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The last thing Yoongi expects Namjoon to do is to drag him to Italy for a year abroad, but that’s his fault for underestimating Kim Namjoon on a mission.
When Namjoon meets him in the study room on a grey December morning, Yoongi is so keyed-up on caffeine and the looming threat of finals that he barely registers his best friend’s manic gaze –that’s his first mistake, or maybe the true mistake was allowing Kim Namjoon to become his best friend in the first place. Alas, he’s six years too late to fix that.
Yoongi has been staring at his project for a mechanics class for five hours; he can’t understand if he’s close to crying or if his eyes have dried up. He drank so many cups of coffee that the Starbucks logos surround him on all sides of the table, and Namjoon –Wild Namjoon, a variant that is to be feared, the Namjoon of ruthless ambition and barely-contained hunger and desperate desire for freedom– plops down beside him and wraps an arm around his shoulder like a man who’s not afraid to die.
Yoongi contemplates solving his two most pressing problems in one swift motion, by destroying his laptop on Namjoon’s thick head. Most likely, the project would be lost and Wild Namjoon would be temporarily sedated, giving Yoongi enough time to escape to … to his room to nap. Then, to Nicaragua or something equally far away.
“Hyung, have you ever thought of running away somewhere very far from here?”
Wild Namjoon may have psychic powers: a terrifying scenario. Yoongi slaps Namjoon’s arm away, but the other doesn’t even notice. He’s staring at Yoongi like he has just cracked the secret code of the universe –Yoongi knows the expression, because Namjoon already showed it three times, reaching three different conclusions, and only once while drunk.
This Namjoon is not drunk, only exhausted, a little too thin, missing Seokjin fiercely. Yoongi can relate, though he never had romantic feelings for his ex-roommate (except on the day they met and Seokjin smiled at him and Yoongi thought maybe God existed and liked seeing Yoongi squirm under Seokjin’s mischievous and kind, all-knowing gaze. Thank god it didn’t last).
See, Yoongi used to have a reputation . Jungkook –bless the time when Jungkook was too shy to beg him for free food on a daily basis– found him scary for the first year of their acquaintance. All of that is ancient history though, because Yoongi has submitted himself to the mortifying ordeal of being known, partially out of his own free will. He is a good friend, and Namjoon and him have this unspoken pact that binds him to listen to Namjoon even –especially– when he’s like this. Yoongi would die before admitting that Wild Namjoon is one of the reasons why Yoongi likes Namjoon the most out of his small group of friends. If Namjoon didn’t have his moments of self-reflection, of soul-crushing nihilism, of sadness even, of boundless ambition and dreaming, Yoongi would feel bad sharing his own dreams and bad days, which are many.
Yoongi thinks he knows what he’s agreeing to when he doesn’t look away from Namjoon and asks, carefully serene: “What did you have in mind?”
He just didn’t expect Namjoon to say: “There’s a program to live a year in Italy, hyung. We should do it!”
♦️♦️♦️
LIST OF REASONS WHY MIN YOONGI SHOULD LISTEN TO KIM NAMJOON AND GO TO ITALY WITH HIM
- Italy is beautiful
- Italy is close to France, where Jin-hyung is at the moment
- The Italian University only asks for a B1 in English (we all know you’re secretly fluent).
- They are basically begging for STEM students, ergo for you, Min Yoongi.
- Incredible opportunity to travel across Europe, learn a new language & escape Seoul, before graduation and getting a job take away what’s left of our sanity.
- It would help my research!
- Self Care(??)
“What’s this?” Yoongi asks. The piece of paper is stuck to the fridge with what once was a cute magnet, now half broken after Namjoon closed the fridge too hard a few Monday mornings before.
“It’s a draft,” Namjoon supplies unhelpfully. He has milk and crumbs of cereal running down his chin; Yoongi misses Seokjin, who at least cooked the food he ate messily in his face. It is almost 2pm and Namjoon seems content with his cereal-based diet. How could they survive in Italy? Do they even have the good type of instant ramen there?
“Being closer to Jin-hyung is a con. Same goes for learning a new language, I already have to deal with English and Japanese more than I’d like,” Yoongi says as he scans the list.
“Stop pretending you’re not fluent! I’ve seen you rap! You shouldn’t lie in front of the Eminem Shrine.”
Yoongi’s eyes drift to the Eminem printed image permanently stuck to the fridge, symbol of their aspirations to own ‘a big house, big cars, and big rings’ —Min Yoongi, 2013. Eminem looks back at him, frozen as he shows a middle finger to the haters.
“ I think going to Italy is a stupid idea, ” Yoongi then says in English, careful to keep his face blank. Namjoon flails his arms in indignation and breaks two bowls in less than three seconds.
Too bad it is not the end of their conversation. At all.
♦️♦️♦️
“ I think you should go. ”
Seokjin’s tinny voice feebly comes from Namjoon’s laptop speakers. They –Namjoon, Jungkook, Yoongi and none other than Kim Taehyung, Chaos Enabler– are slowly moving closer to the laptop to hear better, though there is not much space left in Yoongi and Namjoon’s living room. Only when Seokjin’s voice is so low it’s impossible to understand what he’s saying from his French flat –wearing the beret gifted by Taehytung as a parting gift– Namjoon remembers to actually raise the volume. It’s sobering to remember there was a time Namjoon wanted to major in Engineering.
“ ....so it would be really important to me, you know? ” Seokjin ends his moving speech.
“Sure.”
“Yep.”
“Perfectly clear, hyung,” they all lie in rapid succession. They stare at Seokjin and Seokjin stares back for a few long seconds. The screen of the laptop has a kimchi stain in one corner.
“ You didn’t hear anything, right? ”
“Not a word,” Taehyung smiles. “But we counted your vote as a ‘Yes’.” Jungkook writes Seokjin’s name with a flourish on the honest-to-god whiteboard Namjoon stole from a classroom a few finals week ago. (‘Breakers keepers’–Sleep-Deprived Wild Kim Namjoon, 2018.)
“But Seokjin-hyung doesn’t have rights. He lost them when he left me with him,” Yoongi points to Namjoon.
“ I fed you for years, and this is how you repay me? Life offers you a once in a lifetime adventure and DON’T YOU DARE MUTE ME– ”
Seokjin’s screams are abruptly cut off, leaving the room in relative silence.
“That was brutal, hyung,” Jungkook seems impressed. Namjoon sighs.
“ –I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS, oh, thank you, Joonie .”
“So we have one for ‘No’, two for ‘Yes’ and two undecided,” Namjoon says, clearing his throat as he does when he’s entering his Serious Namjoon mode. His jaw clenches and Jungkook stares at him for a moment too long, mesmerised. Yoongi misses a time when he didn’t have friends.
“This is my life, not a group project.”
“We live in a democracy!” Taehyung gasps.
“We would miss you a lot if you left,” Jungkook adds.
“So you’re voting ‘No’,” Yoongi says. “Good.”
“I’m not… voting ‘No’,” Jungkook says, his muscular frame shrinking under Yoongi’s gaze. “I think it could be a great opportunity.”
“Taehyung?”
“Hyung, think about it. It would be something you do once in your life. And the internet exists! I promise we will text at any hour if you feel lonely.”
Taehyung adds the last part with a half-smile, but Yoongi reads what’s underneath,
we’d be there for you anyway.
Only Tae manages to get past his defences so quickly: Yoongi finds himself smiling.
“ Now tell him about the cute guy. ”
Yoongi loses it. “I can’t believe you stalked the Italian students already. That is too much, even for you.”
To their credit, both Seokjin and Taehyung look offended by Yoongi's accusation.
“I didn’t! I only looked if the exchange was open for Fine Art students, but for that there’s a different path. But they are also looking at Design students! And Jiminie’s best friend studies Design, he wants to go abroad before finishing his studies.”
Park Jimin. Jiminie . The mysterious object of Taehyung’s most recent obsession, though Yoongi suspects this time it’s for real, that Kim Taehyung is falling in love and there exists a person named Park Jimin who can endure the strength of Taehyung’s love and admiration. Yoongi knows almost too much about Jimin, for someone he has never met in his life: Park Jimin studies Maths, but minors in Dance. He loves Taehyung’s paintings and their first not-really-a-date was in a small art gallery during which Taehyung thought about proposing right on the spot. He is sweet, clever, too beautiful for this world. His hands are cute, his body is sinful.
He has a best friend who studies Design.
“You could be friends with Jimin’s friend while you’re there.”
“If we do this and we actually apply to the program and miraculously win the scholarship and end up in…”
“In Bologna,” Namjoon says. “It has one of the oldest universities in the world.”
“...in Bologna, then Park Jimin’s best friend will be the last of my problems.”
♦️♦️♦️
He must recognise this to Namjoon: he has great persuasion skills.
“I don’t see any signs in English,” Yoongi comments after scanning the streets around him. The airport lulled them into a sense of security, with its anonymity and therefore universal quality. Now, Yoongi feels attacked from all sides by unknown elements. His B1 in English is totally useless, and not because he doesn’t know the words for ‘fear of the unknown’.
“Well, we just have to find someone who can tell us the way,” Namjoon smiles. “ Excuse me, ” two ladies hear him speaking in English and apologetically shake their heads. They run off before Namjoon can ask them why Google Maps isn’t working with the small labyrinthic streets of the city centre.
“We’re going to die,” Yoongi realises. “I’ll die in foreign land, and it will all be your fault.”
“Help me decipher the map–oh god, my phone died.”
Yoongi and Namjoon’s Great Year Abroad begins with them getting lost for four hours. (It gets better.)
♦️♦️♦️
It gets better. Yoongi isn’t well versed in the non-verbal language Italians use to make him understand when English fails, but he manages. Namjoon is already saying his “Buongiorno” and “Buonasera” to greet the neighbours, and smiles delighted when someone greets him back. When everything fails, they use Google.
The Eminem Shrine moved with them and is now the sole decoration in their flat, which they’ll share with two other people by the time classes start. Finding a place wasn’t as bad as in Seoul, the city is ridiculously small by the capital standards, but the flat is small, old. Everything is old, at least in the city centre, burdened with history. Some streets are cobbled and some buildings are stone and ancient bricks. The main piazza is beautiful, though the best thing for Yoongi is that the huge cathedral’s facade was never finished because they finished the money halfway through: only the lower half shows beautiful pink marble. The tallest building in the city centre is a Mediaeval tower that according to Namjoon (and Google), university students shouldn’t climb or bad luck will make it impossible to graduate.
“I’m not going, then,” Yoongi eyes the tower –one of the two, actually, situated at the crossroads of a few major streets of the city centre– distrustfully. “It’s crooked as fuck. I thought Pisa had the pending tower.”
“It has always been crooked, it’s not totally unstable. Dante talks about it in the ‘Inferno’.”
Yoongi moves his eyes away from the tower, to his friend, the only familiar element in this old, surprisingly provincial city. Despite the fact that it is September, there is still a residual of summer all around them, a familiar humidity in the air. Namjoon, wearing a ridiculous straw hat and sunglasses, looks every inch the delighted tourist he is (though they’re not tourists, not really).
“You really love this,” Yoongi half-asks, half-states. His heart does a little old dance of affection.
It’s good to see this Namjoon, who smiles back and says, unafraid and happy.
“I do.”
♦️♦️♦️
The two roommates arrive three days before the start of the academic year. Yoongi would die before admitting this out loud, but he’d completely forgotten the roommate situation wasn’t going to be just him and Namjoon. Two hours before the strangers’ ETA, they clean up the kitchen as best as they can and then learn how to say ‘the bathroom lock doesn’t work’ in Italian.
Of the two roommates, one comes from the south of Italy, and smiles a lot as he explains he’s probably going to stay a lot more at his girlfriend’s place than in his room –Yoongi tries not to look too happy about that, but Namjoon’s kick in the shin tells him he failed. The other is Chinese-Italian, born in Rome, and studies some branch of Political Science that makes Namjoon’s eyes sparkle with interest. Yoongi leaves them to talk in the kitchen and strategically retreats to his room.
It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed when the cyclic realisation that he’s not going home anytime soon hits. He still doesn’t know how to answer the question Jungkook asked him the day he left: “ What made you change your mind? I was sure Namjoon hyung wouldn’t be able to convince you .” The answer sits heavy on his tongue, then swirls in his mind, unescapable.
On one of the nights when he can’t sleep, he finds out the Poli Sci roommate suffers from insomnia. They exchange a total of ten words as Yoongi makes tea, but the silence is familiar. “Nights are the same everywhere” , the roommate says, as if he’s telling him a secret, and Yoongi breathes easier, at least for a moment.
Slowly, things that were new and foreign, such as the unfamiliar room, the old ass buses that are always late, the small streets leading nowhere, the unnecessary number of churches in the vicinity of their house (“Namjoon, you have to tell me where you are.” “ But I’m lost! ” “Describe the buildings around you, I don’t fucking know.” “ There’s a church? ” “Fucking hell.”), the places that sell enormous pizza slices to go for 2 euros, so many little things, become known, expected. As he explains Taehyung, he doesn’t feel at home , even when it’s just him and Namjoon in the flat, but he doesn’t feel too lost either.
“ You’re domesticating Italy ,” Teahyung comments. “ But it’s still a wild animal to you, deep down .”
“That’s… a way to put it.”
“ Good. Jungkook says hello. And Jiminie as well!”
Yoongi smiles, he can hear Jungkook’s voice and an unfamiliar one saying his name.
Missing home comes so strongly to him at that moment that he’s glad it’s not a video call. His breath catches and he blinks quickly to avoid tears.
“ Aigoo, Yoongi-hyung, we miss you too, ” Taehyung says. He’s not a bad kid, though, so he ends the call soon after, leaving Yoongi to his thoughts and the latest development in this adventure: the gaping hole of home-sickness, the steady thrum in his heart of the missyou-s that threaten to spill from his lips every time he calls home.
♦️♦️♦️
As far as buildings go, the Engineering Faculty of the University of Bologna is horrible. It is a soulless block of red bricks and concrete, with a tall tower shaped like a parallelepiped surging from the main building, sticking out like a sore thumb, everything surrounded by gardens. Yoongi, who had been secretly hoping for a taste of the Italian academia aesthetic Taehyung spent ages ranting about, tries his best not to feel cheated by both his friend and the world.
“Yours is much better. It’s not fair.”
Namjoon has the decency not to look horrified at the building in front of them, though his partial degree in Architecture probably provides him the vocabulary to describe the monstrosity. He explains, sounding apologetic: “Most of the faculties are located in the university area of the city centre, where the architecture is completely different from… this. This is a textbook example of rationalism.”
“Tell me something from your list of trivia?”
Namjoon, who is always prepared for an impromptu art history lecture, this time winces. “The basement was used as an torture interrogation room during the fascist era.”
Yoongi feels what was left of his scarce enthusiasm wither and die.
This is the day he meets Hoseok.
♦️♦️♦️
Jung Hoseok is impossible to miss. Before Yoongi learns he’s Park Jimin’s best friend, he thinks of him as the very loud guy who is the only participant of the exchange program who managed to make friends with Italians in less than a month. He arrives with a small group of white students in time for the first Computer Vision class and sits in the second row, smiling at everyone as if he’s going to greet each student personally.
Yoongi, who has spent the past ten minutes glaring at whoever had the bad idea to sit next to him in one of the last rows, can’t help but stare, surprised to find another one of the Korean students in his class. He was supposed to be the only engineering student, that’s the whole reason why they picked him when his interview went the way it did (terribly, he is not good at faking positive emotions). Yet here the loud stranger is, a piece of home. They saw each other at one of the preparatory meetings back in Seoul, but they haven’t exchanged anything more substantial than a casual ‘hello’. His presence is unexpectedly comforting.
The stranger must be sensing Yoongi’s eyes on him, because he turns and grants Yoongi his biggest smile yet, albeit tainted by a tiny fragment of shyness. His smile is shaped like a heart. It is a weird thing to notice about a stranger.
The guy doesn’t stop smiling. He asks his friend to let him pass, then changes his mind and simply parkours his way out of the second row. He walks to Yoongi and Yoongi might be wrong but he thinks the stranger is nervous.
“Oho, hi! You must be Min Yoongi,” the stranger says, honest-to-god oho-ing with too much enthusiasm for a 9am class. The familiar sound of Korean is a balm to Yoongi’s ears.
“Yes, I remember you from the meetings…”
“Jung Hoseok, nice to meet you,” Hoseok smiles again. He is rubbing one ear with a hand, shifting from one foot to the other like a pendulum, but doesn’t go back to his friends. “I’m friends with Park Jimin, actually. I know Kim Taehyung.”
‘ I know Kim Taehyung ’ is a sentence that can imply many different things, some of them contradictory to one another. In this case, Yoongi suspects Taehyung made a campaign about Yoongi similar to the one he received about Park Jimin’s famous, wonderful best friend.
“Whatever Taehyung told you about me, it is greatly exaggerated.”
Hoseok laughs. And his isn’t a small laugh, to be hidden behind a hand in a timid gesture. No, Hoseok laughs and the world tilts around him as he slightly moves forward, laughing with his whole body.
“That’s a pity.”
Hoseok is not letting Yoongi go, light brown eyes locked in his. What does it mean, ‘It’s a pity’? What did Teahyung say? He must be showing his curiosity in some way, because Hoseok’s second smile is slower, amused, as if Yoongi has fallen into some kind of trap.
The professor arrives at that moment, ten minutes late, in a flurry of bags, his voice nasally high as he greets everyone in Italian and starts talking about… something. When he sees the confused and alarmed looks of the international students, he amends in English: “Ah, sorry, I forgot. Good morning.”
Hoseok smiles one last time, and then quickly goes back to its place, with those who Yoongi now realises are Industrial Design students. Hoseok fits in his little group nicely, the other five opening their little circle to him like petals of a flower. Yoongi is alone, but he’s fine the way he is. He can keep saying ‘Hi’ to Hoseok until the end of the semester, just to make Taehyung happy.
♦️♦️♦️
There are a lot of awkward ‘Hi’ and ‘Hello’ and ‘Annyeong haseyo’ and ‘Buongiorno’ between him and Hoseok as the days go by. It takes Yoongi a week to realise Hoseok made the same choice he did, preferring to keep the elective courses for the semesters abroad. They share two of the four courses of the first semester.
Hoseok wears bright colours and his presence is impossible to miss. He doesn’t talk much during class, but when he does he’s a bit too loud, his snorts when someone in the front rows makes a joke are easy to recognise among the muffled laughter of his friends.
Even if Hoseok didn’t go around wearing lime green nike tracksuits or red bomber jackets or fluffy blue cardigans, or the more common remix of fashionable street style that elicits gasps and compliments by his friends, Yoongi would notice him anyway, because Hoseok always says hello to him.
When the class is over, Hoseok never forgets to ask if Yoongi is doing alright. The small talk they exchange is brief and uncomfortable like pebbles stuck in your shoe while you walk, but they both ignore the awkwardness by unspoken agreement that they somehow have to stick together.
Yoongi notices Hoseok every time he laughs, so when Namjoon asks if he met Park Jimin’s best friend, Yoongi has to answer ‘yes’. They’re acquaintances, masters of the casual ‘Hi’.
♦️♦️♦️
Yoongi is observant. It’s a quality of his that his friends admire, Namjoon because he likes to hear someone else’s insight on topics he’s overthinking, and Taehyung because with him thoughts and heart are always too connected and too decisive for him to see the whole picture clearly.
Yoongi notices that Hoseok gets bored, especially when it’s the third hour spent on the same topic and the piercing voice of the professor has become background noise. When this happens, Hoseok doesn’t pull out his phone like Yoongi and others do, but he starts filling his notes with little stars. When the stars covering the neatly written title at the top of the page aren’t enough, he moves to his friends’ notes. They let him leave little stars in the corners, a small heart if he’s particularly chipper despite the boredom. Everything is a welcome distraction when it’s 6pm and one hour of class left to go, but also Hoseok is too charming to refuse.
He leaves stars everywhere, even on the old wooden desks. He can’t keep totally still during class, Yoongi observes him buzzing , for lack of a better word, as the stars decorate his friends’ notes. A few girls and a boy blush when Hoseok draws a heart.
Yoongi thinks of Taehyung’s description of Hoseok, ‘ it’s like he drank liquid sun when he was very little ’, and he can’t help but wonder how genuine his behaviour is. If Hoseok really has enough energy to spare to light up a room every time he laughs.
♦️♦️♦️
Bologna, Yoongi knows after a little more than a month there, is a microcosm, a small ecosystem with the attitude of a bigger city. Even Namjoon and him, the latest addition to the thousands of students that populate the university coming from all over Italy and the world, soon find themselves connected to other people, like stars assigned to a constellation.
Their roommate, Giulio, knows one of Yoongi’s partners in a project for a Real Time Systems course. Namjoon’s colleagues, which seem even more untethered to reality than Namjoon himself, introduce Yoongi to an Industrial Design student who, when Yoongi asks, unable to resist his curiosity, responds: “Of course I know Hoseok!”
In her mouth, Hoseok sounds like a different name. She then switches to a more affectionate, equally jarring ‘Hobi’ while narrating how lovely and kind he is, but also surprisingly strong-willed.
“We did together a practical assignment for intro to Comp Sci T-2, and he basically finished the work for the rest of us in two days,” she shrugs, begrudgingly impressed. “Without him, we would have done nothing for two weeks before deciding how to split the work among us. When he works, he’s the opposite of when he’s in class. Kinda scary, in a hot way.”
Yoongi doesn’t know how to respond to this new influx of information, so he just says: “Oh, really?”, like an idiot.
Namjoon also notices , as part of his identity as Master Overthinker. He notices Yoongi asking about Hoseok, and his raised eyebrow teases him without the need for words.
“I’m just curious,” Yoongi hisses, which is the truth. There is nothing behind his passive curiosity born from the circumstances, no secret connection between him and Hoseok outside of the net that binds them to everything that reminds them of home, each other included.
Namjoon lets the topic drop. The dinner is a mess, consisting of Italian food cooked by Namjoon’s friends and the man himself, but at least the image of Namjoon trying to cut carrots with the blunt side of the knife is funny enough to be a great topic of conversation. Yoongi doesn’t speak much, except to tease Namjoon and tell brief anecdotes about their undergrad adventures that reawaken the gaping hole of home-sickness for a moment.
He’s not surprised when Namjoon’s friends, the Design students and his own colleague say he’s funny, that they should all hang out together again. The feeling is more thorny and fragile than surprise, and leaves him unsettled long after their guests have gone.
“What is it?” Namjoon asks, taking the other end of the sofa with the last beer in his hand.
“I just…I don’t know. I didn’t think dinner would work.”
“Me neither,” Namjoon does that small smile of his, genuine but timid, close-lipped. “We’re too used to our little group. I’ll call Seokjin-hyung to say I didn’t destroy the kitchen.”
He leaves the beer as a silent offering, on the ugly coffee table that Yoongi suspects was found in a dumpster.
Namjoon is right. They spent so many years being just the three of them, Seokjin-Namjoon-Yoongi, and then they added Taehyung and Jungkook to the mix, that Yoongi isn’t used to, or ready, to feel kinship with other people. He doesn’t want to make friends with people he’ll never see again after this year.
His phone lights up with four new messages, all of them from WhatsApp, therefore Italy-related. Among the texts from different group chats Yoongi doesn’t care about, there’s a single text from an unknown number.
+39 3*********: Yongi-ssi this is Jung Hoseok, Namjoon-ssi gave me your Italian number, I hope it’s okay!!! Do you want to do the CV project with my group? We’re short of a person and I thought we could use your engineering skills ㅋㅋㅋ see you in class!!!!
The message is soon followed by another one composed entirely of fire and thumbs-up emojis. Hoseok’s profile picture is that of an adorable little dog with glassy eyes. Yoongi stares at the screen until Hoseok is not online anymore and then types a single ‘Ok’, feeling like something is happening to him but he’s observing everything from afar, like in a dream.
His screen is flooded by fire emojis. Maybe, his beer-addled brain suggests, just like it happened when he still played the piano and met Namjoon, he won’t have a choice in making friends.
♦️♦️♦️
“So Yoongi, I was hoping you could start with this part? At least for now. Sofia can work on the presentation while I help Yoongi with programming.”
Hoseok’s eyes are sharp as he writes down the schedule on his notebook, raising them only to check if everyone agrees. Yoongi and the Industrial Design student, Sofia, nod in unison. It took Hoseok less than ten minutes to establish his leadership and Yoongi is frankly relieved he won’t have to talk much and will just work on the coding part of the project.
The girl he met at the dinner was right: Hoseok is a different person while he studies, his smiles replaced by a small triangular pout as he flips through his tidy, colour-coded notes. Only when they’ve both been working in silence for fifteen minutes does he let out a hum that is more Hobi-like, little sound effects that Yoongi tries – tries – not to find ridiculously endearing. Normally, he pinches Namjoon’s arm if he munches too loudly while they study, so it’s a small miracle that Hoseok’s soundtrack doesn’t get on his nerves.
Sofia leaves them around the thirty minute mark, promising to work on the Latex script later that day. Immediately, Hoseok reawakens from his crouched position over his laptop to smile at her and thank her for her hard work. Yoongi is 87% sure Sofia is blushing on her way out.
It’s just the two of them left, and for another while there’s only muttered cursing and groans of frustration filling the air as they struggle to understand how to even approach the project. The project is half of their final grade and by now they know the professor is strict and intransigent in everything he does, so the earlier they start working on it, the better. It’s a real problem that this silent, hard-working Hoseok is distracting .
It’s around 6pm on a Friday and the study room is almost empty, since most classes finish early at the end of the week, and it’s too early in the semester for people to worry about finals. The neon lights wash out the colour from Hoseok’s face, and his forest green sweatshirt looks less vibrant than his usual style. One strand of brown hair falls in front of his eyes approximately every thirty seconds, and Yoongi is possessed by the insane thought of getting closer to tuck it behind Hoseok’s ear.
“Yoongi-ssi,” Hoseok surprises him by suddenly turning to him, the switch to Korean bringing back the formality that English doesn’t allow.
“Call me hyung,” Yoongi interrupts him. Hoseok seems to notice in that moment that Yoongi was staring at him, if the impressively fast accent of red blooming on his cheek is anything to go by.
“Yoongi-hyung, I need coffee,” Hoseok amends. The way he says Yoongi’s name, it feels a bit like there’s an inside joke that Yoongi is not privy to. He wants to ask, but it would be too embarrassing to put this thought into words. Why are you so nice to me? is not something he can say out loud without feeling like a third grader.
Hyung, people are allowed to like you, Taehyung’s voice rings in his head like an admonishment from a Victorian ghost in a Dickens story. Don’t act so surprised every time.
“Let’s go then, hyung will pay.”
They pack up their things, too scared by the thought of getting robbed of their precious laptops to take the risk of leaving them unattended, and walk wordlessly to the coffee machines.
“I can afford to pay for two espressos at the cafeteria, you know,” Yoongi says, but Hoseok shakes his head.
“Here is fine. I miss iced americanos so bad,” Hoseok punches the numbers for a cappuccino, his mouth a tiny triangle of annoyance.
“Me too,” Yoongi replies, surprising himself by the fervour in his voice, “I know Italian espresso is supposed to be the real deal but it’s so small .”
“Bitter!” Hobi adds.
“I miss Starbucks.”
Hoseok nods. Yoongi has never agreed with a person more. Hoseok retrieves his cappuccino with a sigh, but the moment his lips touch the beverage, a satisfied smile is back on his face.
“Caffeine,” he sighs. He murmurs his thanks again, more subdued as he recharges through coffee, and in that moment Yoongi has a small revelation.
“So this is why you have so much energy?
Coffee
?” he asks, incredulous. “It can’t be, I’m probably more addicted than you.”
Hoseok is still drinking the steaming coffee, but his eyes get big and he shakes his head vehemently. There’s laughter in his eyes, but for once Yoongi feels he’s in on the joke.
Yoongi’s espresso is as small and bitter as he expected, but he doesn’t notice the taste too much. Hoseok’s smile is distracting.
“I have always been like this,” Hoseok says, more proud than apologetic. “If I hadn’t started dancing in elementary school, my mother would probably have gone crazy.”
“You must have been a menace.” Yoongi tries to imagine a small Hoseok and comes up with someone like Taehyung when they were kids, only less weird. Yoongi used to say he was ‘too old to keep up’ with Taehyung when they played, even when they were 7 and 5 respectively.
“No, I was sweet, I was never wild ,” Hoseok says, scoffing as if the mere thought is ridiculous. “I just couldn’t sleep.”
“Dancing helped?”
“Yes,” Hoseok’s smile is now smaller, private. It reminds Yoongi of Namjoon missing Seokjin. “Dancing always helps. I miss it a lot.”
You can’t do majors and minors in Italy, so Hoseok must have put his minor in Dance on hold. Yoongi has never seen Hoseok dance, but he reads Hoseok’s eyes and understands . Oh, of course he understands. Longing is easy to recognise for him.
“Will you be able to graduate on time, if you don’t work on your minor for a year?”
They’re back in front of the study room, but Hoseok lingers by the closed door. They have never talked this much, and the question might be too personal. Yoongi wants to take it back, to keep the conversation going.
“Probably not,” is what Hoseok settles on.
“Then why did you come here?”
Hoseok does exactly what Yoongi did when Jungkook asked the same question: he smiles and pointedly doesn’t answer.
“Let’s get back to work, hyung. Thank you for the coffee.”
♦️♦️♦️
“Yoongi-hyung!!”
There are only two people who call him that in Bologna, and only one can convey multiple exclamation points with his voice. Yoongi turns, and there Hoseok is. They haven’t properly spoken since the last time they worked on the Computer Vision project.
Hoseok hasn’t got the memo that things may be awkward between them, like Yoongi thought they were. He runs to Yoongi under the porticoes of via Santo Stefano, his Nike Airs squeaking on the wet floor. It’s raining but the centre of Bologna is a maze of porticoes that hide the people from the bad weather, and Hoseok has found him in it.
Hoseok runs to Yoongi with his bag flying behind his back, like half a pair of wings. He’s wearing a long coat that speaks of home, of Korea, and a black beanie. His ears adorably stick out from the beanie, red from the cold, but Hoseok looks warm, alive and bright as usual.
“Hyung, how are you?”
“It’s cold.”
Hoseok doesn’t disappoint: he laughs. Yoongi has learnt that only people who are amused by his dry answers manage to stick around.
“Where are you going? Can I join you?”
“I’m supposed to meet Namjoon for coffee.”
Hoseok does that little frown of his that Yoongi learnt is him trying not to say something impolite.
“What?”
A small moment passes before Hoseok answers: “Don’t you two live together?”
Feeling like he might have missed something happening behind Hoseok’s brown eyes, Yoongi nods slowly. “He’s been holed up in the library all day and he needs someone to distract him.”
“Mh,” Hoseok is walking with him now, adjusting to Yoongi’s slower pace. He is not looking at Yoongi, who can stare at his side profile and wonder if Taehyung has ever felt the urge to draw it, the long elegant line from forehead to nose, the sharp angle of his jawline.
“You can join us.”
The invitation is softer than he wanted it to be. I want you to join us, it basically says. Hoseok has only gotten more interesting and incomprehensible the more they talk, and Yoongi doesn’t want to be nosey, but the question regarding Hoseok’s true colours is still unanswered.
Right now, Hoseok is softer than when he’s in class, more vibrant than when he’s studying and becomes pure focus; the way he struggles to adapt to Yoongi’s slow pace is new, so is the shyness colouring his voice, and the way his knuckles are red even though it’s not really cold, and doesn’t Hoseok have nice delicate hands, burgundy nail polish to colour his nails? That is new, too.
Yoongi can’t stop noticing details about Hoseok, but he doesn’t feel bad about it. Hoseok is looking back, with a sharpness in his eyes that seems to reassure him: ‘ Of course, I notice you too .’
“I’d love to.”
Yoongi looks away. They’re walking towards piazza Santo Stefano, where the street is cobbled and there’s a place that sells delicious gelato with walls covered in vines, next to osterie –pubs– with old wooden chairs and tables that offer overpriced drinks for aperitivo , and overall it’s a place Taehyung would love to draw. Yoongi should send him a picture of the greyish, pensive sky touching the orange of the buildings and the reddish colour of the seven mediaeval churches clustered together on one side.
“Has Taehyung talked to you about Namjoon?”
Hoseok is smiling in the corner of his eye. Whatever was going on in his head at the beginning of their conversation seems to have vanished, replaced by that enigmatic positivity.
“I’ve been told he’s a great cook.”
Yoongi snorts, and Hoseok’s eyes turn into crescents, satisfied. “Seokjin-hyung would have a fit if he heard you saying that. Namjoon melted two of his favourite pans.”
“Who is Seokjin?”
Ah, how lonely life must be, without Seokjin-hyung. It is bizarre to realise just now that Hoseok and Seokjin have never spoken, just like Yoongi knows Park Jimin only by the photos Taehyung takes of him to populate his black and white instagram profile. (Park Jimin, who has lived in symbiosis with Hoseok for years and yet here Hoseok is, alone without him, acting like he doesn’t miss anyone and anything, except Starbucks.)
“Seokjin is Namjoon’s boyfriend,” Yoongi explains. “One of my best friends, actually, but don’t tell him I said that if you two ever meet.”
“I will declare your platonic love for him the moment I meet him,” Hoseok fires back immediately. Yoongi goes for the attack, as being friends with Jungkook taught him, but Hoseok misses the shove easily, and just like that they’re both smiling.
♦️♦️♦️(tw: homophobia)
Later that day, after the coffee à trois , he’ll realise he outed Namjoon and Seokjin to a stranger. And yes, Hoseok is not really a stranger, and he’s friends with Park Jimin who, according to Taehyung’s terrible poetry, is as bi as they come, but he’s not part of the group. He isn’t a member of the tight-knit circle of queer kids that somehow formed around Yoongi without him realising, because of luck and a desperate search for community.
His mind goes back to a dinner Namjoon and him shared with the roommates. In a twist that shouldn’t have been surprising but it was, the fourth roommate with the clingy girlfriend quietly stated he is bi. It’s not easy to be queer in Italy, he said at a certain point. Yoongi can’t remember how they ended up discussing the topic. They thankfully didn’t make comparisons they had no rights to make, they didn’t assume they had it as bad as in other countries, but their words weren’t what Yoongi expected either. ‘ What do you mean?’ asked Namjoon, kindly, ready to be disappointed by the world.
The answer echoed in Yoongi’s chest, created a ringing in his ears. Bologna is considered one of the most progressive cities in Italy when it comes to lgbtq+ rights, but there are still too many aggressions to queer couples out in public, and trans people face terrible discrimination on a daily basis, often by the media itself when they report an episode. The ugly parts of Bologna are muted by the active community, by the corporations performing their mimicry of allyship, but they’re still there, even in the university environment, where a lot of young queers are loud and proud.
And then, Namjoon’s friend smiled bitterly as they fidgeted with their own cross necklace, there is the always tight noose of the Catholic church around the government, the fact that the State is supposed to be secular but the Pope’s opinion counts as much as one of an influential politician elected by the people. The all-too-familiar way queer kids grow up alone and confused and hating themselves, Yoongi knows it intimately.
He trusted Hoseok implicitly, because of his friendships and his character, but in the middle of the night Yoongi wonders if he made a terrible mistake. Some things don’t change only because gay marriage is legal in this country.
He texts Taehyung and Jungkook: Is Hoseok straight?
Only Taehyung answers. Jungkook is rarely on his phone, and Yoongi misses him.
Taehyung: he’s pan I think
Taehyung: jiminie says hoseok came out to him and it helped him a lot to come to terms w/ his sexuality
Taehyung: he’s a good egg hyung
Yoongi stares at the phone, but what he’s really doing is analysing the flurry of wings in his chest as his relief soars. He hopes that even if he didn’t play the piano for Hoseok, Hoseok at least can understand.
♦️♦️♦️
The main library of the city centre is located inside one of the oldest buildings of Piazza Maggiore. Namjoon texts him that particular bit of information together with his position on google maps, as if he couldn’t contain the excitement of being in a really old building before Yoongi could see it with his own eyes.
“Namjoon says he’s in a really old library.”
Namjoon: It sits on top of ancient ruins dating back to the Romans!! You can see them through the glass floor, you’ll see
Namjoon: Actually, to the Etruscans, my bad
Yoongi: that was an unforgivable mistake. I expected more from you
He shows the chat to Hoseok, who laughs good naturedly.
“Is he a History major?”
“Oh, no, but Namjoon knows a bit of everything. Music, history, you name it. He really goes wild for modern art and trees, though, don’t let him start talking about Rothko.”
“That’s so cool,” Hoseok says, and it’s not ironic, because Hoseok is nice .
They find the library –the locals call it Salaborsa, though Google tells them ‘sala borsa’ means ‘room of the bag’, so that is just confusing– in front of the big fountain decorated by an impressive bronze statue of Neptune. Namjoon is waiting for them inside, standing on the transparent floor atop the Roman ruins.
Yoongi: Hoseok is here too
Namjoon: oh is he
Yoongi reads the message in time to glare at Namjoon as they get closer, but the fucker just smiles more widely. Yoongi hears Hoseok murmur something about dimples, stunned. He forgets Hoseok isn’t used to Namjoon’s devastating dimpled smile; Yoongi is immune to it by now.
There’s an inevitable moment after the introductions where they all stand awkwardly, but Hoseok recovers quickly. He and Namjoon actually hit it off better than Yoongi imagined: Hoseok’s father is a literature professor, which means that Hoseok can impress the Kim Namjoon by remembering the name of an author faster than him. When Namjoon sends a wide-eyed look at Yoongi over Hoseok’s shoulders, Yoongi simply shrugs. Hoseok’s pleased expression is bright and charming and evokes a pleased flutter of wings in Yoongi’s chest.
“Let’s get coffee,” Hoseok says. He’s delighted to have found a same-age friend in the Korean group, while Yoongi is not too enthusiastic for a very simple reason: he knows Namjoon has waited for a partner in crime against him since the moment they left Seoul.
“Let the old man pay for us,” Namjoon says, and after a split second of confusion, Hoseok’s eyes comically light up. Yoongi sighs. There it is.
“Yes, of course! But we must find a chair for him first.”
“My god, he must be so tired. His bones are fragile.”
“He walks at snail pace, poor thing.”
“Has he already shown you his ability to power-nap for exactly 40 seconds?” Namjoon asks, and Hoseok cackles.
“No, but I did see him sleep in class.”
“Ok, that’s enough,” Yoongi grumbles. He didn’t miss this type of teasing, he tries to remind himself, he really didn’t. “I was
not
sleeping that day, I was just resting my eyes. Cecchini’s voice is basically ASMR.”
“It is,” Hoseok nods. “I totally slept through the last twenty minutes last Monday.”
“In the second row? That’s brave.”
“I slept through my alarms yesterday. Missed two hours of class,” Namjoon sighs.
“You broke your alarm,” Yoongi corrects him. “Again.”
Hoseok pipes up: “ Again ?” and Yoongi enjoys Namjoon’s embarrassment immensely.
The coffee shop inside the library is modern, decorated in cream white and black. The small metal tables are mostly occupied by young people carrying laptops and books in their tote bags. Hoseok sprints towards the only free table, a black blur that almost sends an old lady to the ground. He gets to the table before a group of girls that entered just before them can put their bags down. The girls’ dirty looks do nothing but bring a catlike smile of satisfaction to his face. He sends Yoongi and Namjoon two thumbs-up.
My god, he’s ridiculous.
“What do you want to order?” Namjoon asks in Hoseok’s direction, unaware of Yoongi’s war between fondness and exasperation: Hoseok looks close to hissing at the group of girls, as he places his coat and backpack strategically to cover the table and two chairs.
“Two iced americanos, please,” Yoongi turns to the barista, ignoring the way Namjoon covers his mouth dramatically before saying in Korean: “ You know his coffee order ?”
“ Stop being an idiot, or I’ll tell Seokjin you finished ‘Friends’ without him .”
“ You wouldn’t dare .”
“ Or that you gave his netflix password to Jungkook .”
Namjoon gasps. “ But that was you !”
“‘ Eat the rich, suck a dick, get that bag’ ,” Yoongi says, doing his best impression of Taehyung when someone asks him if it’s really bohémienne and anticapitalist of him to buy Hermès scarves and Celine jackets.
“ We’re in a place of culture.”
“ Let’s be honest, Taehyung could have probably won Marx over .”
The poor barista looks at them hissing at each other in Korean, coffees in hand and a smile frozen on her face.
“I’m sorry, thank you so much. You pay for your coffee ,” Yoongi directs the last part to Namjoon. He takes the two iced americanos and walks in Hoseok’s direction.
When Hoseok raises his eyes from the phone, he finds Yoongi immediately. They keep staring at each other, even after Yoongi sits, and they both smile while taking a first sip of their delicious iced coffees. They are acting ridiculously, but Yoongi doesn’t see a reason to quash the stupid thought that it is supposed to be this easy between them. The idea that there’s something unfurling among the three of them, unstoppable and colourful and kind.
As if to reward Yoongi’s uncharacteristic bout of optimism, another revelation occurs while they’re going the usual round of questions people who don’t know each other have to go through: what is your major, what type of dance do you do, (how do you know Taehyung), do you have any siblings, do you like staying here, (is it true Jungkook once carried you for three miles on his back because you were drunk?)
Hoseok’s phone starts ringing and Epik High’s ‘GO’ fills the air, a sound so familiar Yoongi feels a specific part of his brain awake just to witness the sound properly. Namjoon does a terrible job of pretending to be calm, while Yoongi wills himself to stay still to avoid the embarrassment of asking Hoseok “ Ohmygodareyouafan ” while the other is still answering his phone.
As soon as Hoseok’s phone call ends, his goodbyes in Korean stilted and apologetic, Music Fan Namjoon attacks.
“Do you like Epik High?” he asks, his tone deadly serious. Too serious, probably, because Hoseok looks alarmed for a moment, his eyes going from Namjoon’s serious gaze to Yoongi’s eyes, who are fixed on him as if the outcome of the rest of their outing depends solely on his answer.
“...Yes?”
“Thank the lord I don’t believe in,” Namjoon exhales, a hand on his heart. “A man of taste.”
“We are… very invested in music,” Yoongi explains.
“You scared me for a second,” Hoseok admits, but he’s slowly smiling. It’s the start of something wonderful .
♦️♦️♦️
Yoongi wants to focus on this: on how Hoseok, Namjoon and him talked for hours about music, the underground rap scene in Seoul, and the latest terrible Kdrama they’re all watching as a desperate cure for homesickness. He wants to focus on the way Hoseok laughed until he almost fell on top of Yoongi, his surprisingly strong hands clutching Yoongi’s sweatshirt.
He wants to remember Namjoon and Hoseok’s mirrored shocked expressions when they realised they all went to the same Eminem concert years ago. Namjoon said something sweet and soft and extremely Namjoon-like such as: “Maybe we saw you. Imagine, we could have met back then! It would have been great ,” and Hoseok was clearly pleased and surprised by the sincerity of that statement, so red he became. Namjoon’s kindness has that effect on people.
He doesn’t want to talk, or think, about the piano.
They were exiting the library after physically dragging Namjoon away from the English books section (“Five more minutes!” “Joon, it’s been two hours, have mercy on us.”). Someone started playing the piano in one corner of the ground floor. Yoongi’s mind didn’t register the music, but his body did, stopping immediately like he’d been struck by lightning.
Someone was playing Chopin. Of course. Nothing too difficult to play, there was a time when Yoongi knew that Nocturne by heart. His heart did a terrible thing where the pain was too much, too soon, and it felt like it stopped for a moment.
Namjoon said, drunk on the happiness of their afternoon: “Hyung, a piano! Play for us, please!”
He didn’t mean to send Yoongi deeper into his panic. It was an honest mistake, born from years of having Yoongi accept that same request with a smile. But they weren’t in Seoul anymore, and Hoseok was looking at Yoongi with his usual curiosity lighting up his eyes. It took him a second to realise the fear in Yoongi’s eyes, the unnatural stiffness of his body. Yoongi couldn’t move, or breathe.
“Hyung?” Hoseok asked. He quickly went from curious to apprehensive, but it only fuelled Yoongi’s feelings of wrongness. It was all wrong. He was not supposed to think about what he’d left behind.
“I don’t play,” he only said. His own voice sounded far away, coming from a different place altogether. In a way, he was separated from the others: a part of him was thinking of the piano. He was analysing the amateur playing, the choice of the piece, he was imagining himself in an empty room sitting in front of his very first piano, hands itching to play another piece. Past and present blurred together: the only constant was the dull pain in his chest.
“Hyung, are you okay?” Hoseok asked again, but Yoongi was not ready for Jung Hoseok, not really. He was barely ready to be his friend, let alone ready to face the open worry on the other’s face, the possibility he represented. (Yoongi’s heart was not born yesterday.)
“I have to go. See you in class,” he said. He dodged Hoseok’s hands trying to make him stay, he avoided looking at Namjoon’s face, anticipating the guilt and pity twisting his features. He was walking, running away, before any more words could reach him.
He was running away, feeling like he’d just let Hoseok in on a secret he wasn’t ready to share, feeling once again like a failure.
♦️♦️♦️
Hoseok sits next to him in Computer Vision class.
( Pause . Yoongi doesn’t know if he should look at him, if they need to talk, if this fragile newborn thing between them is still alive, if he’s right when he thinks he should be scared of Jung Hoseok, pretty and kind and complicated like a melody you lose your nights to learn, willingly.)
Hoseok asks him if he’s okay once. He accepts the ‘yes’ with a nod, no smile. His eyes are kind.
(There’s a mole on Hoseok’s upper lip that Yoongi thinks shouldn’t exist silently. Someone should say: “Do you know you have a mole right here?”, and maybe kiss it, maybe Hoseok’s future partner will do exactly like that and they will be lucky to witness Hoseok’s shy smile in response.)
Hoseok draws one star on Yoongi’s notebook when he thinks the other isn’t looking. Or maybe he knows perfectly well that Yoongi is constantly aware of his movements, and this is him sparing Yoongi the ordeal of eye-contact. Maybe he draws a star on purpose, so that Yoongi can look at his pretty hand, slender fingers holding the blue pen carefully, chipped blue nail polish to match the colour perfectly.
(‘ Why are you so nice to me?’ he thinks. Then, to Taehyung’s ghost in his mind: ‘I am not used to new people being careful around me. There’s a difference. It’s important, and it’s there.’ )
“Coffee?” Hoseok asks him the moment the professor gives them ten minutes to recover from an hour and a half of mind-numbing mathematics.
Yoongi nods. He could let it go, ignore the unsaid thing between them, but there’s a part of him that after being friends with Namjoon and Seokjin for years has learnt the value of communication.
“I used to play the piano,” Yoongi says, encapsulating his past identity in less than ten words. “I don’t anymore. I’m sorry I ran off that way.”
“It’s okay,” Hoseok hums, takes a sip of terrible 40 cent coffee like it holds all the answers in the universe. “Namjoon felt really bad, but I’m sure he didn’t mean to upset you like that,” and he’s right, Yoongi and Namjoon talked about it before sharing chamomile at two am like the couple of insomniac men they are.
Hoseok smiles. Amusement travels from his eyes to his lips and it’s like experiencing a new type of sunrise. “I thought you two were dating, but then you said he had a boyfriend.”
Yoongi splutters. “What? Me and Joon ?”
Sure, there are universes where they’re in love and married, or at least living together for more than a decade, but not this one. Hoseok at least looks a tiny bit embarrassed, but his laugh is genuine. “You two are always together!”
“He’s my only friend here!” Yoongi says, and immediately feels horrible. “I mean, he is–“
Hoseok gasps. “I knew you were only using me for the project.”
“I didn’t mean it, you are...” Yoongi struggles to find what to say. Right now, Wise Namjoon’s communication skills have abandoned him. Hoseok watches him flounder, amused. “I am glad you’re here,” he says lamely.
Jung Hoseok drank liquid sunshine when he was a kid. He smiles like he can’t help it, even if Yoongi has seen him when he’s focused and knows that he actually has a resting bitch face whenever he’s not actively smiling. He is a really good liar, in the sense he has as many secrets as Yoongi, and yes, Yoongi is happy he’s here and not in Korea.
“Ah, Yoongi-hyung,” Hoseok says, looking pleased like a cat who tricked a human into giving them what they wanted, “I’m happy to be here, too.”
♦️♦️♦️
Autumn comes to a close with an abrupt drop in temperatures. Yoongi walks around with a thick scarf around his neck that hides his smile when Namjoon trips on invisible obstacles and Hoseok is there to catch him, laughing loudly for the both of them.
“Be careful!” Hoseok shrieks. They attract the curious stares of people walking under the porticoes with them, and a kid laughs, unabashed, at Namjoon struggling to remain upright on a thick slab of ice. Hoseok, tiny in comparison to a Namjoon bundled in a long coat and scarf and beanie, valiantly tries to support his weight. He’s wearing forest green mittens and an adorable green knitted beanie that makes him look like a frog.
“Let him fall, it’s a miracle he’s still alive,” Yoongi says, overcome by the realisation that he’s happy, despite the cold and the classes awaiting him in less than an hour. “Darwin’s natural selection would want him dead.”
As if to punish him for his hubris, the moment the words leave his lips the universe decides to put ice under his feet. The world spins quickly as he unceremoniously falls on his ass.
Namjoon laughs, the fucker, but the first thing Yoongi sees is not his best friend, but Hoseok looking down at him, eyes sparkling with amusement when he realises the only bruised thing is Yoongi’s ego.
“Hyung, you must stay healthy for me,” Hoseok says after helping him upright. “We can’t have you sick, or with a broken ankle.”
Despite Yoongi’s insistence he can walk by himself, Hoseok doesn’t leave his side until they reach the university building. As they walk, he points out all the cute dogs walking around with little coats to fight the cold, and this is how they end up talking about Mickey, the ‘fur baby’ Hoseok left in Korea to the care of his parents.
Hoseok shows him photos of Mickey, “Look how adorable he is!”, but Yoongi has to admit one thing to himself: it’s difficult to focus on Mickey while having Hoseok so close. He barely registers Namjoon saying goodbye as he heads to his classes, only half-listens to Hoseok’s story about Mickey finding a suspicious rock in a park. There’s something genuine and beautiful about this Hoseok, loud and a little embarrassing and earnest.
Yoongi lets himself stare, only for a short while.
♦️♦️♦️
“ Jiminie is preparing for a winter showcase, so he’s super busy. ”
Yoongi can hear Taehyung’s pout across the thousands of kilometres separating them. “That’s terrible,” he says, hoping Taehyung will consider his comment adequate and not realise he’s basically falling asleep to the sound of his voice.
“ Do you know if, uhh, if Hoseok-ssi is okay? ”
Yoongi sits up straighter, glad Taehyung can’t see him. Slowly, he says: “I didn’t notice anything weird. He was okay in class. Why?”
Hoseok this morning was sleepy, blinking owlishly at the professor with a little frown between his eyebrows as if revising topics for the final project was a personal attack. He was quieter than usual, but nothing out of the ordinary. On the contrary, Yoongi has come to see this side of Hoseok more often, he knows how soft and grumpy Hoseok looks when he just woke up, or when he hasn’t gotten enough sleep to binge a series on Netflix. He also knows when Hoseok is sad and doesn’t want to talk, but basically begs for some sort of physical affection, ready to sag in Namjoon’s hug when they meet up for lunch in between classes. He catalogues all of Hoseok’s expressions, yet he doesn’t know if he can answer Taehyung’s question truthfully.
“ Jimin says he doesn’t answer his texts. The last time they talked was for Jimin’s birthday. ”
Taehyung and Jimin had a non-date that day. Yoongi knows this from Taehyung’s extensive retelling of the events, including a three paragraph message detailing the cuteness of Jimin’s hands and cheeks, second only to the monster essay about the softness of Jimin’s lips.
“He’s very busy,” he says. He can’t explain why he’s saying this, as if he has any reason to answer on Hoseok’s behalf, but the memory of Hoseok checking his messages at least a hundred times, waiting for Jimin to see his birthday texts, leaves a sour taste in his mouth. “I’m sure he just forgot.”
Taehyung hums. Yoongi thinks he’s starting to understand something very important, the reason why Taehyung is suddenly pensive and talks about the silence between Hoseok and Jimin as if he’s involved in the matter, but then Taehyung says he has to go and hangs up on him, and the thought disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving behind only half-formed doubts.
“Are you okay?” Namjoon asks him. He appeared by the door with the quietness he only sometimes possesses, because Namjoon is the type of person who likes silence almost as much as music, one of the many reasons they’re friends.
“My head’s a mess,” he answers truthfully. He used to practise his music every time the thoughts piled up in his mind this way, but now there’s not that option anymore, and Namjoon knows that too well.
“Want to call Seokjin-hyung with me?”
Yoongi looks up to Namjoon and feels brittle and hard inside, exposed under the scrutiny of friends who know him too well, who care about him even on days such as this one, where the fog in his mind turns every step of living into a chore.
“Okay,” he says softly.
Namjoon leaves him some space on the sofa, places the laptop on the coffee table. He almost knocks down a glass of water in the process, and the sight is so familiar in an environment that is not their old apartment in Seoul, that Yoongi can’t believe he’s so lucky to be here with his best friend, that he doesn’t have to miss him the way Jimin misses Hoseok but maybe doesn’t have the words to say it.
“You know I wouldn’t be here without you, right?” It comes off like an accusation, soft around the edges. Of course, Namjoon understands.
“I’ll make it up to you one day. I’ll let you become a hermit and bring enrichment to your enclosure.”
He snorts. “Sure. But only if hyung will handle the food.”
“It’s a plan. It’s a really good plan. Let’s tell hyung.”
♦️♦️♦️
They won’t fly home for the end of the year holidays. The decision is taken by the new council of three, Namjoon-Yoongi-Hoseok, in Hoseok’s flat, which he shares with six other roommates, most of whom already know Yoongi and Namjoon by name for the sole fact that Hoseok could befriend a rock and talks about Yoongi and Namjoon with heartwarmingly high frequency.
“It’s expensive as fuck,” Yoongi shrugs. Being partially estranged from his parents means he can take the decision with a light heart, contrary to Hoseok, who spent weeks searching for cheap flights before losing hope.
“I have plans to see hyung,” Namjoon confesses, as if it’s a secret point 2 of ‘Why should Yoongi and Namjoon go to Italy’ relied solely on Seokjin’s job in Paris. Having a talented chef boyfriend has its downfalls, and Yoongi knows Namjoon excels in missing people he loves with the ability of an old soul.
“My mum is heartbroken,” Hoseok sighs. “She says she doesn’t want me to celebrate alone, even if it’s not Chuseok.”
They’re in Hoseok’s bedroom, and Hoseok is holding close to his chest a Mang plushie for emotional support. Apparently he collects Mangs just like Namjoon collects Koyas, a fact which Yoongi tries – tries – not to find endearing.
“You won’t be alone. We’re not going back to Korea.”
Hoseok bites the inside of his cheek. “But you’ll be in Paris.”
Oh , Yoongi realises. Fondness tastes like the hot chocolate Hoseok made for them to celebrate finishing the Computer Vision project. “No, Seokjin - hyung is flying here,” he corrects him.
Realisation dawns on Hoseok’s forlorn expression leaving his mouth into a perfect ‘o’.
“You can celebrate with us,” Namjoon says. “Hyung can’t wait to meet you.”
“I–really?”
Yoongi feels it again, the unfamiliar urge to hug Hoseok and see his pretty smile up close. ( It’s getting bad , one of the last rational brain cells comments, the infection is spreading. It’s a full blown crush . Yoongi pointedly ignores the warning signs.)
“Seokjin-hyung needs slaves in the kitchen. He can’t use Namjoon, so we’re sacrificing you,” he says. Hoseok shoves him out of his bed and Yoongi laughs as he falls in a mess of pillows. The thought of spending the holidays just the four of them feels fragile and perfect and something to look forward to, and the realisation leaves him breathless almost as much as Hoseok’s hug does.
♦️♦️♦️
Yoongi doesn’t realise how much he missed Seokjin until he hears him laugh. The full blown longing that bursts into his chest when he sees him entering the flat is enough to steal his breath away, just a little. When Seokjin hugs him, Yoongi doesn’t even try to pretend he didn’t miss him. Hugs are rare between them, but this one is necessary almost as much as breathing. They lived together for three years before Seokjin decided being hot and talented in Seoul wasn’t enough, and Yoongi gets why he did it, or at least an old version of him understood the sentiment. He’s not so versed in ambition now, but he has enough affection for Seokjin not to blame him for leaving them to fend for themselves for more than a year.
“Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin says, delighted and burning red with embarrassment after such a blatant display of affection. “Europe has made you soft.”
His voice is the same as always, just like his laugh is, but at the same time it’s entirely different from the one Yoongi has heard on the phone when they FaceTimed and exchanged brief but earnest, perfunctory questions about their reciprocal state in different countries (“ Are you eating well? ” “Mh, yeah.” “ What did you eat today? ” “…three cans of Monster.” “ Min Fucking Yoongi. ”). Seokjin’s squeaky laughter is, together with Namjoon’s low voice when he reads out loud, part of Yoongi’s sample of ‘home’, if he ever decided to compose again.
“Europe has made me thin,” Yoongi drawls. “I am but skin and bone,” he squints at Seokjin. “And so are you.”
Seokjin is thin, and the bags under his eyes are barely noticeable, which for Seokjin’s standards means he’s ready to sleep for 48 hours straight the moment he steps foot in Namjoon’s room. Namjoon seems to agree with Yoongi’s thoughts: he frets around his boyfriend with eyes brimming with love and worry. Yoongi estimates he has three minutes before A) Seokjin falls asleep with his eyes open, a neat trick he used multiple times when he was still a student, B) Namjoon quickly steals Seokjin away, or C) Seokjin mentions Yoongi changing his major way too late and the inevitable fight they’ve been delaying for a year ensues.
They study each other, taking in each other’s weariness, exhaustion, happiness, the familiar way Seokjin almost smiles unconsciously but never does fully and Yoongi’s new slouch, the way he hides his hands in the pocket of his jeans as if Seokjin can see they’re not playing hands anymore, that they’re useless.
“I missed you,” Seokjin says. He says it so simply, it is basically a white flag. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
The thing is, a part of Yoongi was angry at Seokjin for leaving them. When his depression had him crash and burn, Seokjin was thousands of kilometres away. He knows, deep down, that he’d have quit anyway, even with Seokjin in Seoul begging him not to throw away more than a decade of tears and sweat and a dream. He believes there are no universes where pursuing that dream alone –without Namjoon, who stepped foot into an art gallery and found the secret of the universe for a third and final time and dropped everything to chase it–, didn’t require a price that was too high to pay. Yet when the sequence of his thoughts became darker and darker, Seokjin’s absence became a wound on its own.
Yoongi’s anger evaporates as silently as it was born.
He smiles, the smile that Taehyung, if he was there with them and not kissing Park Jimin in Seoul, would describe as ‘adorable, it shows your teeth’.
“I’m picking up the pieces,” he says. If Namjoon asks, he’ll say he’s talking about the glass Namjoon broke before leaving for the airport, but both Seokjin and Yoongi will know that’s not true at all, and it will be another truth that goes unsaid, second only to the fact that they’re each other first true friend, good roommate, the voice you call an ocean away when you feel like the world is burning.
♦️♦️♦️
Hoseok is shy for a grand total of ten minutes, then he embarks on the quest to become Seokjin’s second favourite human –first being Namjoon– in less than three hours.
Yoongi introduces them. It is, predictably, a grave mistake on his part.
“Yoongi said he loves you,” Hoseok says. “It’s a secret message he trusted me to deliver.”
The memory of their conversation of two months before flashes in Yoongi’s mind. Seokjin, granted the power to destroy Yoongi’s cold facade for the umpteenth time, doesn’t show mercy, to prove he hasn’t lost the ability to embarrass Yoongi in the months they’ve been apart.
“Yoongi-yah, give hyung a kiss, let’s celebrate our love!” he screams, delighted.
Namjoon’s head emerges from the living room. He’s supposedly setting up the computer for the movie they’ll watch after dinner, but judging by the cable hanging around his neck like a necklace there will be technical problems.
“Should I be worried?” Namjoon blinks. Seokjin is trying to kiss Yoongi, while the other holds a wooden spoon dirty with tomato sauce as a sword and threatens to spread the sauce on Seokjin’s pristine white sweater. It’s not like he hates physical affection, it’s a matter of principle , being able to resist Seokjin’s pouty lips when he asks for something.
“I thought this was normal between them,” Hoseok admits.
Namjoon observes the scene, then looks at Hoseok. He lets the hdmi cable fall to the ground. “You know what, you’re absolutely right. Can you give me a hand? I can’t retrieve my Netflix password.”
Yoongi interrupts his choreographed dance with Seokjin, holding up a hand to say: “Jungkook knows the password.”
Seokjin freezes. “Wait, what? But it’s my account. Who gave– Joonie ?”
“It was Yoongi.”
“It was Namjoon.”
“It was Jungkook’s puppy eyes.”
“Hoseok,” Seokjin declares, placing a hand on Hoseok’s shoulder. “You are now named my favourite dongsaeng. Use your powers wisely.”
“Well,” Hoseok says. He gently takes the spoon from Yoongi’s hand and places it back in the pan. “Then we shall not watch a horror movie.”
“But Shyamalan is more art than horror!” Namjoon complains.
“The dongsaeng hath spoken,” Seokjin nods. “His word is law.”
“And Namjoon doth protest too much.”
“Good to know you can go along with the program, Yoongi. It helps with team bonding.”
Seokjin has promised them his best imitation of Korean food with Italian ingredients, but since Yoongi and Namjoon’s fridge is as desolate as it was on their first week in Italy, he has to settle for stealing the food their fourth roommate left them before rushing back to his parent’s house for the holidays. The air soon smells of tomato, onion, oil, a combination that after months away from home is somewhat familiar.
“You can’t go wrong with pasta,” Seokjin explains, then proceeding to spell out loud pizza, pasta and other random Italian words, ending with ‘peperoncino’ (pepper, as Google tells Yoongi), to show off his knowledge.
“We once let some pasta cook for like, thirty minutes,” Namjoon admits. While Hoseok and Yoongi gag just remembering how disgusting the pasta blob was, Seokjin is too horrified to speak.
“I would kill for some good tteokbokki,” Hoseok says. Yoongi observes with a hint of respect and fascination how Hoseok shamelessly pouts in Seokjin’s direction. He’s smart, Yoongi will give him that. Seokjin can’t resist–
“I can’t believe my life vocation is feeding malnourished college students. I will make you tteokbokki so good you’ll lie to your mother about hers being the best of your life.”
–there it is. Seokjin’s eyes are bright with determination like a Joan of Arc of the kitchens.
“Hyung, you could have been an actor,” Hoseok chirps. He swiftly pinches Yoongi’s side.
“Yeah, or an idol,” Yoongi quickly adds. “Your talents are wasted with us, and we owe you our life.”
“That was a bit too much,” Hoseok whispers.
“Namjoon has said worse.”
As if to prove Yoongi’s words, Namjoon, overcome with emotion for his boyfriend, whispers something in Seokjin’s ear that is so corny (horny? Yoongi doesn’t want to know), the other’s ears become tomato red in seconds.
“They’re cute,” Hoseok says. Something in his voice has Yoongi turning to look at him. It’s not in Hoseok’s nature to be so openly wistful at others’ fortunes. Every time they walk in front of that shop that sells a jacket Hoseok really really wants, Yoongi only hears the quietest of dreamy sighs.
“They’re that couple,” Yoongi agrees. He tilts his head to the side, trying to look at Namjoon and Seokjin as if he hasn’t known them long before they got together. “They genuinely like each other, and they communicate . Seokjin thinks Namjoon could win any Nobel prize and Namjoon thinks Seokjin is the second reason why the universe is still spinning. You know,” he exhales. “Absolutely disgusting.”
Hoseok bursts into laughter, his presence warm at Yoongi’s side. There’s still something clouding his eyes and smile, but Yoongi doesn’t know if he should ask. They’re having a nice dinner and he doesn’t want Hoseok to retreat into himself like he does when he’s drunk or lonely. Maybe he’s selfish, but he likes seeing Hoseok happy.
(A question, posed by the Taehyung in his head, this time donning a fluffy cardigan and round glasses as he poses as Yoongi’s imaginary therapist: You said you want Hoseok to be happy. How did we get here? Walk me through the steps. )
“Jimin would love them,” Hoseok says. It’s not the first time he’s mentioned his best friend in Yoongi’s presence, but this time it feels purposeful. “He really believes in love.”
“You don’t?”
Namjoon and Seokjin are quietly chatting while Seokjin stirs the sauce. Hoseok’s focus is now entirely on Yoongi; he recently cut his hair and there’s nothing to hide his sharp eyes.
“My idea of love is… on purpose, I guess. No soulmates, just two people really trying to make it work. Walking in the same direction.”
Yoongi takes in Hoseok’s words and doesn’t look away. He says:“Or towards each other.”
Hoseok’s eyes soften. “Yes. You can’t be the only one running. After a while you realise you’re just alone.”
♦️Seven hours before, Seoul♦️
Approximately eight thousand kilometres away, Kim Taehyung is walking Park Jimin home, his heart growing heavier by the second as Jimin’s flat gets closer.
He has known Jimin for less than a year, yet he knows the path to Jimin’s place like the back of his hand –or like the back of Jimin’s hand, really. He has studied Jimin with the intensity of a scholar learning about their favourite subject, to build a foundation for the love he felt for Jimin since the day they met.
Yoongi and his other hyungs know him well, yet they think he jumped in Jimin’s orbit without hesitation. The truth is that meeting Jimin was terrifying. It was like wishing for a star to guide his way home and instead receiving a sun to hold in the palm of his hand, bright and impossible and everything he’s ever dreamed of. Jimin was, for a while at least, cut out from the fabric of Taehyung’s dreams of love. Believing in his existence was as terrifying as admitting you just witnessed a miracle.
He could have run away from Jimin’s smile, from their instant connection, but also from the bantering and the bickering that flowed so naturally between them. He was the one who asked for Jimin’s number, but he could have chosen to never text him after their first fateful meeting.
To put it simply: he chose differently.
He texted Jimin, with the intention of understanding if the feeling of coming home he felt when he talked to him was a fluke or temporary or real . He spent countless hours in the library while the other studied, observing the way his hair fell in front of his eyes while he read, the way he folded himself on the chair with impressive flexibility in a pose that didn’t look comfortable at all. He walked with him between classes, he met Jimin’s friends and charmed them to the best of his abilities. He offered devotion and received it back tenfold.
The truth is that Jimin makes him happy. It’s a simple concept: it has nothing to do with the rush of adrenaline-surprise-euphoria he associates with their first meeting. Happiness with Jimin is a gentle hand carding through his hair, a smile that greets him every morning at 8 am even if they both wished they could sleep till midday. It’s Jimin’s texts reassuring him that he’ll ace his tests, it’s the two of them snuggling on the sofa while watching dramas, Jimin’s cold hands tucked between Taehyung’s for the simple fact they fit perfectly.
They’ve kissed at least three times, and went on too many not-dates for Taehyung not to recognise the signs of awkwardness in Jimin now that the night is coming to a close and two weeks of separation await them.
Jimin is going to Busan for the holidays. Taehyung isn’t sure he has the strength to miss another person.
“Jimin-ah,” Taehyung says. Jimin stops walking. “Talk to me?”
Silence is rarely awkward between them, but this one is almost tense, walking the fine line between excitement and trepidation. Jimin looks at him.
“I can’t stand the thought of you being angry at me,” Jimin says in one breath, as if the words are too painful to sit on his tongue another second.
Taehyung’s eyes widen. “Why would I be angry at you?”
“Because I needed time, I wasn’t ready.”
Their first fight. Taehyung thought, maybe exaggerating a bit, that he was going to die on the spot when he realised they were arguing. Jimin was on the defensive, words sharp and unsurprisingly adept at cutting where it hurt the most –they knew each other well already–, while Taehyung was only confused and hurt. If they felt the same, why weren’t they together already?
“I told you, I can wait,” Taehyung says, but Jimin is shaking his head.
“I fucked up. I ignored Hobi for weeks and now he won’t talk to me,” Jimin says, the hurt in his voice too evident for Taehyung to bear. “I don’t want to string you along.”
He could hurt Jimin now, say what they’re both thinking: Like you strung Hoseok along?
But the truth is more complicated than that, and it’s not his side of the story. The only thing that matters is that Jimin is not running away, he’s willing to talk. It’s late and it’s a miracle that nobody is walking past them while they have their heart to heart, but they’re both here .
Hoseok is not here , Taehyung thinks, and he has the honesty to recognise that maybe things would have been different if not for the exchange program. It is no use to think about what ifs, now. (A stubborn, smaller part of him argues that actually, Jimin and him are meant to be, in some way or another, red string tying them together.)
“So… What are we going to do?” he asks, careful to leave his deepest emotions hidden, knowing Jimin will read them anyway in the lines of his face. He is an open book: his eyes can’t stray from Jimin, not even for a second.
“I think,” Jimin bites his lower lip, looks away so Taehyung can’t see the tears. “I called the shots for too long.”
Ah, that simply won’t do.
Taehyung takes Jimin’s hands in his.
(A memory, the second time they met. Taehyung still had butterflies in his stomach to warn him of the danger Jimin represented for the current trajectory of his life: be careful, Jimin may change everything.
“Your hands are so cute. You’re cute.
”
Jimin speechless, blinking at Taehyung like he can’t believe Taehyung said that out loud either. Jimin smiling, amused and in control, beautiful and shy all at the same time.)
“Jimin, I’m here. I am not going anywhere. There is no one or nothing forcing me to wait for you except the fact that I’m hopelessly infatuated with you.”
Jimin gasps. Taehyung dreams of a world where Jimin is not surprised anymore by the proof that someone on this Earth, that Taehyung, loves him.
He knows he must be patient, there will be time for that. First, he kisses Jimin. He starts the kiss in control, but soon there are small hands pulling him closer, and Jimin’s lips pry his open until he’s nothing but feeling, nothing but not-Jimin, his existence as part of a duo.
“Be my boyfriend,” Jimin tells him between kisses, as if it’s a spell to bind them together. Taehyung has never felt so happy.
After he’s watched Jimin get inside of his building, waving until he was sure Jimin couldn’t see him anymore even if he turned back to look at him one last time, and then for a moment more, Taehyung allows himself to dream about the future. His are half-formed thoughts, shapeless daydreams tinged with the wistful melancholy that never leaves him once the sun goes down. He is a romantic at heart: big feelings battle inside his heart like birds in a too small cage. Despite that, he isn’t too worried about everything that can go wrong in his and Jimin’s relationship: he knows he holds only one half of the picture.
As soon as he sees Jimin again, he’ll be able to see the glowing future clearly.
♦️♦️♦️
Unsurprisingly, the winter holidays slip between Yoongi’s fingers before he can realise that they’re already halfway over.
Seokjin and Namjoon are almost always together: the only reason why Yoongi doesn’t mind, not even with the small part of him that could feel like a third wheel in what was once a platonic triumvirate, is that they act like they’ve never been separated in the first place. They’re exactly as Yoongi remembers them, which comforts him more than he can put into words.
After that first few days where Namjoon couldn’t let Seokjin out of his sight, they fell back into their usual dynamic. They’re not overly affectionate with one another, except when Seokjin gets flustered and Namjoon can’t contain the satisfaction of putting the red in Seokjin’s cheeks and ears and he has to kiss him, loud and playful, on the cheek, on the mouth, wherever he can reach before Seokjin complains and laughs and pushes him away with a shriek. Namjoon is a special kind of affectionate with Seokjin.
Yoongi tries to explain it to Hoseok this way: Namjoon and Seokjin share space like they could read or study in separate rooms, they simply don’t want to. Seokjin will work on his laptop while Namjoon completes his readings, and only afterwards they’ll look at each other and telepathically agree that they’re in the mood for sushi. They don’t miss each other anymore, and Seokjin manages not to let Namjoon dwell on those past feelings: they’re quietly happy, sharing the same umbrella as they walk home like they’ve been doing this for years, and they have , just under a different sky.
“So you don’t feel jealous at all,” Hoseok says. Prone to PDA or not, Seokjin and Namjoon deserve some time by themselves, and Yoongi spends that time with Hoseok. It doesn’t mean anything, since it’s not like there are other exchange students they could spend their time with –Jinyoung flew back home, and Jackson is, as far as Yoongi knows, everywhere and nowhere like any person with too many friends incapable of saying ‘no’ to a social invitation.
Yoongi shakes his head, mouth full of pizza. He doesn’t want to be a person who goes back home and complains the pizza is not like the Italian one, but he’s afraid he’ll become one. Hoseok, already halfway through his last slice, seems to agree with the sentiment.
“Why should I? We hang out as friends a lot.”
Hoseok pouts, deep in thought with his cheeks stuffed with pizza.
“You kinda look like a squirrel right now,” Yoongi says before he can regret the thought. “A very pensive squirrel.”
Hoseok rolls his eyes, embarrassed. “Squirrels don’t have to worry about exams. I’d love to be one.”
“You’ll be fine. You weren’t thinking about exams, though.”
They share a long look, Yoongi angling his eyebrows to say: “ You don’t fool me ,” and Hoseok going: “ You’re being mean ,” with his triangle mouth in retaliation. It’s insane how quickly they’ve picked up the non-verbal language between them, just by spending entire days studying and eating –and complaining– together. (Yoongi is trying not to focus too much on this new development.)
“It’s nothing,” Hoseok says.
“Come on, tell hyung. I give really good advice. Do you need romantic advice? I helped Namjoon when he asked Seokjin-hyung out.”
Yoongi has drunk some beer, but not enough to warrant the way he can’t seem to be able to shut up tonight. With some horror, he realises Hoseok is considering his offer.
“You like someone?” He asks, realises, and states in the same breath.
“I–hyung, you can’t be that dense,” Hoseok scoffs, but avoids looking at him directly. “ Everyone knows.”
Yoongi feels the pool of dread and embarrassment in his stomach grow teeth that sink into his body.
“How could I know?” he asks genuinely, but he does know. He suspected. Was he right when he thought he understood everything, when Taehyung called and asked about Hoseok?
Hoseok’s joy is like the autumn sun, one moment warm and beautiful and a memory of summer, one moment waning, dull and a pale imitation of what it once was. He finishes his pizza to take time, but his movements are robotic, he’s both far away and not happy to be here with Yoongi.
Is this the moment where he asks Hoseok for something he is not ready to give? (If Hoseok asked him to talk about the piano, Yoongi still wouldn’t answer.)
Oh, Yoongi suddenly remembers. A few hours ago, Taehyung and Jimin posted a photo together for their first week anniversary. He’s an idiot.
“I’m sorry, Hob-ah. Sorry. You don’t have to tell me,” he says, hating himself for ruining the dinner. They were supposed to watch the finale of the sappy drama together, but he imagines Hoseok doesn’t want to stay the night now. Their sofa isn’t that comfortable in the first place.
“Do you want to go home?” he asks. Hoseok shrinks into himself as if the words hit him.
This is bad,
Yoongi thinks.
Bad bad bad terrible.
“Maybe it’s better if I go home, yes,” Hoseok says slowly. “Thank you for the pizza.” He smiles, dimples showing. If Yoongi didn’t spend a semester cataloguing his smiles, he’d be fooled into thinking it’s sincere.
“It’s nothing. Are you sure you’re okay? I am sorry I asked.”
“Hyung, it’s fine. I just have a lot going on in here,” Hoseok taps his temple with a rueful little smile. “I’ll be fine for the big dinner.”
And he is. By the time they meet up again for Seokjin’s big dinner –for which he employs the three of them as servants and utilises every single kitchen appliance in their small flat–, Hoseok acts like their last conversation never happened. He’s loud over dinner, then he’s both teary and tipsy with his face so red, tipsy-Yoongi can’t stop thinking about squishing his cheeks.
They play charades and lose to the Namjin duo to the surprise of no one, though Yoongi suspects Seokjin simply cheated under Hoseok’s trusting eyes. Losing is worth it if it means Hoseok will hug him to congratulate him for the way he impersonated being a rock, truly incredible, hyung.
By the time they decide to play a game on Seokjin’s phone where others must make you guess the word written on the screen on your forehead, the combined efforts of the food and alcohol have killed most of their brain cells. Hoseok goes from being catatonic and teary to yelling and laughing, Namjoon shouts louder and louder as he keeps guessing wrong, and Seokjin would cheat if not for Yoongi launching himself on Seokjin’s lap to keep his mouth closed with force.
“MPHF!” Seokjin screams.
“DWAYNE THE ROCK JOHNSON!” Namjoon shouts even louder. Hoseok lets out a high-pitched scream that could break glass and throws himself to the ground as he laughs with his whole body.
“We said they were a woman!” Yoongi exclaims, closer to hysteria than he’s more comfortable admitting. “The Rock isn’t a woman!”
Hoseok laughs even louder. He’s so beautiful that Yoongi gets distracted for a moment, and Seokjin takes the opportunity to free himself and say: “It’s your favourite soloist!”
“There it is, the point doesn’t count,” Hoseok shakes his head, while Namjoon finally secures his round.
Hoseok, tipsy-Yoongi realises, fits like a missing piece. He already knows how to playfully argue with Seokjin, and entertains Namjoon when the other gets philosophical. He knows that Yoongi gets louder when he’s drunk, and promised he wouldn’t drink too much to balance the fact that a Wild Namjoon and a Tipsy Yoongi are a wild pair.
Hoseok, tipsy-Yoongi notices, hasn’t touched him the whole night. In his current state, Yoongi deems it a terrible injustice. Filled with burning courage, he scuttles closer to Hoseok. Centimetres separate them –basically agony.
Yoongi wonders when was the last time he had a crush. He laughs with his oldest friends and his newest one and thinks Hoseok should feel like a safe crush, since it can never happen, since Hoseok is so lovely and beautiful and kind he would never burn his heart to dust, yet right in this moment it feels like a fire. Yoongi fears, as much as he tries to reach, the day he will look at Hoseok and the emotion in his chest will push him to compose again.
Hoseok agrees to sleep on their sofa after much arguing and bargaining. Yoongi’s brain fixates on how Hoseok holds his hand for a moment when he tells him he should go to his room and sleep in his bed. It’s the first intentional point of contact in the whole night.
“I’m sorry I asked you about Jimin. Hyung’s sorry,” Yoongi murmurs. Jin and Namjoon are already in their room, and Hoseok’s beautiful side profile is illuminated by only one light, leaving a side of his face in blue-grey darkness.
“ What ?” Hoseok says, then softer: “Hyung, you’re drunk.”
There’s a soft note of marvel in his voice, and Yoongi smiles. “Possibly,” he says, deadpan.
“You smile so much when you’re drunk.”
“I am sorry ,” Yoongi repeats, with more insistence.
“You’ll have to explain to me tomorrow why you’re sorry, because I don’t understand. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Yoongi frowns as Hoseok gently pulls him upright.
“Walk with me?” Hoseok asks. They’re still holding hands, though even in this state Yoongi knows it’s because he hasn’t let go of Hoseok’s hand.
“It’s Taehyung’s fault,” he explains. “He always wanted to hold hands when we were kids.”
Hoseok’s face adorably crumples with confusion, but soon they’re walking , and Yoongi finds the task of following a straight trajectory more difficult than usual, so he can’t explain himself any better.
He has never seen anything more inviting than his bed, so he lets himself be led, and when he tries to let go of Hoseok’s hand, the other tightens his grip for a brief second.
“Let’s talk tomorrow.”
Hoseok’s voice is low and soft and Yoongi wants to sample it. He wants to play the piano for Hoseok and hear him singing. He wants to ask Jimin if he has a few tips on how to keep Hoseok close. He wants to keep holding Hoseok’s hand. He’s on the bed and Hoseok is looking at him fondly and Yoongi wants… he wants…
♦️♦️♦️
There’s nothing more embarrassing than waking up with the realisation you got drunk and acted on your drunkness in front of your newly-realised crush.
“Let’s move to Nicaragua,” Yoongi tells Namjoon over breakfast, after Hoseok leaves in a hurry and a flurry of goodbyes and thank yous for the wonderful dinner. (Hoseok couldn’t look him in the eyes.)
Seokjin frowns, puzzled, but Namjoon, bless him, perfectly understands.
“Antarctica,” Namjoon suggests. “Or Madagascar. Somewhere with penguins.”
Yoongi can work with that.
<Intermezzo, Seoul>
On their second week anniversary, Jimin posts a photo of Taehyung sleeping in his bed, newly-dyed silver hair creating a halo on the pillow, and adds a classy(?) black heart as caption. Jimin hasn’t seen Taehyung in person in more than a week: at this point, just looking at photos of his boyfriend –AH!– makes him smile like an idiot.
Everything is perfect for thirty seconds, then Hoseok likes the post.
Everything is still, Jimin and the universe holding their breath in unison, then Hoseok texts him. Something stupid and inconsequential like a ‘Hi’.
Jimin wouldn’t call himself reckless, but in that split second where he sees the notification, he realises it’s now or never. He calls Hoseok and hopes.
Everything is silent, then Jimin hears Hoseok’s voice for the first time in a month.
“ Jimin-ah ?”
“Hyung,” Jimin answers. It’s 5pm in Italy, but Hoseok’s voice carries the scratchiness of a sleepless night, or a hangover. How can Jimin not know if Hoseok got drunk or had a nightmare? Why does he have to ask , when a year ago he’d have known because Hoseok would have texted him, or they’d have gotten drunk together?
Together, like best friends often do after a showcase. God, they’re so messy right now. They both struggle to speak, to break the silence.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” Jimin starts.
“Jimi–”
“And I’m so
angry
. I miss you so much,” Jimin says, betrayed by his own voice when he desperately wants to keep his cool, he owes Hoseok that much. He can’t start bawling, or the conversation will never happen the way it has to.
“I needed some space,” Hoseok words his sentence carefully. He inhales. “From you.”
“The eight thousand kilometres weren’t enough?” Jimin bites back. He regrets it almost immediately, but if there’s anyone who knows how sharp his words can be, that’s Hoseok.
“They don’t count for much if I text you every single day.”
He can’t see Hoseok, but he imagines the absence of a smile, lips thinned and eyes distant as he focuses on the call. Jimin knows at this moment that Hoseok prepared himself for this call, and that he hasn’t hung up on him yet. He wants, not a surprise but a step in an endless dance routine he has perfected in his mind in the past month, to hug his Hobi-hyung an awful lot, heart filled with gratitude and hope.
“I know ghosting you was shitty, but I need to be sure I’m over you. I need us to be okay when I’m back.”
Jimin nods. Tries to find words with the same level of care Hoseok is granting their friendship.
He finds some, maybe too many but all of them sincere. “When I said I needed time to think about us, I wasn’t trying to string you along. I needed time, too. It’s difficult for me to know when I love someone romantically, I don’t feel the physical attraction everyone talks about,” he says. “And there’s no one I loved more deeply than you in the past six years.”
“Seven.”
“Yeah,” Jimin laughs, a bit wetly. “Seven years. I am sorry it took me so long to give a proper answer, and that I didn’t give you space.”
“How is Tae?”
Typical Hoseok. “We don’t have to talk about him, I don’t want to hurt you. You always put other people’s needs in front of you and it’s not fair–”
“Jimin-ah,” Hoseok’s voice, eight thousand kilometres away more or less, grows fond and exasperated and familiar. “We can talk about Taehyung.”
There’s a certain gravity to this affirmation which makes Jimin pause. The universe waits a moment more for him, for them, Hoseok-and-Jimin, to find their footing once again, in time to the music.
“You met someone,” he realises, a smile growing on his face. “ Hyung .”
He swears he can hear Hoseok smiling, and it’s the best secret sound in the whole world.
♦️♦️♦️
Yoongi, when desperate, shows weakness. Knowing he must forget the ridiculousness of refusing to let go of Hoseok’s hand, he accepts Jackson’s invitation to a ‘small gathering’ –see: a taste of the oh-so-infamous uni nightlife.
Jackson Wang, who is as emotionally intelligent as talented in whatever puts his mind to it, is so good at being a social person, he pretends Yoongi’s affirmative answer is not the once in a lifetime occurrence it is, and bravely lies saying he always knew Yoongi would cave. Namjoon, ever the diplomat, nonetheless can’t help but let out a loud snort he then masks as a sneeze.
Seokjin asks Namjoon if he’s having a stroke.
“Invite your other friend, the dancer? Hoseok?” Jackson asks Namjoon, then Yoongi. “Fix lives
right
in the city centre, you can’t get lost.”
The last part is clearly directed to Namjoon, who accepts the nagging as part of their bonding rituals. Jackson once told Yoongi that Namjoon doesn’t speak much, but when he does he’s always wise, and that understanding is probably why they’re casual friends after all these years.
Yoongi also likes Jackson, but it is still Namjoon’s fault when Yoongi remembers, a few hours before the ‘small gathering’, that he hates unfamiliar places and unfamiliar people, in unfamiliar land and unfamiliar country.
“Come on, you know more Italian than me,” Namjoon lies.
“ Vaffanculo. ”
“See? Vincenzo Cassano.”
He knows, or at least he suspects, that going out of the house would do him good. The exam session is starting to sink its teeth into him, the dates of the exams fast approaching and the code of the Optimal Control class refusing to work. He won’t be able to study anyway, and he kind of misses Jackson, who invited them only because they randomly saw each other in Piazza Malpighi. Or maybe he misses the idea of Jackson, of friends that can drag you out of the house and gently let you explore the area around your comfort zone. After so many years of friendship. Namjoon and Seokjin have given up on that, or maybe they’ve simply aged.
His mind goes, surprisingly, to Jungkook, with whom he talked on the phone a few days before because they always try to hear from each other at least once a month, Jungkook’s distaste for phone calls be damned. Jungkook always tries new things, even when he’s scared shitless and would love nothing more than to stay in his room. Sure, his big sparkly eyes are bigger than usual, wide with determination, but he never backs down from a challenge. He’s so brave, Yoongi remembers the pride he felt when Jungkook said: “When I go to the US for a year, you’ll miss me terribly!”
Jungkook promised to follow in his footsteps and study abroad, even if he still struggles with English. But then again, all of them are growing and changing: didn’t Jungkook send Namjoon a funny video in English without subtitles, maybe as a wordless ‘thank you’ for all the hours of English tutoring?
Yoongi may not be who he used to be, but he can evolve.
“Help me find a good shirt,” he concedes, and leaves his bed willingly.
He doesn’t miss how Namjoon pointedly observes him as he styles his hair to the best of his abilities and even dares to put some eyeliner on. Namjoon will understand why soon, he can’t hide forever.
They leave the apartment, Namjoon and Seokjin following him into battle, cheered on by their two roommates. They haven’t known each other for long, but they’ve seen Yoongi becoming one with the sofa one too many nights not to know his habits, and it’s nice to feel known, maybe even understood, at least for a moment. This can be a special night.
Jackson was right: they don’t get lost. They’re welcomed by Fix, also known as Filippo, the owner of the house, who greets them at the top of the stairs with the practised ease of a good host and reassures them the dog is harmless.
The dog is also the fluffiest, biggest Samoyed dog Yoongi’s eyes have ever been blessed to witness. Argo –” A classical name for a dog, ” Namjoon happily observes– lets himself be hugged, pet, and cuddled by an awed Yoongi until Fix leaves the room and Argo promptly follows him, tail wagging.
“This is already the best party of my life,” Yoongi declares. Engineering will at least let him afford to get a dog, he schemes. Maybe two dogs. A dog and a cat, even.
“Your first one, too!” Seokjin laughs, and while it’s the oldest joke in the world, it always works on Namjoon, even while sober.
“If you’d waited two rounds of shots to tell that joke, he’d be dying laughing,” Yoongi comments. “You missed your chance.”
“True. I just wanted to let it out of my system.” Seokjin expertly dodges a few girls enraptured by his beauty. Yoongi sometimes forgets he is friends with the Kim Seokjin (Seokjin Kim, for the awed Italian students), whose beauty can be more an obstacle than a weapon. He can’t know what it is like to have an idea of Seokjin built only on his appearance, it’s been years since he first found out Seokjin’s laugh was a squeaky imperfection that destroyed the idealised version of the k-drama chaebol his hyung looks like.
“After all, you’ll embarrass yourself in front of your crush without my help,” Seokjin laughs, thus cleaning the windows of the entire flat.
“Crush?” Namjoon asks.
“No one,” Yoongi pointedly looks at his oldest friends. “Not a word.”
Of course Seokjin starts acting like they’re playing charades again and mimics Hoseok's heart shaped smile.
“OOOOOH,” realisation dawns on Namjoon slowly, hilariously, leaving him with his mouth open. “I knew it was going to happen.”
“What happened?”
Hoseok’s voice, coming from behind Yoongi’s shoulders, has the three of them look instantly guilty, as if they’ve robbed a bank in the two days they haven’t seen each other.
“Yoongi said yes to Jackson’s invitation,” Seokjin lies, so smoothly Yoongi can’t help the pang of gratitude in his chest. “As you can see with your own two eyes.”
Fix’s apartment is almost twice as large as theirs, old but well maintained, furnished with heavy wood tables and chairs that probably belonged to someone’s grandfather and not IKEA. Paintings and photographs hang at the wall instead of nondescript art prints. Maybe for this reason the place is not as packed as Yoongi feared knowing Jackson’s reputation: when he turns, he finds Hoseok immediately, his features softly illuminated by the yellow light of the chandelier above their heads. He’s standing by the entrance to the living room and looks almost hesitant to join them inside the room. Someone walks past him and says hello amicably, happy to see him, but Hoseok doesn’t seem to notice in full. Yoongi hopes he’s not nervous.
As if he knew the party would be a quiet one, Hoseok’s dressed simply for his standards, entirely in black with his eyes enriched with a dark eyeshadow to match. His hair is slicked back, and the result of such a simple action is so catastrophic, Yoongi would like to sue someone, even the God he doesn’t believe in. At a second glance, the outfit is perfectly calculated, the shoes shiny and perfect, the waistcoat over the black shirt highlighting his waist. By the time Hoseok walks up to them, Yoongi has memorised the way the fabric of the pants falls on his long, beautiful dancer legs.
(The Taehyung in his head, now the writer of raunchy romance novels that sell for 5 euros in the edicola under their flat, writes down diligently: Long, beautiful dancer legs…. Devastating eyes… captivating waist…. )
“Hobah, you look great.”
“Ravishing,” Seokjin agrees. “Though not as much as me.”
Hoseok poses and smiles for the compliments, ridiculous yet still hot, and then the weirdest thing happens: his expression changes for a split second into one of alarm, his hand closes around Yoongi’s wrist, and he says: “Let’s go to the kitchen, hyung.”
“What–”
“I need a drink.”
Seokjin and Namjoon seem just as confused as him, but they let them go, Yoongi wondering for a moment if Hoseok maybe would like to hold his hand?
But the gentle grip around his wrist relents soon, leaving him bereft, and when he raises his eyes to look at Hoseok, he finds the other smiling, acting like nothing happened, a white paper cup in his hand and a marker in the other.
“ Yo-o-ngi, ” he says as he writes. He adds a few stars around the name, then hands him the cup. The romanization of his name seems unnecessary at a party, where those who don’t speak Korean would probably gather from the Hangul that it was not their drink, but Yoongi is too busy appreciating the little stars around the name.
“It’s one of the first things I noticed about you, how you always added the stars, and wrote on other people’s shit.”
“Only if they asked!” Hoseok’s eyes widen in indignation. “I got bored in class.”
“Oh, so you’re bored now? Already?”
“Just wanted to write your name prettily,” Hoseok admits airily, avoiding his eyes. “Do mine now.”
Yoongi grabs the marker from Hoseok’s hand, and draws on a new cup a little sun with sunglasses, since Hoseok is basically a sun that has forgotten how to tone down his smile for the mortals.
“Is that a football?” Hoseok murmurs over his shoulder, shattering his focus. His closeness is immensely distracting.
“Yah! It’s the sun, don’t you see? It’s smiling.”
Hoseok frowns, his mouth hanging open for a few moments. “...Sure. I see it, thank you, hyung. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s horrible,” Yoongi laments, and just as he hoped Hoseok vehemently denies: “No, no, I can see it! It’s cute! Draw a cat underneath.”
It’s a stupid conversation, especially at a party where few people are ready to consume a great quantity of alcohol, yet Yoongi doesn’t want to be anywhere else if not in the tiny kitchen, hidden behind the door left ajar. Hoseok leans next to him on the counter, a languid pose that makes him look taller than he is, and Yoongi agrees to his request, happy to be close, yet a tiny bit scared. Maybe he’ll always remain scared of Hobi, even now that he admits he has a big, terrible crush, and maybe something more. Maybe it’s the price to pay to keep their friendship.
“The cat is you, so make him cute,” Hoseok commands. Yoongi’s heart skips a beat, then orders the hands to oblige.
The party starts in earnest when Jackson Wang starts choosing the music, then it’s chaos on earth for anyone in the apartment.
Yoongi doesn’t dance, but neither does Seokjin typically, nor Namjoon, and they’ve never been to a party that felt surprisingly intimate such as this one. Turns out they know almost everyone except the owner of the house, who is pleasant and tipsy enough to appear harmless, and they’ve never been to a party with Hoseok. Not even the worst remix of a terrible Italian trap song can stop him from dancing his heart out. Yoongi finally understands why Hoseok is Jung Hoseok, one of the best dancers of their university at home.
Confronted with so many new experiences, Yoongi, Seokjin and Namjoon dance .
Everything is a blur of colour, of laughter and tasteless music that sounds either too familiar, product of the Billboard charts, or too foreign, it’s a tornado of movement and confusion, and at the centre of it all is Hoseok.
Hoseok dances like he’s finally ready to breathe properly, like he’s been forced to walk with his hands tied behind his back the entire time they’ve known him, until now. He moves and smiles and knows what he’s doing with the type of bone-deep certainty that steals the air from Yoongi’s lungs. The apartment is big -Yoongi was right when he suspected it belonged to Fix’s parents-, but there isn’t much space to dance: they have to be careful moving around chairs and armchairs, somebody is dancing on top of the huge dinner table and offers Hoseok a hand to join them. Hoseok hops on the table, catlike and confident, and Yoongi laughs when the cheers get instantly higher.
Yoongi recognizes someone’s first love when he sees it, and Hoseok is back in her arms with the most beautiful smile he’s worn since Yoongi told him he was happy to have met him.
Yoongi’s talents used to lie elsewhere, and his dancing is enthusiastic but awkward, though not as wild as Seokjin’s. It doesn’t hurt, surprisingly, to think back to a time when he used to know what he was good at. Or even if it hurts, the ghost of what he’s lost is hidden so deep the pain is distant, a dull thud.
Hoseok takes his hand, and Yoongi thinks, as in a dream: I can’t wait to visit Venice with you, because he imagines Hoseok dancing on water, light as the air itself.
He ends up telling Hoseok he wants to go to Venice. “With you,” he adds. They’re both breathless from dancing, Hoseok has opened three buttons of his shirt and would look dangerous if not for the earnest happiness slowly taking over his face.
“Of course, hyung. I’d love to.”
Again, Hoseok steers him away from the living room, and something about the careful way they’re now holding hands, though both of them are sweaty, makes Yoongi brave and suspicious in equal measure.
They grab their coats from the enormous pile by the entrance and Hoseok opens the French door that leads to a small balcony, the wintery air chill yet clear. The sky is the sickly orange blue of any city, though nothing like Seoul’s. The skyline is low, a smattering of lights compared to the vastness of the skyscrapers of some parts of their city. Yet Yoongi could like staying here, he realises, even if it’s not the picture perfect Italy a romantic like Taehyung envisioned, even if it doesn’t have the art of Rome or Florence or Venice or Naples that Namjoon dreams of. The city is offering him what Yoongi needed from this entire experience: a place to stay, to rest.
This is the city where he met Hoseok.
The balcony is empty but there’s an ashtray full of traces of those who came out for a smoke before them. Hoseok leans on the handrail and looks around, genuine happiness still radiating from his expression. Jung Hoseok, dancer.
“Why don’t you want me to go to the living room?” Yoongi asks.
Hoseok’s silence lingers. He taps on the handrail the rhythm of the song inside the apartment. It’s too cold for them to wait too long in this pocket of quiet, and Hoseok knows this.
“There’s a piano.”
Of all the words, Yoongi didn’t expect these. He stupidly thought it had to do with the embarrassing way he acted when he got drunk, though Hoseok seems to have forgotten about it.
“Ah. Thank you.”
Hoseok’s eyes are searching, with the glint of steel that first drove Yoongi to ask what he hid behind his neverending smiles. When he steps closer to Yoongi, it feels purposeful, though not inquisitive.
“Why did you stop? Why does it hurt so much?”
Yoongi doesn’t know how to lie about this, only that his words always feel too small to properly describe what he feels. Ironically, he’d need lyrics and symphonies to explain his loss in all its missing pieces. He doesn’t have them anymore.
“I was really good,” he begins. “Because it was everything to me. My breathing and my music were equal proof of my existence. I felt like music was the thing that would always be there for me. Even when I couldn’t seriously imagine myself growing old, I could imagine a sixty year old me playing. There was this brown piano, when I was younger, and it was there for me every time I needed it. And I had Namjoon, too, when I went to Seoul. I would never be lonely if I had music.”
“But when I started not being well, after Namjoon changed majors and I spent too many years with the constant need to get better, music didn’t save me. My relationship with music was so tied with my identity that it started dissolving with my mental health. I didn’t play for a day, once, and the guilt I felt had me sob in the middle of the night. I could feel my hands… losing their ability, or something. Like an invisible trembling. I convinced myself that if I kept on not playing, I wouldn’t be able to anymore.”
Hoseok lets out a small sound of understanding, of shared pain, but Yoongi hasn’t finished. He doesn’t feel the cold anymore.
“And I didn’t. I didn’t play anymore. I stopped turning in assignments. I stopped writing lyrics. I had lost my last notebook and refused to buy another. I lied, so many stupid lies to convince everyone I was doing okay when I had stopped listening to music altogether. I lied to my advisor. And it was surprisingly easy to let go of a fourteen year old dream. I just did.”
“I’m so sorry. It must have been so painful.”
“I’m doing much better now,” he hurries to say, because it’s true, a hard-won battle. “I take my meds and I know I’m not alone, or useless. But that part of me is gone, and whenever I see a piano it’s like I imagine it to reappear again, like it’s still in me, and then I have to accept all over again that it’s gone forever.”
Hoseok is frowning. He closes the buttons of his jacket and presses his side to Yoongi’s, the two of them looking for answers in the city around them.
“How could you stop dancing for a year?” Yoongi exhales, finally letting go of the question. “When it’s the way the piano was for me.”
“I can always go back to dancing. I dance, actually, twice a week at a small studio. I am shadowing a nice Italian lady teaching the basics of hip-hop to six year olds,” he smiles, though with a self-deprecating line of the mouth that Yoongi doesn’t love. “I ran away from Seoul to get away from my first love. The other type.”
“Park Jimin.”
Hoseok nods, hand on his heart like the words hit him there. “Park Jimin. When I confessed to him, he said only: ‘ I don’t know ’. He asked for time, I gave him time. We’ve been friends for so long. Too long. It couldn’t go any other way.”
“Are you sad?”
“I was , believe me. I was angry, too, because I let myself wait and hope. I can’t deny there was a part of me that came here as a ‘fuck you’, but we talked. We’ll be okay. I’m not interested in him anymore. I simply love him to bits.”
Yoongi knows they’ll wake up with a fever if they keep staying outside, but this doesn't make sense.
“But when you were at my house–”
Hoseok goes red so fast, it’s a marvel of the circulatory system. “You misunderstood.”
“You said everybody knew.”
Hoseok is close enough, Yoongi can see the shift in his expression, the artificial lights reflected in his eyes. He can imagine that his eyes soften because of the moonlight, but it would be a distortion of this night, mundane as it is. The moon is nowhere to be seen, hidden behind dusty clouds. All that remains of the sky is Hoseok.
“Everybody but you .”
Yoongi opens his mouth to–to what, to hope out loud? But Hoseok has gotten closer, is holding his hands. In that touch there is finally that fragility Yoongi wanted to find when he first saw Hoseok and found him a mystery.
“I think you’re getting the matter of first loves all wrong,” Hoseok says. “You wonder how it is possible to get over your first love. Hyung, the real question is if you should .”
“Hobah–”
“I don’t think you have to. I believe you can find music again. Let me wait with you until you find it again. I need to hear you play someday.”
Yoongi doesn’t say yes. It would be like accepting a request to carve his heart open. Yoongi simply leans closer and kisses him, and hopes it is enough of an answer.
♦️♦️♦️
There’s a special type of joy, Yoongi has learnt over the course of this night, that comes from kissing Hoseok. It’s like tasting the infamous liquid sun out of his lips, or maybe just the smile that keeps blooming on his face when they stop kissing for a moment and there’s a shared sense of incredulity, of mutual ridiculousness. They like each other, yet neither of them thought this was possible. It’s kind of hilarious. It’s the material of an anecdote told over dinner to old and new friends, hands joined under the table.
They kissed in the kitchen, now a mess of empty bottles and half filled carafes of cheap wine, until Yoongi feared Hoseok would leave the imprints of his strong beautiful fingers on his scalp, on his shoulders. Yoongi’s teeth grazed Hoseok’s lower lip and Hoseok opened up so beautifully, it almost took the strength out of Yoongi’s legs.
They’re kissing now, the end of the night closer than they want but not unwelcome, hidden from Seokjin and Namjoon’s eyes, in one of the bedrooms. Hoseok kisses like he has all the time in the world, but without mercy, sweet and methodical and so attentive that Yoongi fears he’ll go mad. His fingers have found the naked, smooth skin of his waist and they slowly move higher, until Hoseok falls on the bed behind him and Yoongi clumsily follows.
With another person, he’d fear rushing this. But they’re just kissing, not stopping because there’s no reason, not now. Hoseok has promised to wait with him for a time where things will be easier to understand and figure out. This , he thinks, is something he understands now. Something he may manage to be good at soon. Something easy, even, in a world that asks too much of them all at the same time.
He wants to learn how to surprise Hoseok, so he starts by slowing down the kiss and savouring it, appreciating how pliant Hoseok is under him. He’s a vision in black, languid and sated, trembling yet unafraid. His eyes are soft with wonder.
“I really like you,” Yoongi says, voice cracking. He wonders if his mother language has more power here, in a city where he felt like they were the only Koreans to ever walk the cobbled streets of the city centre. He hopes they have weight because they’re for Hoseok. He wishes them to linger in the Italian air, to irrevocably change the nature of their winter. Let the people here remember how beautiful Hoseok looked, how deserving he was of love, how he held Yoongi’s gaze as if he understood his thoughts completely.
“I like you too,” Hoseok whispers in his ear when they say goodbye, under the gaze of their friends, unaware of the dancing in Yoongi’s heart.
I want to compose for you, Yoongi wishes to be brave enough to say it. But Hoseok is soon outside the door, directed home with his roommates, and Yoongi knows they have time. He has to believe in that.
He has to let his joy soar and take roots in the ceiling.
Epilogo
Venice in spring is windy, and Hoseok’s air is in disarray in all the photos, except their selfies. Hoseok keeps the one polaroid they took, the two of them with their smiles pressed close with Ponte dei Sospiri in the background, in his phone case, while Yoongi printed the photo of the three of them –Hoseok, Namjoon and Yoongi, Namjoon in the middle so he wouldn’t feel like a third wheel, just after their visit to Palazzo Ducale– and attached it next to the Eminem Shrine. Other photos, he knows, will follow.
Hoseok is afraid of many things, but not particularly of planes, yet he held Yoongi’s hand with steely stubbornness for the longest part of their flight home. The last message Yoongi received before departure was from Jungkook, and it read: “We’ll be there waiting.”
It’s one of the sweetest ways anyone has ever told him they loved him. Hoseok’s way, gentle and persistent and oh so loyal, is his favourite by default, but he can’t lie and say he doesn’t miss his friends. He wants to see them, and he wants them to properly know Hobi. His Hobi, talented designer and dancer, affectionate and full of life, scared of most animals and lover of the rare slow mornings spent in bed.
He also wants to meet Park Jimin, and see who Tae and Hoseok become when they love him. He is overcome by want, by nostalgia, by the ferocious fear that all the happiness he felt in Italy was for nothing, fleeting and soon forgotten. He is not ready to miss Italy, but he already knows he will, though not as much as he missed home.
Hoseok, even half asleep, tightens his grip on his hand, as if he knows. It’s the last stretch before homecoming.
In the sleepy silence of the plane, Yoongi takes out his headphones. He keeps one earbud for himself, and leaves the other for Hoseok when he wakes up, as he’s now used to doing every time they share a ride somewhere. (He had grown to love the dingy Italian buses, with Hoseok by his side.)
He turns on his phone, goes to his personal folders. Scrolls down –there aren’t too many files, but enough that he has to scroll down–, until he finds the file he wants.
Demo #13 (First Love?)
He knows the melody by heart, yet something is missing. He has time to find the missing production element before they land, before his friends –his and Hoseok’s, now a united group that has all the intentions of persevering– greet them in a mess of screams and crying and hugs, before Namjoon –arrived a week earlier with Seokjin– hugs them first as if he’s missed them the most, before he shakes Jimin’s hand, before he holds Taehyung close, before Jungkook cries on his shoulder, before Seokjin offers to treat them to dinner, before Hoseok kisses him in front of everyone the moment they’re home, before he finds himself staring at his boyfriend and finds his boyfriend amazingly looking back.
If he can’t crack the mystery, Hoseok will. He has, unsurprisingly, a great musical ear, and a patient heart. He once listened to Yoongi repeat the same song on the piano in the Salaborsa five times and claimed he enjoyed every minute. Namjoon is also ready to listen to his work, as if he never really left music, and maybe he didn’t. Yoongi doesn’t need more people for now, his music is a small plant that doesn’t need to be hurried. It will bloom in time, maybe after another summer as beautiful as this one.
He has a plan, albeit a very short one, to enjoy every step it takes to learn to play again with no fear.
Two hours before life can reprise its main motif, Min Yoongi hits play on his new song and listens.