. But the band club borrowed the good microphones again.”
But Jungkook wasn’t paying attention to them anymore.
He’d turned toward Yoongi.
Not fully—just enough that sunlight caught his profile, his lashes a soft brush of gold, the corners of his mouth lifting into that smile he never aimed at cameras. The kind that held a whole heart in it without asking permission.
Yoongi’s breath caught.
For a moment, everything felt too bright.
Too warm.
Too much.
Jungkook took two steps toward him, voice still weaving through the half-finished melody:
“—and I’ll follow where the light goes…”
The line wasn’t written yet. Yoongi hadn’t put it on the page. He hadn’t even said it aloud.
But Jungkook sang it anyway. As if he’d reached into Yoongi’s chest and pulled the thought directly from where it was forming.
“What are you doing?” Yoongi asked, trying for gruff, but the words came out low, uneven.
Jungkook stopped in front of him, close enough that Yoongi could feel the heat radiating off his skin from dancing. The sunlight framed him so brilliantly it hurt to look straight at him.
“I just tried to match the feeling I get when you write,” Jungkook said. Simple. Unfiltered. “It feels like this.”
He gestured around them—at the warm air, the glow, the resonance still hanging from the last note.
Yoongi swallowed.
He’d always thought Jungkook shined. Always. But here, leaning slightly forward, eyes bright and impossibly open, he looked like he glowed from the inside out.
“Try it with me?” Jungkook asked, offering his hand for the mic he was holding.
And Yoongi—who hadn’t sung in front of them since he was seventeen, who preferred shadows and closed doors and notebooks more than spotlights—took it.
They sang the line together.
Jungkook’s harmony rose under his like sunlight pushing up the horizon. Yoongi felt every inch of it—warmth blooming under his ribs, spreading through him until his fingers trembled with the force of trying to hold it in.
When they finished, Jungkook laughed—bright, delighted, loud enough to bounce off the cafeteria walls.
“You’re really good, hyung,” he said, beaming.
And Yoongi—caught off guard, caught in the light, caught by him—felt the truth hit him so hard he had to look away:
He was falling in love with the sun.
-o-
He blinked, the roar of the old storm fading, the rooftop dissolving into the harsh, clean lines of his office. The car was gone. The studio room at school was gone. Only the echo stayed.
Jungkook’s laughter, bright enough to make fluorescent lights look like a real stage beams.
His voice, confessing softly, With you, it’s easier to believe.
The way he’d said breathe like it was a miracle, not a reflex.
Outside, somewhere far below his window, the city moved on. Traffic lights changed. People rushed home. Evening settled quietly over Seoul.
Inside, Yoongi sat very still, the weight of the past settled heavy in his chest, warm and hurting in equal measure.
And somewhere, under all of it, a new melody stirred—born of rooftop confessions and car rides through storms and the feeling of a hand wrapped around his wrist like it was the only thing left.
Then he drove.
Toward the only place he could breathe.
----
“Hideaway”
(written and composed by Min Yoongi, sung by Jeon Jungkook, later drafted)
[Verse 1]
The rain is drumming on the glass,
but here, the world is small and safe.
Your voice fills every corner,
turning shadows into light.
I don’t need the thunder to fade—
you’ve already drowned it out.
[Pre-Chorus]
Every note you sing pulls me closer,
like I was made to belong here.
No storm outside can touch me,
not while you’re laughing in my arms.
[Chorus]
This is our hideaway,
where the night can’t break us.
Your song makes the dark turn golden,
and I almost forget to breathe.
If forever could sound like this,
I’d never step outside again.
[Verse 2]
The lamp flickers, your cheeks are pink,
eyes bright enough to burn the sky.
You mess up the line on purpose,
grinning like you’ve won the universe.
And maybe you have—
because I’d give it all for one more laugh.
[Pre-Chorus]
Every chord you chase is sunlight,
and I swear I’d follow blind.
I don’t need the world to know—
this song is only ours to keep.
[Chorus]
This is our hideaway,
where the night can’t break us.
Your song makes the dark turn golden,
and I almost forget to breathe.
If forever could sound like this,
I’d never step outside again.
[Bridge]
When the storm is gone,
will we remember?
Or will it fade like lightning in the sky?
But tonight, here with you,
I believe in always.
[Final Chorus]
This is our hideaway,
where the night can’t break us.
Your song makes the dark turn golden,
and I almost forget to breathe.
If forever could sound like this,
I’d never step outside again.