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I am so so so ecstatic for the chapters to come (🤪) you have no idea💗💗😩😩😩🙏🙏🙏

Trip No Further | 15

Summary: When your valiant attempt to get your best friend laid not only backfires, but results in one mind-boggling discovery—that the world-famous idol Min Yoongi of BTS is your soulmate—you’re forced to confront your new reality. Soon, you will need each other’s touch to survive. Too bad Suga, despite his sweet name, is proving to be something of an acquired taste…

Pairing: idol!Yoongi x Reader Genre: soulmate!au, idol!au, slow burn, heavy humor, eventual smut, idiots/nemeses/enemies to biases/lovers (iykyk) Word Count: ~11.3k 😭😭😭 Rating: 18+ Warnings: swearing, mentions of drinking/partying, dubious scientific explanations, some angsty pangsty, medical ~drama~ but no dr. mcsteamy :'( Links: AO3, Masterlist 🖤 Please note: Trip No Further does not have a taglist 🖤

A/N: Happy three-month birthday to TNF, my transcendent Tripositos!

Have fun 😏😏😏😏😏💜

Chapter 15: Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me

You wake up in the morning feeling bright eyed and bushy-pussed—namely because you haven’t shaved down there for a minute, and you’re a bit overdue for a trim.

Alas(s). As much as you’d lurve for that to be your biggest concern of the day, the state of your body hair pales in significance to what horrors await you. You did the crime, and now you’ve got to do the time. Slowly, you sit up in bed, resignedly waiting for your mistakes of yore—namely, the five (Five? your inner-Yzma chastises you. As in, mambo number?) beers you’d pounded back with Benny Bonanza last night—to catch up with you. Any moment now, your noggin’s gonna get a-wobblin’; you’re gonna become the next Hungdog Millionaire. If you know anything, it’s that Dionysus’s two fists are rated E for everyone dumb enough to try him. Oh, you tried him last night, and ol’ boy is about to throw hands!

You fumble for your phone just as the alarm goes off. It’s nine in the morning, and Yoongi’s not in bed. The curtains have been thrown open, bathing you in a warm, golden puddle of light. Usually, you cannot tolerate anything beyond total darkness the day after you’ve had too much to drink—but right now, you’re surprisingly alright. Cautiously, you swing your legs over the bed and stand, waiting for the dizziness to crash over you.

It doesn’t. It doesn’t. You feel completely fine.

“Holy butt cakes,” you whisper in smug fascination. Nausea heartburn upset stomach? You don’t know her. With newfound confidence, you strut to the mirror outside the bathroom, admiring your sprightly appearance. Oh, yeah. The name is Ass. Dope Ass, baby.

“Yoongi?” you call through the bathroom door, knocking once for good measure. There’s no response. He must have left for one of his lessons, and once again, you owe him—his body, anyway—for helping you to evade the physical consequences a night of irresponsible drinking would usually wreak upon you. The giddy sense of relief you have—as though you’ve dodged a bullet—is almost enough to flush away the shame from how sloshed you got last night. 

Almost. But not quite.

You watch your smile falter in the polished hotel glass. Yoongi was right when he said it wasn’t like you to drink just for the sake of drinking. You weren’t celebrating anything. You weren’t enjoying yourself. And you feel like you should probably check in with your soulmate to make sure you didn’t cross any unintended lines last night.

Instinctively, your heart spikes in its rhythm as the memories come back to you. Yoongi’s arms, flexed and stable, caging you onto the bed; his long, firm fingers wrapped around your jaw. When you close your eyes, the black you see is like the black of his pupils—ever-expanding, and vast as the ocean.

You turn from the mirror, face heating. Yeah. So that happened. Meeyooee had to literally put you to bed, which makes you feel a bit silly—but not silly enough to wish you could take any of it back. On the contrary, you want things to move forward. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more—DTRJ didn’t raise no quitter! Because if you’re not mistaken, you almost think that Yoongi might have kissed you last night, if you’d been sober.

Just then, your phone buzzes.

[09:08]   M.Y.  hey, you up?

You swoon. Your soulmate—he has such a way with words! 

[09:09]   YN  Yeah.

As do you!

[09:12]   Meeyooee  i’m with joon, we’re writing today. won’t be back to the hotel until after the show

[09:13]   Meeyooee  feeling okay?

[09:13]   YN  Yeah. You?

[09:16]   Meeyooee  yeah

[09:17]   Meeyooee  i wasn’t the one who went toe-to-toe with benny blanco last night, princess

Ah. So, Yoongi hadn’t experienced a bout of selective amnesia, as your trope-loving self had secretly hoped. Desperate for someone to blame for the kiss-with-Yoongi-that-wasn’t, you curse Benny Brouhaha—that meaty-legged fuck-nugget!—under your breath. How dare he exist?! How dare he enjoy his night out, and be nice to you, and mind his own business when you started pounding back drinks like one of those sorority girls you always admired from afar at those Sigma Chi frat parties—the ones who began their nights partying on boats and ended them throwing tantrums on Taco Bell floors, calling for more chalupas, for mercy’s sake! MORE CHALUPAS, YOU ANIMALS!

You sigh. Despite your high charge, you don’t really have the energy to point fingers. You’re a grown woman who can make her own decisions, and last night you abused alcohol in a flimsy attempt to curb your own discomfort. Suddenly, you’re desperate for Yoongi to know that last night was an anomaly. An exception.

[09:19]   YN  Yeah. I let gaga get in my head and overdid it. That’s not typical behavior for me.

It takes him a while to respond.

[09:31]   Meeyooee  gaga?

Annnnnd, you’re an imbecile.

[09:31]   YN  Ga-young** 

Again, there’s no immediate response. You go to sit at the hotel room desk, thrumming your fingers on the expensive mahogany impatiently. Then:

[09:37]   Meeyooee  you shouldn’t worry about her

Yoongi’s a slow texter as a rule—you know that, and you do not respect it. But when you neglect to answer right away, he sends an immediate follow-up.

[09:37]   Meeyooee  yn

[09:37]   Meeyooee  i got you

You take a deep breath, feeling as if you’re standing on a precipice, rather than sitting in a tufted hotel desk chair—one step forward, and you could do it. Tumble right off the ledge into a free fall.

I got you. Why do those words feel so significant? Why is it suddenly so easy to believe him? You feel momentarily yanked outside of your body, as if you’re floating somewhere up in the sky, looking down on the past three months from a bird’s eye view. Ga-young’s statement to you yesterday could be interpreted in two ways: as a genuine warning—considering she’d been privy to Yoongi’s apparent fuckboi extraordinaire phase—or as a petty dig at Yoongi for refusing to play the pawn in her misguided scheme.

Your hunch is that it’s a bit of both, which pisses you off. Not because she triggers any insecurities anymore—(I got you. I got you)—but because she’s a loose cannon who’s not above using Meeyooee. It hurts to see someone you care about just accept that sort of maltreatment as unavoidable.

Unfortunately, it’s not your place to ask Ga-young to knuck if she bucks—you’re not Yoongi’s girlfriend. It would come off as extremely suspicious if you, the members’ translator, suddenly had beef with a backup dancer with whom you’d only exchanged a handful of words. Plus, something tells you Yoongi wouldn’t take kindly to you meddling in his affairs like that.

Still. It’s as if your brain had allowed you to process the situation more thoroughly while you were sleeping—not only had the soulmate charge flushed the toxins from your body, it had organized your thoughts. In the clear light of day, it’s never been more apparent to you that the next proper course of action would be for Ga-young to go choke on a fat bag of dicks.

[09:38]   YN  She’s unkind 

[09:39]   Meeyooee  it doesn’t matter

[09:39]   Meeyooee  you shouldn’t care about her, princess

[09:40]   YN  I don’t

[09:41]   Meeyooee  good

You compose your message, steel yourself, and click send.

[09:41]   YN  I care about you

You two had been on something of a conversational roll, but your latest missive appears to stymie Yoongi—you wait for almost a full minute, eyes trained unblinkingly on your screen, before letting your phone drop. Your message had been a bit of a test, and you can’t tell whether he passed or failed. You don’t think you’re misremembering the vibe between the two of you last night, but who are you kidding? When it comes to Meeyooee, you have no think. You’re just going to have to withhold any conclusions until you meet again face-to-face. 

Shaking your head, you power up your laptop and prepare to sift through freelance pitches, resigned to that fact that you’re not going hear from him until you’re due at the venue later that afternoon.

But Yoongi’s full of surprises. When you return from brushing your teeth, it’s to find your phone blinking.

[09:50]   Meeyooee 👸🏻

[09:50]   Meeyooee  rest up. i’ll see you soon.

The nausea catches up with you around lunchtime. It’s nothing debilitating: when you shift too quickly, your abdomen contracts uncomfortably, the way it used to when you’d eaten something disagreeable.

Figures, you bemoan privately. The fact that you’d slept in with Yoongi the day before, combined with last night’s full recharge, had probably helped to mask the majority of the hangover, but you should have known you wouldn’t get off scot-free. Instead, you consider yourself lucky that you’re only experiencing such a mild discomfort as you prepare to go meet Yoongi a few hours later.

Just as you’re about to text Yuna about sharing a shuttle again, Yoongi texts you.

[15:39]   Meeyooee  u leave for the stadium yet?

[15:40]   YN  About to call for a ride!

Instead of texting, your phone begins vibrating.

Incoming call: Meeyooee

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Yoongi’s voice is deep on the other side of the line—it almost sounds like he’s grumbling. You swallow reflexively. “Joonah and I are working on something new. I think I’ll be fine without the tutoring today.”

You’d been reaching for your bag, but your fingers pause in midair as his words register. You let your hand fall to your side, taken aback by the change in plans.

“Oh,” you say, thinking back to how depleted Yoongi had been in the coat closet yesterday. Never mind the fact that you could really go for a bit of skin-ship right now—if Min Yoongi collapsed on stage from exhaustion, it would be nothing short of a disaster. Your legs wobble—literally wobble—as your mind floods with horrible scenarios. You see Yoongi, pale and shiny with sweat; you see the other members, shaken and frightened. You hear the millions of upset fans, screaming at you for depriving Min Yoongi of nutrients—of killing your soulmate.

“Um,” you hedge. “You feel energized?”

“I feel great,” he says without hesitation. “We got more than eight hours of sleep last night, not to mention the late start yesterday. That, on top of the tutoring session has—”

He cuts off abruptly, and when you hear a new chorus of chattering and laughter sounding off in the background, you understand why. He and Namjoon must be working together somewhere somewhat public—possibly in the venue.

“L?” he says in different tone of voice—it’s less warm, somehow. Less familiar. “Is that okay?”

You don’t hesitate in answering. It’s not Yoongi’s fault that you overindulged last night and feel like death incarnate now. If he feels sufficiently charged, then you can power through a few uncomfortable hours until he returns from his concert. This is nothing like what you’d endured after the plane ride. You are strong! Like bull!

“That’s fine,” you say. “Good luck tonight.”

There’s silence on the other line for a second, followed by a shallow inhale of breath. You wait, but then the background noises get closer, and Yoongi clears his throat.

“Thank you.” There’s another beat of silence, and then Yoongi’s voice goes a bit softer; a bit quieter. “Rest up.”

The line goes dead.

You continue to feel a bit overheated—a bit wonky—as the night progresses, and eventually the discomfort progresses enough that you crawl into bed early. A good night’s sleep will solve everything—soon, Yoongi will be back to expedite the healing process. You settle into bed with the newest Carmen Maria Machado eBook—a gift from her publisher after Carmen’s essay you edited went live—and resolve to relax until the concert ends. Maybe, you think with a spark of hope, Yoongi will be in a playful mood, as he’d been last night before the energy had taken a turn for the serious.

At ten o’clock, your phone lights up with an alert from V-live, and your heart sinks when you see your soulmate’s sweaty—but, you note with a measure of relief, clearly energized—face, live from Hoseok’s room a few doors down. It’s Sope night with Army. You forgot.

No matter. The lives never last more than an hour anyway. You’ll just…

“Fuck.”

You wake up to the pressure of a strong, warm hand gripping down on your shoulder, and blink groggily. The room you’re in is dark and unfamiliar, and for a moment, you’re completely disoriented. Where are you? What’s going—

Oh. Yoongi, who’d been sprawled over you after apparently tripping, seems to have regained his motor skills. He flops into bed beside you, letting out a long, sleepy huff of contentment. Without even opening his eyes, he reaches for you, his arm wrapping sleepily around your waist. Waves of familiar, comforting warmth roll slowly through you, luring you out of your dream and grounding you back to the present. You’re in the hotel. Yoongi appears to have shut down your laptop—you’d fallen asleep with it on your lap—and put it away for you before fumbling his way into bed. He smells like hotel soap, and toothpaste, and something almost… cereal-y? But more pungent?

Whiskey, your mind provides. He and Hobi had sipped on it during the V-live—just a little, they’d promised Armys, since they perform again tomorrow. You must have passed out shortly after the broadcast began, because you can’t remember anything else.

“Yoongi?” you say, voice thick with sleep. You curl further into his warmth, your body craving his touch. In sleep, you’d been able to escape the lingering clutches of your hangover—but nothing beats this. Now, you can almost feel the withering parts of yourself spark back into renewal—you imagine your heart like a crimson flower, blooming in turbo-time.

“Shh,” Yoongi says; he’d drawn the curtains closed when he came in, you notice, but had done an imperfect job at it. His face glows under a silver slice of moonlight, like some glistening, ethereal creature. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

“You fell on me,” you accuse sleepily, shifting to help him wrap his body more comfortably around yours. Your eyes grow heavier, your body melting against his. “Tripped right onto my—”

He chuckles lowly.

“Trippers and askers surround me,” he whispers—like a fucking weirdo.

“Meeyooee,” you whisper.

“You tripped onto me, Princess,” he says. “Remember?”

“Mhm,” you murmur. Ok. So he’s definitely tipsy. You plan to inform him of this, but then his breath ghosts across your neck as he rearranges your bodies, coaxing a shiver to ripple through you and robbing you of coherency.

Focus. It’s teasing hours, you think determinedly. You part your lips to say something—humming lowly as he whispers good night in your ear—but before the words come, you’re asleep again.

Once again, you wake up energized—and alone. A prickle, not quite of displeasure, but certainly of disappointment, steals through you. You brush it off, however, when your eyes alight on Yoongi’s familiar, cramped handwriting, stark black against the white sheet of paper on the bedside table. He’d ripped a page out of the hotel notepad for you.

With Joonah, he’d scrawled at the top of the page—but that wasn’t all. Under that, he’d listed several different location names within thirty minutes of the hotel, and jotted bullet points beneath each one. Notable to you are the Huntington Library—which apparently has a botanical garden that has been described as “plucked straight out of a Jane Austen novel”—and The Last Bookstore, a multilevel used book and record shop adorned with art. At the very bottom, he’s penned a reminder that you’re free to ask the shuttle drivers to take you where you want, if you decide to work outside of the hotel today.

Your lips twitch up into a small, private smile. This is just so Yoongi—so quietly thoughtful and considerate. The past few days had been so hectic, you hadn’t even considered venturing outside. But he’s right! There’s no reason to spend your time cooped up in the hotel room, nice as it is. You should take advantage of all the traveling you’re doing, and see the city.

You text Yoongi to express your thanks, and then begin the day at the library, winking at any and all passerby who dare to show their ankles… in Jane Austen’s garden! Without stockings! You’re surrounded by saucy harlots, and you love it.

After spending a happy hour traversing through the gardens, you go to its cafe to purchase a pastry that you won’t eat, and settle down to power through some important emails and troubleshoot with a few freelancers. Once again, however, the blast of charge you’d enjoyed upon waking begins to wane around noon.

Eventually, your nausea increases such that staring at your laptop screen becomes untenable. There’s no chance you’re still hungover. Probably your body’s internal clock is finally catching up with all the traveling. The time shift, coupled with the long stroll you’d just taken, must have worn you out. You’re not an idol, after all—you don’t have the same endurance training as the members. Anyway, you’re not too concerned, though the thin layer of sweat coating your temple is sort of uncomfortable. Giving up on work, you head to the bookstore, trying not to think about how your body temperature is perhaps a shade too warm for comfort. You have your meeting with Yoongi in a few hours, after all. No need to panic.

You’re going to light yourself on fire if you don’t touch Min Yoongi within the next ten seconds.

Perhaps you’re not doing as good a job at masking the desperation on your features as you’d thought, because the moment he sees you (you’d practically bolted into the prep room, and now had to practice great self-restraint by not flinging yourself into his arms in front of the coordis) his eyebrows shoot up on his forehead—a massive tell for Meeyooee, whose unflappable poker face, you know, is almost as famous as his tongue technology lyric.

Oof, you’re needy today. You force yourself to bow politely to Diane and Adaline, casting your eyes respectfully downward as you step into the private tutoring room, relieved when Yoongi closes the door behind you this time.

“Hey,” he greets casually, moseying over to the far side of the table at an absolute snail’s pace. He smiles at you—one of his true, gummy smiles. “So you went to the library? How did you—”

“Loved it,” you say impatiently, rounding to your side before stretching both hands out to Yoongi like a small child. Screw subtlety. Your feverish skin is now compounded by a slight headache, and you’re ready to risk it all for his touch. Yoongi quirks an amused eyebrow at your eagerness, a far better actor than you are—if you’re feeling this down on charge, he must be out of sorts, too!—before easily slipping his arms around you, pulling you into his chest.

The relief is immediate. His warm, musky scent washes over you, and you can feel the tension drain out of you. After just a few seconds, you’ve returned to yourself enough to sit down; to simply tangle your legs with his and reestablish a professional front, in case someone wanders in.

“Everything okay?” he asks, eyes tracking you closely as you take out your laptop, ready to pull up an old tutoring PDF.

“Just tired,” you say, shooting him a side-smile as you type. “Today would have been a good day to return to the coat closet, huh?”

Yoongi hums at that, shaking his head slightly.

“We don’t want to draw unnecessary attention if we can avoid it,” he says.

“Yeah. I’m just saying—”

You cut off as Yoongi puts his hand on yours, right on the table. He lets it rest there for just a second before withdrawing. His tone is firm—low but commanding—when he next speaks.

“Trust me.” Your eyes lock. “This will be more than enough.”

Trust me. The words are so small, so simple, but he might as well have just placed a lit fuse in between the two of you. Immediately, you’re transported back to the other night—to those veiny hands cupping your jaw, forcing you to face him. I trust you, you’d told him.

Something dark and hungry crosses Yoongi’s face for a second as you two regard each other silently. Is he remembering, too? He’d leaned in so close. Almost close enough to taste…

You swallow. The queasiness that had plagued you all afternoon has receded, replaced by a throbbing heat that’s entirely unrelated to lack of charge.

“Okay,” you whisper, tearing your eyes from his smoldering gaze—you can’t do this here. Hugging him was reckless enough. To both your immense relief and crippling disappointment, Yoongi follows your lead and begins dutifully reciting new English vocabulary. 

By the end of the session, as you ride back to the hotel alone in the shuttle, you feel much more refreshed. You want so badly to have a real conversation with Yoongi tonight when he’s finished performing. The time has come, you know, to address the growing tension—

—But by ten o’clock, the nausea returns. You fall again into an uncomfortable sleep, your stomach slightly cramping as your drift off into a restless dreamland.

Yoongi has no lessons scheduled for the next morning, which means you’re able to sleep in with him until ten the next day, when you jolt up in a panic.

“The fuck?” he mumbles blearily.

“Shit,” you say—your fatigue had come on so suddenly last night that you’d forgotten to set an alarm. It’s a busy workday for you—three essays need to go through a last round of copy-edits before you schedule them to upload by noon. You scurry into the shower and, fifteen minutes later, wish Yoongi a frantic good-bye as you bolt down to the hotel’s business center, grateful that at least sleeping in means you’ll get to enjoy an extra power-boost as you work.

Or, not. You only make it until noon, which is enough time to upload the critical work you need done for the day, before the now all-too familiar nausea creeps up on you, effectively grinding your productivity to a halt. Now that you think on it, you don’t entirely understand how illnesses work after one bonds with a soulmate. Perhaps this isn’t a charging issue. Could you be genuinely sick?

A quick Google search reveals that rest and skin-ship are supposedly the best restoratives for most common ailments in soulmates, such as headaches, flues, colds, allergies, and stomach aches. To be fair, you have felt immediately better each time you and Yoongi have touched over the past few days.

Then again, you once started your day by putting your symptoms into WebMD, and ended it three hours later convinced you were adopted and also probably on crack.

You head back up to the hotel room for privacy—Yoongi’s gone, now; probably at soundcheck—and call the doctor you share with the members. After listening to you list your symptoms, she interrupts you with an impatient snort.

“YN? I don’t mean to undermine your discomfort, but nausea, slight feverishness, stomach cramping, headaches, dizziness—these are all textbook symptoms of spending too long apart from your soulmate.”

“Right…”

“To be honest, I’m not surprised this is happening. Remember, Yoongi is not just an idol. He’s a member of a group that’s known for its physically demanding stages. Not only are you touring, and contending with the stressors that brings, but his concerts are supremely taxing. It’s a small wonder you don’t feel great. You need to charge more.”

“I see,” you say, feeling foolish for wasting her time. “It’s just, Yoongi doesn’t seem to be feeling as poorly as I am.”

Plus, he told me to trust him, you don’t say. And that’s, like, a thing with us now. Something tells you that your argument will be to your doctor as Brad Pitt is to Shania Twain: it won’t impress her much.

“He’s used to pushing his body to its limits,” the doctor explains. “Jungkookie and Jiminie have fainted and collapsed before, but Yoongi hasn’t. It could be that he just isn’t interpreting the warning signs as keenly as you are, because he thinks he understands his body’s limitations. You’ll just have to insist.”

“Okay,” you say, setting the intention: when you get to the venue, you’ll demand that you and Yoongi go into the closet again. If that proves impossible, you’ll just have to talk to Sejin about securing you a private tutoring room from here forward. Perhaps it’s even worth clueing one more person—the tour manager, Yuna—into the soulmate situation…

Satisfied, you allow your plan to buoy your spirits through the next few hours—

—Only to feel them shatter into a million pieces when you get a text from Namjoon just after three.

[15:06]   Joonie Balloonie  Hey, YN! Yoongi’s in a lesson right now, but he asked me to tell you not to worry about coming in to the venue later. He’s good on charge tonight.

You squeeze your eyes shut in frustration. This cannot be happening.

[15:06]   YN  Are you sure? It’s really not a burden, I have the time. We should charge.

[15:06]   Joonie Balloonie  He said he’s even more energized than usual 👍🏼

Exasperation almost compels you to chuck your phone across the room. Ignoring Namjoon’s last, you shoot off a text to Yoongi, even though you know he’s occupied.

[15:07]   YN  Hey. I really think I should come in today. 

Unsurprisingly, it takes a while for him to respond—you end up finishing your work and begin gathering your materials for the ride to the venue. In your mind, it’s a forgone conclusion. Whether Yoongi answers or not, you’re coming to see him.

Then he answers.

[15:39]   Meeyooee  no need. still charged from sleeping in this morning

[15:40]   YN  It’s not good to go all day without fueling before a performance.

[15:41]   Meeyooee  don’t worry

[15:41]   Meeyooee  i know what i’m doing. ok?

[15:42]   YN  Yoongi. I’m serious.

Seconds later, your phone lights up with an incoming call.

Biting back your annoyance, you answer with a curt: “Hi.”

“Hey,” Yoongi says. “Seriously. You don’t need to come.” He’s speaking as if he’s in a bit of a rush. “I know my limits, okay? I know what I can handle and I wouldn’t—”

Cheers erupt in the background on his end, causing Yoongi to trail off, but even through the receiver, you’re able to make out what everyone’s chanting. One name: Benny.

“Hey Suga!” Your suspicions are confirmed when Benny’s familiar voice sounds over the receiver. “Back for another round tonight, buddy! Woo!”

You hear Yoongi’s returning hum, and then Namjoon’s voice in the background, calling Benny over.

A beat of silence passes as you chew on this new information. You’d been gearing up to pull the medical card on Yoongi—“We need to charge! Doctor’s orders!”—but find yourself hesitating now. Maybe you’re just reading into things… but is it possible that Yoongi doesn’t want you to come to the arena because… well, because Benny’s there? He hadn’t been when you’d charged up there the other day. But it looks like he’s returned to perform his new song with the vocal line again.

Against your better judgement, you relent.

Just this once, you vow.

“Fine,” you say, breaking the silence first. “Have a good concert.”

“Thanks,” Yoongi returns quietly.

You hang up only for your phone to light up immediately.

[15:50]   Meeyooee  sorry

[15:50]   Meeyooee  the rest of the concerts won’t be like this

A pause.

[15:51]   Meeyooee  i promise

[15:52]   YN  Ok

[15:52]   Meeyooee  wait up for me tonight?

You look down, and despite the telltale signs of the headache you feel approaching, bite back an endeared smile.

[15:53]   YN  Ok :)

You fell asleep. Couldn’t help yourself, you suppose—you just felt so queasy, and had started running so hot, that your mind quit on you, your body giving you no choice but to doze off to escape the discomfort. Luckily, the boys don’t have a concert the next evening. Aside from a few press engagements, Yoongi has the day to himself.

You don’t, of course. Your schedule is booked with different deadlines, and on top of that, your Michelle essay is slated to go live at noon.

After waking up late with you, Yoongi has to head straight to an interview—you barely have time to exchange good mornings before he’s off, leaving you to finish most of your editing alone. He does, however, return to the hotel room for a long lunch. The two of you lounge in bed for nearly three hours, in a position you’ve come to inwardly refer to as Ol’ Faithful. He reclines with his back propped against the headboard, watching a basketball game on mute, while you nestle between his legs, your back flush against his chest with his arms wrapped around you as you field calls and track incoming responses—positive! Mostly positive!—to your first big feature.

Distantly, you’re aware that the two of you aren’t actually conversing much, but Yoongi doesn’t seem to mind—he must have needed this extra charging session as much as you did. When he gets up later to meet the members for his next engagement, however, you pout at him from where you remain on the bed.

“Five more minutes?” you ask.

Yoongi laughs.

“Princess,” he teases, “I think we’ve charged up enough to go all night.”

You look up from your laptop, unsure if he’d intended to make such a suggestive double entendre, and freeze, convinced you’re about to go full-Thanos on his ass and disintegrate on the spot. He’s leaning against the doorframe, regarding you with a dark, knowing smirk that sets the blood in your veins on fire. It’s a look of reaffirmation. It’s a promise.

He started something the other night, and you pray to sugar, spice, and everything nice that tonight’s the night he intends to finish it.

“I might write a bit with Joonah again later, but I’ll be back before midnight.”

You bob your head in acknowledgment—it’s the best you can do. His grin darkens in response. Deepens.

“Can you wait for me?”

Your eyes lock. You nod again, watching his mouth curve slightly at the edges.

“Use your words.”

“Okay,” you rasp out.

“Okay what?” he prods.

“Okay, I’ll wait for you.”

Phew, you think when he nods. You did it. You made it through the conversation without bursting into flames.

And then—

“Good girl,” Yoongi says, so softly you almost don’t hear him—and then he chuckles darkly, shooting you one last, sinfully lidded state, before slipping out of the room.

So, yeah, you think as you return to your laptop. You’re going to kill Min Yoongi. You’re going to lawyer the fuck up and sue him for the emotional devastation he’s wrought. He can’t keep getting away with this. He will pay for what he’s done. You will make sure Min Yoongi gets a piece of your mind—your Triple B, big booty mind—if it’s the last thing you do. You will—

You wake up late on the day of the last LA concert, a pit in your stomach when you see that Yoongi’s side of the bed is empty. Somehow, despite passing out shortly after ten pm—when your pounding headache had finally become too much to handle—you’ve managed to sleep in until noon.

You groan. Already, you feel a bit queasy. A cold stone settles in your stomach as you consider your options—because surely this means something’s truly wrong. You shouldn’t feel this sick this consistently. Not when you’ve been charging as often as you have! Granted, there were all those extraneous factors to consider, and you had skipped a few afternoon sessions that week… but not yesterday! You’d charged for hours in bed yesterday!

So what the fuck?

It’s only after you’re out of the shower—which had itself felt like a Sisyphean feat to power through—that it dawns on you. You’d fallen asleep before Yoongi crawled into bed last night, and woken up after he left. Perhaps Yoongi had returned extremely late last night—late enough that he felt too guilty to rouse you from your slumber. Perhaps he’d also risen earlier than usual. Just because you slept for nearly thirteen hours doesn’t mean you charged for more than a handful of them. A solid REM cycle was no replacement for a full night’s worth of skin-ship.

By the time you’re ready to head to the venue, you are feeling bad news bearsies. So when your phone lights up—as it always seems to do just as you’re preparing to depart—a knot of dread squeezes your stomach.

Please don’t let this be Yoongi cancelling. You’ll fling yourself off of the roof if that’s the case.

[15:48]   Kookie-roach  Hi noona!

You’re only marginally comforted to see Jungkook’s name. This could be another Namjoon situation, you remind yourself—perhaps Yoongi just tapped his maknae to pass on the bad news he was too busy to share.

[15:48]   Kookie-roach  Yoongi-hyung’s phone died.

[15:49]   Kookie-roach  He says to walk around the venue to the eastern entrance when you get here—knock twice and he’ll let you in the side door.

[15:49]   Kookie-roach  It’s green!

[15:49]   Kookie-roach  Oh, because he got you a private room to charge up in and thinks if no one sees you both go in together, they won’t know where to look if they want to bother him.

[15:50]   Kookie-roach  Can I come learn with you later, noona?

You could cry in relief. You respond to Jungkookie, thanking him for the message and acquiescing to his lesson request. Ten minutes later you’re in the shuttle, closing your eyes against the intrusive California sunlight—it’s worsening your headache—as you ride to the venue.

Just as the great prophet Jungkookie foretold, Yoongi’s the one to unlock the forest green door for you when you arrive. The moment his face comes into view, you break into a relieved smile, itching to barrel into his arms at once. So great is your need to charge that you don’t even notice the shift in his expression as he regards you, transforming from smug confidence for securing you a private room to something akin to concern.

Without saying anything, he jerks his head, bidding you to follow him down an unfamiliar hall and into a small, windowless room. The moment the door clicks shut, you stride over to him.

“You must be exhausted,” you say, letting your eyes flutter shut as you grab onto him. You press your body to his greedily, seeking comfort far more than pleasure at the moment; you don’t even register his soft intake of breath when your pelvis presses to his, simply focusing on getting as much charge as possible in as short a time as you can.

“Nah,” Yoongi says. “I feel okay.”

Under normal circumstances, you’d be happy to hear that Yoongi’s feeling well—but for some reason, today his easy dismissal triggers something ugly within you. Your head is pounding, pounding, pounding, and your skin remains febrile to the touch. What does he mean, he feels okay? Why won’t he be honest?

This isn’t working, you think. You two have to charge more. What does he gain by denying it?

“Don’t lie,” you snap. You haven’t taken such a harsh tone with him since that first night in the dorms, but find that once you begin lecturing him, you’re incapable of stopping. “You shouldn’t go without charge unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Yoongi tilts his neck back, forcing you to look up from where you’d pressed your forehead against his sternum. His expression is completely blank as he regards you.

“I know my limits,” he says in a tone that isn’t combative, but is certainly firm. There’s a warning in there, you know, but not one you want to heed. Not when the daydream you’d had of Yoongi collapsing on stage surges back to the forefront of your mind, like a current barreling through a flimsy dam. What isn’t he getting? If something happened to him due to a lack of charge, you might not be able to get to him right away. It could be disastrous. He shouldn’t be so cavalier!

“Well, the doctor says you’re not getting enough charge,” you tattle.

Yoongi blinks. His eyes narrow slightly. “What are you talking about?”

“I spoke to the doctor—”

“What? Why?”

“Because you were right when you said we were both stubborn!” You stomp your foot, acutely aware that you’ll regret this childish display later. “Every day you expend an insane amount of energy on stage, which is amazing, but the truth is that you get to bed late, you leave it early, and you’ve made a habit of skipping out on our pre-show charging sessions—”

“What are you talking about?” Yoongi repeats. His voice is still measured, but you can see his patience is waning. “This is the second day in a row we’ve slept in together.”

He must see something in your dumbfounded expression he doesn’t like, because his eyes harden to steel.

“I’m fine,”he says, his voice a near growl. “I know how to look after myself. Let me handle my shit.”

Even though you’re desperate for the charge, you let your arms drop, stepping back from him slowly. How can your soulmate look you in the eyes and insist everything’s fine when you’re clearly feverish? You can barely even concentrate!

“Yoongi, what’s going on?” you say, mortified to discover that you feel hot tears welling behind your eyes. You’re just so tired. So depleted. And he’s not listening to you. “Do you just not want to touch me or something?” you ask. “Is that it?”

Several emotions flit across Yoongi’s face as he extends a hand toward you, as if to grab your own, but you jerk back. His eyes widen marginally.

“YN…”

“What? Am I that intolerable a presence in your life?” you continue, taking a step back. You know you’re overreacting. You know you’re spiraling from a combination of feeling ill and utter exhaustion. But you can’t stop. “What—”

Your impassioned speech is cut short by dint of a pounding on the door, followed by a familiar voice.

“Yoongi-hyung? Noona?”

Ignoring Yoongi’s soft exhalation of your name, you turn from him and stride to the door, furiously blinking back tears until you’re sure you’re presentable. Fuck this. Fuck Yoongi. He doesn’t want to touch you? To charge with you? That’s fine. Just fine! You’re over it.

“La kookie!” you pitch your voice into what you hope is a believable cheer, pinching the youngest member’s cute bunny cheeks as he pads into the room, smiling widely and oblivious to the tension.

For the next two hours, you help Jungkook with his English studies, while you and Yoongi’s knees just barely graze under the table—it reminds you of those first few meetings at the dorms, back when you weren’t comfortable with each other, and didn’t require much skin-ship. If Jungkook picks up on the strained vibe between you and Yoongi, the youngest member wisely opts to remain silent.

Later, you shuttle back to the hotel alone, and fall into a fitful sleep before Yoongi returns.

The near-six hour drive to Oakland the next day is nothing short of dreadful.

The horror begins approximately two seconds after you wake up. Clearly, sleep had not ameliorated any of the tension between you and Yoongi from the day before.

“You’re being purposefully difficult about asinine things,” he tells you point-blank after you huff at him for the umpteenth time. You’d spent the past two hours bickering with him as you both packed up the hotel room—about whose charger was whose, whose adaptor was whose, about the fact that he’d squeezed your shared tube of toothpaste right from the middle when you’d asked him to go from the bottom, because you are not a fucking heathen—and it seemed he’d reached the limit of his patience. “We’re going to the same place. We can share the chargers. This is a useless fight that will lead nowhere.”

“You’re a useless fight that will lead nowhere,” you retort. He pretends not to hear you.

It’s a marvel you two make it to the shuttle at all. You settle into the back seat with him again—most likely, Sejin had to concoct some story to explain why you’d be riding in the van with the members instead of the rest of the staff. Who cares? Not you. In fact, you’re resentful. Yes, you’re dizzy and nauseous, but charging discretely with Yoongi in the van comes at a cost: namely, being in his stupid fucking presence. Ignoring the inquisitive look Jimin shoots your way, you lean your head against the window and fume the entire ride over.

The moment you park, you stalk away to the hotel’s business center to finish some edits, though you know your work is not up to your usual standard. You head up to your room around seven in the evening, unsurprised to find Yoongi’s MIA. You don’t bother texting him, not wanting to hear his lecture about how you just charged for literally six hours and don’t need each other. He doesn’t want to touch you anymore. You get it.

That night, you fall into a fitful, heated sleep, and when you wake up, Yoongi has, of course, already left for work.

You’re on the warpath by the time you arrive to the arena later that night. Yoongi’s not there to greet you in the lounge area backstage, forcing you to ask Ga-young, of all people, for directions to the prep room.

“Unnie,” she says. “Are you okay? You look a bit… ugly.”

“I’m fine, goo goo—uh, gaga—thank you,” you grit out, and stomp your way to prep. You make eye-contact with Yoongi, who’s sitting in the make-up chair, getting the finishing touches applied to his face. He looks stupid hot. It’s unbearable. You want to throw him into the trash. Perhaps he’s thinking the same about you, because you detect none of the softness you’d started to grow accustomed to seeing in his eyes when he regards you.

“YN-ie!” Diane, ever-sweet, waves when you walk in—and though you’re trembling with irritation, you manage to beam back. No matter how angry or under-charged you are, you’re not going to behave in a manner that could put either you or the dork-knob dingle-butt formally known as Splenda—excuse you, Suga;an objectively idiotic stage name—at risk.

The unnie working on Yoongi’s makeup deems him finished, and you wait for him to rise from his chair to lead you to the tutoring room.

Ten seconds pass. Idle chatter swells around you, the rest of the room going about their business as you wait. Almost a full minute elapses. You go still, a stone pillar amidst a hurricane, as you watch Yoongi turn pointedly to a clueless Taehyung sitting in the chair beside him. That’s when it clicks into place.

Yoongi’s not going to come.

“Yoongi-nim,” you grit out, mortified that he’s forcing you to resort to honorifics in front of the members to get his attention. None of the Hybe staff bats an eye, of course—but you and Yoongi understand what he’s done. The power-play he’s foisting upon you.

As, apparently, does Jimin.

“YN-ie!” he greets, his eyes turning into sweet, happy crescents as he bounds up to you. Had Yoongi greeted you with such enthusiasm, everyone would have known something was amiss, but Jimin has long since established a reputation for being familiar and respectfully flirty with pretty much everyone—even staff. “Are you here for English tutoring?”

You make an affirmative sound from deep in your throat, not trusting yourself to speak without screaming.

“Yoongi-hyung, weren’t you hoping to polish up on a few phrases?” Jimin asks.

“I memorized them.”

“Ah, but—”

You bite down on your lip, hard, as Yoongi interrupts Jimin’s protest with a perfect English recital of his closing ment. It’s as if someone took your two lungs and smashed them like cymbals, rendering them useless and inert. You understand what Yoongi’s doing, of course. He’s proving a point. He’s asserting that he’s at the top of his game and doesn’t need you. What’s more, he’s doing it in front of the entire room to ensure there’s no excuse for you to drag him away for a charge.

What changed? What happened? How did you guys go from that night in Los Angeles a few days ago to Meeyooee apparently being repelled by the very thought of touching you? There’s a stabbing pain in your gut, like someone’s reached in and crushed every essential thing swimming inside of you with a cruel, iron fist. If this is what Yoongi wants, then fine. You hope he understands what he’s asking for. Keeping your eyes locked with his inscrutable ones in the mirror, you drop into a deep bow. It’s a humbling gesture, meant to demonstrate respect to your superior—an actual physical representation of lowering yourself in deference to another. 

Is this what you want? you think. Is this where you think I belong?

When you rise, you find only a modicum of solace in the fact that Yoongi’s face looks a bit stricken; for a moment you even wonder if he’s about to say something to you, but before he can, a hand slips into yours.

Jimin giggles. “YNie, help me learn some English phrases instead. Come on.”

“Don’t fluster the staff, Jiminie!” one of the coordis chides him, winking openly at you as you stumble after Jimin. At this venue, the room they’d designated for tutoring is completely detached from the prep room, giving the two of you complete privacy—if you and Yoongi were talking, you would have viewed it as a godsend. How Yoongi’s covering his exhaustion this well is beyond you. Jimin has to drag you—trembling, with sweat beading down your temple, and your stomach cramping something fierce—into the room.

You sink into a chair and drop your head into your hands.

“YN-ah?”

You will not cry. 

“I don’t know what to do,” you whisper as Jimin sinks into the chair next to yours. Wordlessly, he scoops both of your hands up and squeezes them, his eyes round and concerned as he looks at you.

“What’s wrong? Did you and Yoongi-hyung get into a fight?”

“He won’t let me charge him,” you hiccup. “He’s been… and… Jimin, what if he collapses on stage? What if…”

You cut off with a dry sob, unable to continue. Your thoughts are like eels, slipping and sliding, impossible to latch onto.

“Shh,” Jimin says. “Don’t cry, YN-ie, don’t cry. It’s okay. I was with Yoongi all day. Okay? He has enough energy for tonight, I promise. You don’t have to worry.”

“But—”

“After tonight, we have a few days off before our Texas concert. It’ll be okay.”

Jimin continues to murmur reassurances, squeezing your fingers and patting your back. You don’t know how much time passes, but eventually your breathing regulates enough to look up at Jimin through watery eyes.

“Yoongi’s been ignoring you?” Jimin asks.

Heaving a deep sigh, you fill Jimin in on how you’ve been feeling—how you spoke to the doctor, and how Yoongi keeps brushing you off, insisting you should just trust him.

“I do trust him,” you say, “but I can’t ignore the physical symptoms. It’s not in my head. He just has more experience pushing his body to its limits, so he doesn’t realize how dire it’s become!”

“Ah, Yoongi-hyung.” Jimin shakes his head, drawing you in for a consolatory hug. “I’ve been telling him since the beginning he’s an idiot when it comes to you.”

You sniffle in Jimin’s hold.

“What… what do you mean since the beginning?”

Jimin pulls back, rolling his eyes with a conspiratorial giggle. “Like, that first night at the dorms,” he says. “He was all upset because you and I got along and you didn’t let him off the hook for being so late. I think that was the first time in years Yoongi-hyung pulled me into his room just to gossip for a while. He kept me up until two in the morning complaining about you, YNie! He would not shut up.”

“Complaining?”

“Yeah. You know that’s Yoongi-hyung’s way of admitting he likes someone without admitting it, don’t you?” Jimin deepens his voice, tilting back his head and folding his arms in a stiff—and admittedly accurate—impersonation of Yoongi when he’s fake-whining. “Ah, Jiminah, she’s from New York! She’s insane, all she does is make up ridiculous songs and read books and talk about poetry with Namjoonah. She doesn’t even remember to wear a mask on the plane, Jiminah, she must be so irresponsible! I’m pretty sure she didn’t trip, she did the bend and snap in order to meet me, which probably makes her a sasaeng, don’t you think? You know, I bet she doesn’t even like basketball. By the way, Jungkookie says she ate the last piece of honey butter chicken, so clearly she’s a very selfish girl—”

You draw back, squinting through your double vision—from the tears, you console yourself, not the dizziness—to listen.

“And don’t even get me started about the Luc fiasco,” Jimin smiles widely, cupping your face in his hands and shaking your head goofily. “Oh, we really bickered about that one. He was being so stubborn—”

“He’s always stubborn,” you cut him off with frown. “I think we’re both stubborn people—perhaps to a fault. He said that to me, once.”

Jimin’s laugh tinkles like bells. “Well, he’s not wrong.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying…”

You huff with no real fire behind it, giving Jimin a timid smile. The mere act of unloading your woes to a sympathetic ear has acted as a salve to the most raw of your emotional wounds. The time difference, combined with your turbulent past few days, has made it difficult to reach Daehyun or Hana for a true heart-to-heart. Sitting there beside Jimin, it strikes you how, sometime over the past few months—without you even fully realizing that it was happening—he’s actually developed a true friendship with you, outside of Yoongi’s influence.

“YNie.” Jimin’s honeyed voice adopts a serious lilt. “Just get through tonight, okay? You’ll have the next few days to talk to him. If he won’t listen, or if he’s being difficult, come hang out with me in my hotel room.”

“What?” You arch an eyebrow. “How would that solve anything?”

“Because then you can help me become an English master,” Jimin says, and then grins slyly, grabbing your hands again. “And it’ll really piss Yoongi-hyung off.”

Just then, the door bangs open, and you turn to find a sheepish Jungkook in the doorframe, rubbing his neck awkwardly—and a stoic Yoongi standing behind him, his narrowed eyes roving slowly between you and Jimin before coming to dock on your joined hands.

“Hi, Noona. Jimin-hyung.” Jungkook looks to the ceiling, wincing slightly as he speaks. “Ah… I’m sorry, but the coordis need us. Uh. Now.”

“But YN-ie!” Jimin says, a mischievous glint sparkling in his eye as he turns, pouting, to you. “We were having so much fun that you forgot to teach me any English! What do I do?”

Despite how crummy you feel, you can’t help but snort at Jimin’s transparent antics. You gamely allow him to pull you to your feet—you’re feeling a bit unsteady on them, actually—and don’t move away when he drapes an arm over your shoulder, steering you to the door.

“Just spell your name. Say: ‘J-I-M-I-N. That’s my name.’ Army will go wild.”

“Ah, YNie, you must think I’m very charming if you think something as simple as that will work…”

With a last squeeze to your shoulder, Jimin releases you a few steps before you reach the prep area. Though you can feel Yoongi’s eyes on you, you turn pointedly away, heading to the shuttles.

Unfortunately, the shuttle drivers are all having dinner, and when you return to the venue to await their return, Yuna spots you in the lounge.

“Get a ride back with me later,” she says, steering you back into the prep-room. “Come on, we can watch the concert together on these monitors, it’ll be fun…”

You put up no resistance, wiping your increasingly sweaty temple with a spare towel as you settle in to watch the show. Witnessing how much hard works goes on behind the scenes is almost as interesting as the actual on-stage performance—you get to see firsthand how critical the hardworking staff is in ensuring BTS’s success. They perform a practiced, synchronized dance of their own, appearing as needed to blot the members’ sweat with towels, help them with costume changes, and keep them sufficiently hydrated.

You pretend not to notice that each time Yoongi comes down, he makes a point of meeting your eyes, something dark and unreadable in them each time, before going back on stage again.

The show is nearly over—the members are waiting in the prep room, seconds away from going back out for their final ments and the encore—when it happens. Yuna’s describing the surprising logistics that go into planning a world wide tour, and you’re nodding along. She’s fascinating. She’s a genius. She’s a queen.

And then she’s screaming.

The last thing you see are Yoongi’s dark eyes widening at you, as you rudely cut Yuna off midway through her speech, and collapse dramatically to the floor.

Warmth.

That’s the first thing you register when you come to around five hours later. Not the starchy sheets, not the recurring beeping, not your dry, aching throat, or the fact that you feel like you’re literally floating on a cloud—or rather, made up of a cloud, like your thoughts are mere wisps of smoke. The first thing you focus on—the only thing you want to focus on—is the cradle of warmth and comfort you’ve somehow lucked into. It tingles all along your back, massaging itself into each ridge of your spine, seeping up the nape of your neck, across the curve of your waist, and down over your legs to your toes.

But wait. Where are you? You shake your head, blinking as you take in the dark, unfamiliar room in which you’ve awoken. Your headache is gone. Now, your brain feels like an open field in springtime. A few seconds pass, and memories begin to pop up like flower buds, slowly unfurling. 

Oh, yeah. Now you remember. You’d felt a searing pain rip through your abdomen at the venue. You’d fainted. There’d been shouts. Hands. Medics hunched over you, luckily already on standby at the venue. And then, a car ride…

You sit up, hit with a wave of dizziness that feels less nauseating and more euphoric than anything. You recognize the sensation from when you got your tonsils removed a few years ago and woke up from an anesthesia-induced slumber. You’re high. Higher than a bat’s ass. Goooooofed. Stoney (Benny smells like) baloney. Cloudy with a chance of munchies.

Oh, yeah. And Yoongi’s laying in the hospital bed with you.

“Yoohoo!” You slap him lightly across the cheek. “Rise and shine, hunky monkey.”

He must not have been sleeping very soundly, because the moment your hand connects with his cheek, Yoongi shoots up—and then immediately wraps his arms back around you, forcing your head back onto your pillow.

“Don’t resist,” Yoongi says before you have a chance to speak. “Stay here.”

“Why so handsy?” you rasp. Your throat is so scratchy—had you been intubated? “What’s going on, muchacho? Or should I say Min-chacho, heh heh…”

Yoongi cups the back of your head to keep you stationary, ignoring your questions.

“The doctors said the best thing now is skin-ship. So. Please don’t—”

You make a sound you hope sounds superior and disparaging. “Oh, so now you want to listen to the doctors—”

“YN, you had appendicitis,” he interrupts you. “You just had an emergency appendectomy. Okay? We’re in a hospital in Oakland.”

You wriggle in Yoongi’s grasp, huffing in annoyance when he only tightens his arms around you.

“Let… me…. stop it!”

His grip slackens marginally, allowing you to turn on your side to face him. Immediately, and without asking, his hand slips under the loose tee shirt you’re wearing—one of Yoongi’s, you note dimly; an oversized grey one, and very soft—and rests his hand over your abdomen. You gasp, eyes fluttering briefly shut from the intimacy of the gesture—from the surge of warmth and comfort it brings—but Yoongi doesn’t seem to register your reaction. When you meet his gaze, his eyes are wide and pleading on yours.

“Don’t resist,” he says again. “I… please let me…”

He trails off, and you stare at him, studying the peaks and valleys of his face as though it were an astrolabe. Each little freckle tells a story, you think. His skin is like a tome, written not with words, but constellations of fixed diamond stars…

Dang. You’re like, Seth Rogen levels of gonzo bononzo. The fuck they put in anesthesia these days? Crack?

“YN.” The desperation you hear in his voice draws your attention. You realize, with a start, that Yoongi’s eyes are rimmed with red. “I’m sorry.”

“Get a grip, corn chip,” you mumble as Yoongi’s thumb strokes over your surgical incision. “What’s wrong with you?”

His gaze does not waver.

“I should have listened to you,” he says, tone low and deathly serious. “You told me you needed more charge. I thought it was all about me. I didn’t realize…” His eyes are dark and hooded as they rove over your face. You think he’s never looked so lost—so adrift, despite being the one holding you in his arms—before. “I saw you faint. It was terrible.”

“Hey now, hey now,” you say, before snapping your lips shut. Now is not the time to break into your Lizzie McGuire karaoke routine. “Everything’s okay, Yoongi.”

“I’m a terrible soulmate.”

You don’t say anything for a moment, taken aback by the vehemence of his tone—the clinical and cruel self excoriation.

“That’s not true, Yoongi,” you say after a beat. “It’s okay.”

“I cried on stage,” Yoongi says.

“What?”

“During the ending ments. Ah, when we saw you faint… YN… I was… if Joonah and Sejin hadn’t been there… I don’t know. I could hardly…” He’s rambling. “Jin-hyung got me on stage. The members made it seem like I was overwhelmed by Army’s love… I think I blacked out. I don’t… they made me wait an hour before I could come here. Sejin brought over these clothes for you. The hospital staff dressed you, not me. I should have listened. I’m sorry.”

It is at that moment you realize you are not wearing any pants. And that Meeyooee is not wearing a shirt. His dusky nipples are on full, skankish display.

“Floozy,” you whisper, and at his raised eyebrows, you take it upon yourself to flick one of those aforementioned nipples, giggling at Yoongi’s sharp intake of breath. Before he can say anything, you take one of your own hands and slap your butt, loudly, before allowing your index finger to drift over the fabric searchingly.

“Aha!” you exclaim. It is just as you suspected—you’re wearing your good luck underpants! “Ask not what your corn-ties can do for you, Yoongi, but what you can do for your corn-ties!”

“Corn-ties?” he asks, sounding strained.

“Corn panties,” you explain reasonably. “Listen, Meeyooee. As far as I’m concerned, this is all a good thing. A great thing.”

“YN, you’ve been miserable for almost a week because of me,” Yoongi says with a wince. “According to the doctor, our charging sessions just prolonged the amount of time you had to suffer before it became an emergency. The skin-ship kept healing you just enough to keep you in pain, but not in need of surgery.”

“Yeah, that sucks,” you agree. “But let’s look on the bright side. I thought you hated me. I thought you’d rather starve yourself then touch me ever again. But really my appendy-wendy was just inflamed!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What?”

“Of course I want to touch you.”

You tsk. “You cancelled our charging sessions.”

“Yeah. I’m an idiot.”

“You told me to trust you. Sometimes I think you don’t even trust me.”

“YN.” You watch his throat bob as he swallows. “I trust you.”

“Okay.”

“I messed up. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

“I always want to touch you.”

“Me too.”

Yoongi blinks. “You too, what?”

“I always want to touch you,” you trill, snuggling into Meeyooee’s chest. Everything’s fine. Everything’s great. The whole world is shining, shimmering, splendid, and swirling.

Yoongi shifts. “I thought I was just a means to an end,” he says lowly, his lips centimeters from your ear.

You snort. “Are you really gonna make me say it?” you mumble.

“Say what?”

“That your touch feels dope fucking ass, bro,” you hear yourself admitting. Without giving him a chance to speak, you prop yourself up on your elbow. “Hey, hold on. Does it feel good to you?”

Yoongi scoffs, as though offended by the query. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Your eyes narrow suspiciously. “Does it?” you press.

“Yes.” The answer is so simple, so direct. So unbearably Yoongi. “Obviously.”

“Obviously what?”

The smirk is back.

“You feel good to me too, Princess.”

“Then why are you smirking?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“I knew it.”

“What’d you know?”

“That you thought I felt good.” 

Yoongi’s words are teasing, but his eyes are soft and sweet in the dark.

“Oh really?”

“Really,” he says. “I just wanted to hear you admit it. I wanted you to—”

You kiss him.

You didn’t plan to. You fully intended to hear what he had to say. But the scent of orange blossoms and deep, dark woods was clinging to his skin, flooding your senses, and his hand was pressed to your skin, and your legs were entangled, and he’d said you felt good to him with his full chest, without even thinking about it, and he’d said it with that stupid, cocky smile that always drives you so fucking crazy—

So you kiss him, curling your fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants to anchor yourself to him before pressing your lips to his.

Heat ignites in your body, flaring alive and shooting lightning bolts all the way down to your toes as the soulmate sensation floods through you, so much more intense than ever before. Sparks of passion ignite all over your skin—you can feel him against you, all over you, overwhelming your body with pleasure. He’s everywhere. You can’t escape him.

You don’t want to.

You melt into him, opening your mouth slightly as your hands tangle in his hair, pulling him in deeper, biting back a whimper as Yoongi’s hand on your stomach drifts to land on your hip. He grips down, hard, and at your sharp intake of breath, lets out a dark, dark laugh. His lips are slightly chapped and rough and desperate against yours. When he presses his pelvis against you, you can’t help it: you let out a low whine.

Immediately, he pulls back, his eyes black as pitch and wild.

“Fuck!” he whispers, chest heaving. Without warning, he cups the back of your head and yanks it roughly into his chest, arms curling around you until you’re pressed into him. “Princess,” he says, his voice dark and filled with warning. “You’re high. You just got out of surgery.”

“And?” you grumble. When he doesn’t respond, you open your mouth, placing a hot, sloppy kiss against his chest.

Yoongi hisses, and before you know it, his hand has flashed down to grip your jaw, just like the other night. Carefully, making sure to not apply too much pressure, he pushes you back to look you in the eyes.

“And you need to recover. We’re not doing this now.”

“But—”

Yoongi’s tongue darts out to wet his lips; you trace the muscle hungrily with your eyes.

“No,” he says decisively, and to your dismay, he seems to really mean it. With a sudden jerk, he swings his legs over the hospital bed.

You feel the lack of warmth immediately, shivering as he heads over to an armchair you hadn’t noticed in the corner. You appear to be in a private hotel room, which makes sense. Yoongi, you’re sure, will fill you in on the details of what comes next later.

Your eyes follow the smooth planes of his body as he bends over, his back muscles rippling, to extract something from a backpack on the chair. When he crawls back into bed with you, you see he’s brought his laptop.

“I’m putting you to sleep,” he says simply, powering it on and navigating to the purchased movie selection on his iTunes account. He leans back, curling his arm around your waist, tugging you half onto him. “Pick a movie.”

“No,” you say stubbornly, shaking your head. Now that you don’t have Yoongi’s lips to occupy your thoughts, the drugs are back to tugging your mind in various scrambled directions, like a balloon bobbing on a string.

“I’m not in the mood to look at blondes,” you mumble. “You’re obsessed with blondes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you deny it?!”

Yoongi scoffs. “They’re… fine? I don’t have a problem with blondes. I’m not obsessed with blondes.”

“But you love Reese Witherspoon!” you cry, shifting until you’re more comfortably nestled against Yoongi. “And Scarlet Johansson!”

“What are you talking about?” he asks again. In answer, you point dramatically to all the Reese Witherspoon movies in his recently purchased file. Yoongi’s eyes follow your finger, and then he rolls his eyes.

“Okay, Princess,” he says, his lips twitching. He shakes his head. “That’s enough. These movies are trash. Come on, let’s watch Tazza…”

You mean to belabor the point. You mean to do many things. Instead, you let Meeyooee tuck your head under his chin and put his hand back on your incision as the opening credits of Tazza play.

For the first time in days, you don’t feel sick at all when you finally drift off to sleep.

A/N: 😳

A/N II: This vicious menace is my head canon for this chapter.

A/N III: Please consider dropping a comment, sliding into my ask box, or re-blogging with reactions/feedback 💜 SEE YOU NEXT TIME.

<333

yoongi ♡ 220824

translation: miiniyoongs, tteokminnie, btsinthemoment

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Literally made my day🤩

Trip No Further | Chapter 14

Summary: When your valiant attempt to get your best friend laid not only backfires, but results in one mind-boggling discovery—that the world-famous idol Min Yoongi of BTS is your soulmate—you’re forced to confront your new reality. Soon, you will need each other’s touch to survive. Too bad Suga, despite his sweet name, is proving to be something of an acquired taste…

Pairing: idol!Yoongi x Reader Genre: soulmate!au, idol!au, slow burn, heavy humor, eventual smut, idiots/nemeses/enemies to biases/lovers (iykyk) Word Count: ~10.4k 😭 Rating: 18+ Warnings: swearing, mentions of drinking/partying, sluttay revelations,,, Links: AO3, Masterlist

A/N: I said a Trip-hop, the Trippie, the Trippies To the Trip, Trip-hop and you don't stop the rockin'!

HOWDY, MY BELOVED TRIP-HOPPERS! In typical Matchy fashion, I completely lost control of my *checks notes* everything, and when I realized this chapter was already over 10k (uh,,,,bitch? u good?!??!), I made the executive decision to split the heaux in two. As such, Chapter 15 is already almost finished, and will now come out two days early on August 23 for TNF's three-month birthday 🥺💜 This also means that any-to-all spoilers I told you about this chapter were big thicc juicy lies, lmfao. Alas(s). BAD MATCHY! Please look forward to them showing up next week's update!

ANYWHO, please consider re-blogging with feedback or sliding into my ask box (anonymously or otherwise!) to let me know what you thought of the chapter. The support is very, very appreciated, and engaging with you all is SO CHAOTIC AND WONDERFUL, PLS. It's honestly what I live for.

See you next week!

Chapter Fourteen: Don’t Wanna Be F(.)(.)L, Wanna Be C(.)(.)L

You’re going to be in California for eight days, during which time the boys are set to perform three concerts in Los Angeles, followed by one in Oakland. After that, you have a three day buffer before the team heads down to Texas.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Hana asks you. It’s just after noon California time—four in the morning for Hana. On days like today, you thank your chosen higher power, DTRJ, for Hana’s bartending gig. Despite the massive time difference between the two of you, she’s still wide awake, having just gotten off of her shift.

“The plan is to head to the venue at four to charge up and coach the members in some English phrases,” you say. “Then tonight, I’m finally going to see them in concert.”

While BTS’s crew has to begin work bright and early to prep the venue, the boys’ schedules are typically clear on performance days until the early afternoon, when they’re due for soundcheck—which meant that you and Yoongi were able to sleep in this morning.

“Nice,” Hana says. Then: “You look happy.”

“I… yeah. I’m really wired right now,” you say, flushing as you think about your morning—you’d awoken to discover that overnight, you’d managed to maneuver your way out of Yoongi’s embrace and flip positions with him—had you rolled over him? Had he rolled over you?—to the opposite side of the bed. Not only that, but you’d latched yourself onto Yoongi’s back like some sort of hornt-up goblin—or, if you’re feeling generous, perhaps a rocket-pack—with your leg thrown over his hip and both of your hands up his shirt.

So, uh, yeah. Now you know for certain what those dark hairs trailing a vertical line from his bellybutton down, down, down, feel like under your fingers. They’re softer than you’d imagined, actually!

Which like, cool. Whatever. It’s fine. You’re fine. Seriously. You don’t even care! All that matters is that you’d woken up before him this time, so you’d been able to extract your roaming claws from his person before he yawned awake.

What matters, you think, is riding the energy-wave while it lasts. Yoongi had grumbled his way through his morning routine, telling you about the many things he plans to accomplish over the next eight months. For someone who has made no secret of his desire to be able to sit in an ever sittier way when he’s already sitting, the man sure keeps it moving. Not only does he intend to work on his individual musical projects while touring—which you expected—but he’s already booked vocal coaching sessions, pilates lessons, keyboard classes, and has hired a remote  tutor for Japanese (which he plans to learn on top of the English you’re contractually obliged to help him with, now) too.

So, yeah. He’s booked and busy, hunnie! Yoongi’s a girlboss. He’s a king.

However, you suspect that all these activities are bound to get him out of bed quite early; pair that with the late concert nights and V-lives he’s expected to do, fitting in time to charge might prove difficult soon.

But that’s a problem for YN-of-tomorrow to worry about! The YN-of-today is cruising, baby. She’s thriving. Her crops are watered and her ass is phat. This morning, you sent your parents a long e-mail checking up; you had a productive call with your supervisor, Pavica; and you finally finished up your feature on Michelle Zauner for review. Considering her memoir focuses so heavily on Korean foods and the memories they evoke for her—which you find harder to relate to in the immediate sense, now that you’re no longer eating—you’re proud of how you managed to weave in a shout-out to your old bodega sandwich and the thrill you used to get while visiting its flat-faced city kitty, Norman.

“Sick ass,” Hana says. Busan is still dark on her end of the screen, but you can see some convenience stores lighting up behind her—their days beginning as Hana’s comes to an end. “And when are you gonna jump your soulmate’s bones?”

As always, you open your mouth to shut down that suggestion—and then… 

Well. And then you don’t.

“What’s that face, baby?” Hana says suspiciously. You’d updated her on all the Ga-young tea you’d learned in the wake of your Eomma’s interrogation, and Hana had put on no airs about what she thought you should do with that newfound knowledge: namely, splay yourself out on the hotel bed in nothing but your corn underpants, singing Mariah’s “Touch My Body!”—which she knows is way out of your vocal register, but it’s the thot that counts, you suppose—to Meeyooee.

“This is the part where you say, but I’m not ready, Hana! and tell me you’re perfectly fine with where your relationship is at now.”

“Yeah,” you say. “Uh, that.”

“YN,” Hana says sharply. “Are you happy with where your relationship is now?”

You find you can’t look at Hana’s face as you chew over her question, choosing instead to stare pensively out the hotel window. In truth, you and Yoongi are getting along better than you ever have. While you still want to discuss the Susu Gaga saga with him—you no longer suspect that he has feelings for Ga-young, but you reckon there’s more to unpack there—things have felt… lighter between you two since your Eomma’s visit.

Except… have they? Sure, you’d managed to set fire to some of the emotional baggage you’d been lugging around behind you.

But… but…

But what about the curls of heat that spiral deep within your belly any time Meeyooee wanders within six feet of your person?! What about the way you reflexively press your thighs together when you catch so much as a whiff of his dark, citrusy scent? You got turned on the other day by watching Namjoon toss a tangerine peel into the garbage the other day! Turned on! By the peel! And that’s not to mention the insane craving you have to run your finger down the column of Yoongi’s neck—you want to physically map out the ridges of his throat with your thumb; you want to press your lips to the skin there and feel how it vibrates when he speaks to you, so gravely and low.

Your mind is a carousel of forbidden images: Yoongi’s long, black hair, streaked with sweat as he traces a hand idly up the curve of your waist after your Eomma had gone; that look of pleasure so pure it almost looked like pain on his face when you held his hand in the shuttle; his eyes, always dark, almost completely black when he’d stroked your cheek outside of the elevator that night at the dorms.

Just think of that as a means to an end.

“Maybe not,” you hear yourself admitting. You meet Hana’s gaze. For the first time, your dissatisfaction in your relationship doesn’t stem primarily from a place of feeling unsettled—because the truth is, you’re past the point of trying to get your bearings when it comes to Yoongi. So much has happened, so much has changed, since you two made First Contact. In the past almost three months, you’ve moved countries. You’ve met the band. You’ve quit one job and gained a new one, gave up food and adjusted to your new normal. No longer do you feel like the floor’s about to cave out beneath you. Even though you’re on tour, you feel stable.

So, yeah. You can finally admit it to yourself. You and Yoongi have advanced past the awkward first stage of adjusting to each other, which means that at this point, you’ve progressed your relationship with Yoongi as far as you can without actually confessing anything to him.

“We’re ‘friends’ now,” you say, workshopping your thoughts aloud to Hana. “He teases me. Not in a cruel way. And he doesn’t seem to mind when I get up to my usual bullshit or say something bonkeroons. I’m no longer just… floundering to get my bearings. That part of our journey is over. That part was… challenging.”

“Right,” Hana says. “Now you two are sort of on equal ground—as much as you two can be in your situation, anyway.”

You see what she means. You’re still the one who has to abide by the idol industry’s rules; still the one who’s given up any semblance of geographical constancy. But aside from those two factors—and granted, they are two big factors—you feel… free. In some ways, meeting Yoongi was like a catalyst. You’d spent a big chunk of your last few months in New York dreading what the future had in store for you. Daehyun had been about to move on. You’d limited your job-search to options that were in-office, figuring you’d get a low-tier job at a publishing house and grind your way up the corporate ladder. You’d never even thought to broaden the scope of your search to include remote positions—had never considered that doing so might put you in direct and immediate contact with some of your literary heroes; had never considered that you were competent and capable enough to seize interesting opportunities now. You didn’t have to wait; didn’t have to waste your days away filling out tip-sheets at Penguin Random House, hoping that some crusty white man in a suit might one day reward your hours of labor with… what? A paltry raise? The opportunity to shake an author’s hand after a Barnes & Noble reading?

It’s strange how meeting your soulmate—which at first had struck you as an event so definitive and defining and constrictive, that you’d felt like you couldn’t breathe—had ultimately proved to be one of the most liberating events of your life.

“So now that you’ve established a baseline with Yoongi,” Hana says, “I guess that leaves you with a choice.”

“Does it?”

“Of course. You can either stall out here and allow things to remain the way they are between you—comfortable, secure, and friendly—for the next eight months…” she trails off.

There’s a pit in your stomach at the suggestion, but you force yourself to nod. It’s not a bad option. There’s nothing wrong with stability, per se.

“Yeah.” You swallow. “I could do that.”

“Or…” Hana says suggestively.

“ORRRRRRR,” you say, eagerly glomming right the fuck on to that nifty little conjunction. Subtlety be damned. The world or suggests another option! Or gives you permission to choose another path. And you are, you realize, looking for permission. To dance. With Meeyooee. Horizontally. In your shared hotel bed.

Nekked.

“Or,” Hana smiles knowingly, “you can take matters into your own hands, baby. Take a leap of faith, and… I don’t know, shove his face into your tatas and ask him to mo-mo-motorboat you gently down the stream.”

“Just because that’s worked with men in the past doesn’t mean it’ll work now!” you scold Hana, but inwardly, you’re thrilling at the mental image of Yoongi’s lips anywhere near the gorls. Merrily, merrily, merrily, indeed!

“So this is it, then? You’re ready to make a move and take things to the next level?” Hana confirms.

You pause. “Do people ever really feel ready when it comes to stuff like this?” you say uncertainly.

Hana thinks for a minute.

“Nah.”

“You right,” you say. You’re sitting at the hotel desk, but your heart is galloping as if you’ve just finished a race. “I… I just… I don’t wanna be fool, Hana. I wanna be cool, you know?”

“You are cool, YN,” she assures you. “Besides, I’ve seen the way that man looks at you. It’s like he wants to eat you alive. I thought he might actually clock Jungkook for allowing you to peel that perilla for as long as you did. Do you honestly think he wouldn’t go for it?”

You may be an idiot, but you’re not stupid. Yoongi’s a man. He’s hot-blooded. He’s not utterly repulsed by you. You totally think he’d go for it if you flashed him a lil nip nip… just as a treat. Besides, it’s not like he can just cut and run if your bedroom performance disappoints him in some unanticipated way—which you don’t think he’d do even if he didn’t need your touch to survive. He just… isn’t the type of guy who’d make a partner feel bad about that kind of stuff. Not your Meeyooee. He’s more like the kind of guy who’d probably take a bedroom fumble as an opportunity to teach you about what he liked… the kind of guy who wouldn’t mind taking matters into his own, long, strong hands, and…

No. NOPE. You shake your head of your rapidly degenerating thoughts. This is very important business! Why are you thinking of his fingers at a time like this? You’ve lost sight of the point. The point! The point is, what’s holding you back?

You’re tired of holding yourself back.

“Do you trust him?” Hana prods gently.

You take a deep breath in through your nostrils, and exhale out through your mouth. Looks like sincerity’s back on the menu, boys! It’s real talk time, now.

“I think…” You lower your voice, even though you’re alone in the room. “I think I’m a bit nervous that I like him more than he likes me, you know?”

Hana’s eyes are unbearably soft on the other side of the screen.

“I get it,” she says. “You don’t want him to stick his dingaling up your punani-wani until you feel emotionally safe with him.”

Your mouth pops open.

“The fuck you just say to me?”

Hana settles into her armchair-expert role. “You’re reluctant to allow him to put his dinky winky anywhere near your bajingo ringo until—”

“Okay,” you fold up a silencing finger, “before you go on, let’s get one thing right. I hardly think his winky will be dinky—”

“You’re right, it doesn’t matter,” she says, laughter garbling her words. “As long as he knows how to find the clot.”

“THE WHAT?”

“Sorry, I choked on my own spit there for a second. The clit. Just get him to lick your clit a little.”

You stare.

“Or a lottle.”

“Hana.”

She nods sagely. “Tell Meeyooee to lottle your clottle!”

You can do nothing but splutter at her for a full ten seconds before she takes mercy on you, and pushes the conversation forward.

“Look, I get it. You want to be seen by him with the same consideration and admiration as you see him,” Hana says. “That’s fair. But you’re not going to feel emotionally safe with him if you don’t take a chance and show some vulnerability. You can initiate that conversation with your words or with your body. It doesn’t matter which.”

You think about that.

“It’s just… hard,” you admit. “When I first met Yoongi, I thought he hated me. It’s difficult to forget that. The media would have you believe most soulmates just fall in love straight away, you know? They’re immediately obsessed with each other.”

“Right,” Hana says. “Which… you were.”

“Huh,” you say. That… well, that’s a revelation right there. In retrospect, you suppose you were immediately obsessed with Yoongi. Cranky and overwhelmed and defensive, to be sure, but you remember what it was like, tripping into him at that Knicks game. You’d never experienced anything like it—such an instant, blissful sense of belonging. Of surety. And then you’d felt it again in that Ritz-Carlton hotel room—that magnetic, propulsive draw.

But also, he’d been such a grade-A peen. He had. He had!

“I don’t think I’m just in my head when I say he had reservations about me in the beginning,” you say slowly. You recall how Yoongi didn’t say more than a few words to you in that first meeting; how he’d been so confident and snide and honestly, mean-spirited when he’d asked if you’d been expecting a kiss that night at the dorms, after he’d shown up so late; how he’d kept insinuating that he’d already had you under his thumb…

How perplexed he’d acted when he realized he hadn’t. How he’d stared at you, eyes dark and searching, when you’d spoken to Namjoon about poetry; when you’d had your interview; when you ditched the boys to hang out with Hana; when you’d ditched the concert to meet Michelle. 

“I think he was skeptical of me in the beginning. I think he expected me to fall all over him, and to immediately try to… to get something out of him. Out of the arrangement.”

Hana narrows her eyes. “Do you think he still thinks that?”

I think we’re both stubborn people—perhaps to a fault, his old words come back to you. And I think we’ve both had to prove other peoples’ assumptions about us wrong. Many times…

“No.” You say it, and realize in doing so that you believe it, too. “No, I don’t.”

You’re still scared. You still have questions for Yoongi, still have Kitae’s warning words ringing in your ears, still worry that maybe you’re reading into things far more than you should… but Hana’s right. If you want him to want you, then you gotta shine up your old brown shoes! You gotta put on a brand new shirt! You gotta push on the heavy door of Min Yoongi’s heart and see if he’s willing to swing it open for you. You hang up with Hana a few minutes later full of determination—determination that begins to wane as it nears four o’clock. You’re due at the venue soon.

By the time you’re climbing into the shuttle to head to the concert hall, you’re positively shvitzing. You chug a bottle of water, hoping to drown out the butterflies that might as well be dancing the fucking Kazotsky in your stomach. Then, your phone vibrates in your pocket.

[15:56]   Ha-na, na, na, na-na. Gettin’ jiggy wit’ it   You’re not gonna be f(.)(.)l. You’re gonna be c(.)(.)l, baby 😉

Her message is followed up immediately by a veritable flood of us-sies the two of you have taken over the years—only Hana’s done the lord’s work and cropped your faces, along with most of her body, out of them. Now, the photos are just of your tatas, in all their (questionable) glory.

[15:56]   Ha-na, na, na, na-na. Gettin’ jiggy wit’ it   Before you say anything, boobies are boobies. When the time comes to unleash them, you’ll know.

[15:57]   Ha-na, na, na, na-na. Gettin’ jiggy wit’ it   And he’ll like them.

[15:57]   Ha-na, na, na, na-na. Gettin’ jiggy wit’ it   Namely because they’re attached to you ♥️

Well. When she’s right, she’s right! you think, your conviction returning. Vendi vidi tiddie, as the saying goes. You send Hana a thumb’s up, wiping a tear from your eye as you do so, because honestly? She is such a good friend.

You stroll confidently into the venue with your Hybe ID on full display, resolved to boldly go where no woman has gone before—into the men’s private bathroom on the second floor to pee, because you drank too much water on the ride over, and both the women’s and gender neutral’s lines are absurd. Once that’s over with, you check your email and follow the tour manager Yuna’s directions backstage to what looks like a lounge area for the staff and crew. There are some large couches, a television, what looks like a craft services spread of various chips, fruits, and sad looking pastries, and—

Chung Ga-young, lounging in a pair of sweats alone on one of the couches, scrolling lazily through something on her phone. 

Well. If that doesn’t rock your shit right the fuck up! You stumble over yourself, feeling as though you’re being hunted. Distantly, you grow aware of Yoongi, Jimin, and Jungkook over in the far corner by the food. They’re dressed in their concert attire already, and seem to have already had their hair and make-up done. One of Diane’s girls—you recognize her from that cocktail party—is recording them with a video camera, probably for a Bangtan Bomb. Maybe you should go over there and interrupt the filming? After working hard all morning, you really could go for a charge—and that’s what you’re here for! To help the boys go over their English while you and Yoongi top-off your energy resources. You’re just about to stroll forward when Ga-young looks up, straight at you, and says in English:

“Oh, are you the new translator?”

You freeze. It makes no sense for your first instinct to be to flee the fucking country at being addressed by Ga-young—and yet. And yet! Mentally, you’re halfway to Majorca before you manage to take a grounding breath.

Snap out of it, you think to yourself. You know this heaux ain’t shit to Yoongi. You haven’t even seen her in person since that brief moment at Hybe all those weeks ago, and her eyes surely weren’t on you when you’d passed her in the hall!

“Uh,” you respond articulately. Due to Yoongi’s reassurance—and how hectic your past week has been—you haven’t really kept up with the Susu Gaga discourse online. Ga-young doesn’t look any worse for the wear, though—she’s just as glossy and fresh-faced as always—so maybe the netizens have moved on. Maybe some new, more substantive gossip has dropped, and the attention has shifted away from her and Yoongi. That’s probably it!

Hitching a smile onto your face that you hope doesn’t look strained, you make a private vow to yourself to be kind to poor Ga-youngie. If what Yoongi said was true—and you have no reason to doubt him—then the girl could really use a compassionate unnie. She’s misguided, right? That’s all. That’s forgivable!

But then Ga-young’s eyes narrow when she sees your gaze flit over to the boys and back again. She clears her throat.

“I wouldn’t bother if I was you.”

“Hm?” you say distractedly, watching with a little half-smile as Jimin and Jungkook try to goad Yoongi into doing one of his undulating-wiggle dances for the camera. Nerds.

Ga-young crooks her finger beckoningly to you. You lean in, ignoring the sick feeling blooming in your gut at her Cheshire-cat smile.

“Oppa is the hit em and quit em kind of man,” she whispers, shooting you a knowing look.

Oppa. You’re a 96-liner, and if you had to guess, Ga-young is probably around your age, if not a bit younger. Each member of BTS could presumably be her oppa—she could be talking about any of them.

But she isn’t. You know who she’s talking about. It was just all over the news!

You can feel your hackles rising as her sly eyes comb over your face. Your muscles tense, your heartbeat accelerating as a slow tide of panic rises within you—

But then Jungkook notices you.

“Noona!” he calls. “YN-noona, over here!”

You jerk back from Ga-young, pivoting to bow to both the boys and to the girl behind the camera in greeting. When you straighten, you make brief eye contact with Yoongi—his gaze flits between Ga-young on the couch and you, but reveals nothing.

“Ah, Yoongi-hyung has to go take English lessons, now,” Jimin says—for the camera’s benefit, you assume. Of course, your face will be blurred out anyway if this footage makes it to YouTube, but the statement makes it easy for Yoongi to nod in confirmation; for him to beckon you with a low “follow me” and lead you out of the common area. He doesn’t address you as you walk down wide corridor, past another busy room where you can make out Seokjin and Hoseok getting their makeup done while coordis steam clothing, down another side hall, and at last to… what looks, honestly, like a glorified coat closet. After looking swiftly over his shoulder, he bodies you inside.

“Yoongi?” you say questioningly. It’s a cramped space, and smells strongly of mothballs. When the door closes behind him, you’re bathed in a sickly lime glow from the single lightbulb hanging down from a cord, almost low enough to bash your head against. “I have a hard time believing this is the best tutoring space Sejin could secure for—oh!”

Yoongi interrupts you by grabbing hold of your arm. In one swift, decisive motion, he tugs into his hold, his forehead dropping heavily onto your shoulder. You freeze for a moment, evaluating the situation; his breathing is not labored, exactly, but based on the slump of his shoulders and silence alone, you get the feeling that he’s tired. Very tired.

“Did you… are you okay?” you whisper.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles into your shoulder. You can feel his lips moving through the fabric of your shirt. “We filmed a V-Live and Hopeah—ah, he wasn’t thinking. He was reading some comments we got on V-live aloud, and one of them wondered why I hadn’t had any of the food prepared.”

You wince.

“This has happened too much already,” you say, frowning. “You haven’t even fully been off food for a month yet, Meeyooee.” No wonder he’s so needy. No wonder you’re in a closet. This is all wrong. 

“I’ll speak to Sejin,” he groans into your shoulder. “We’ll be more careful. It’s… the effects are not pleasant.”

“Hm.” You tighten your grip around his torso, stepping even closer. “We’re not supposed to be in here, are we?”

“Just ten minutes,” he whispers into your neck. “The other space we have set up isn’t private. I didn’t expect to need this charge.”

“Okay,” you say. You understand what he’s saying. You’re charging on borrowed time. This has to be efficient.

“In the future, you know you could text me,” you say. “Or tell someone if it’s that bad, so they can get in contact with me if you’re too busy. I’m not ever going to be too far.”

“I’ll talk to Sejin,” he repeats.

“Yeah, but—”

“Who are you, Jimin?” he mumbles, his tone taking on an almost warning-edge. “This won’t happen again. Okay? Trust me.”

“Yoongi, I’m just saying—”

“You don’t have to worry about it.”

Even through his exhaustion—even though he punctuates his statement by gripping you even tighter—you understand that he’s fed up with the conversation. Though you bristle a bit at the snub, you let him have this—it’s not like you’re going to get anywhere trying to push the point when he’s this tired and acting like a grumpy pisswizard. Instead, you channel your energy into trying not to shiver when, a minute later, he runs his hands—subconsciously, you tell yourself—up the back of your shirt.

“Is this okay?” he says, his voice almost a growl in your ear. It’s all you can do to jerk your head in the approximation of a nod, holding your breath as he spreads his fingers, as though trying to cover the largest surface area of your skin as possible while keeping his hands in frustratingly neutral territory—they don’t wander low enough to be suggestive. They don’t even drift to the side, which would put them in a position to wrap around the swell of your hips, and—

And nothing, you lecture yourself. After a few more minutes, Yoongi heaves a deep sigh, and releases you.

“Okay,” he says, skin glowing like the moon under the sodium light. “Let’s go learn English.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll exit first. Wait for me to knock before leaving too, just in case…”

You nod. “I understand.”

The knock comes immediately after he steps out—the hallway must be clear—and Yoongi leads you back the way you came, through the prior room (where Hoseok is just now finishing with his makeup) and into an adjoining chamber. Your eyes alight on crates of water bottles and towels stacked underneath a large, round table.

You follow his lead to the other side of the room, understanding why when he pulls out a chair for you and then promptly tangles his legs with yours once he sits down—to anyone walking in, you’re sitting a respectable distance from each other; they won’t be able to see your legs through the supplies underneath the table.

Once settled, you hesitate for a second, recalling your conversation with Hana—but the fire of conviction that had burned on your way to the venue has ebbed in the wake of Yoongi’s distress. You want so badly to relay what Ga-young had told you—but now’s not the time. Not when he has a mere half-hour to memorize saying “Is this really reality or is this a dream?” properly in English! You think he’s got it down by the time Taehyung traipses in, and requests to learn how to invite all the non-binary Army to make some noise, after he calls for cheers from the ladies and gentlemen.

Yoongi doesn’t leave the room or untangle himself from you while you shift your attention to Tae, but you feel the sudden, jarring loss of warmth like a punch to the gut when the door flies open and Adaline storms in, followed by two makeup unnies.

“Look alive, people! Benny’s here,” Adaline announces, striding right over to Yoongi and immediately fussing with his collar. He stands, keeping obediently still as she rakes a professional eye over his attire, then gives him an approving nod. The makeup unnies descend on him like hawks.

“Taehyung, get up, let’s see the damage,” Adaline commands. “You have twenty minutes for photos, and then we need you ready to go.”

You inch your way back into the main room, trying your best to avoid getting in anyone’s way. Yoongi had told you about how this kind of thing sometimes happened—celebrities dropping in backstage for photo-ops, sometimes with incredibly short notice. The name Benny rings a bell, though. You’re pretty sure the vocal line just dropped a collab with Snoop and a Benny—Benny Bronco? Benny Bongo? Either way, the man is like the embodiment of what a Slim Jim meat stick from a run-down gas station would look like if it became animate and put on a big, floofy wig.

A chorus of greetings erupts through the room, and then in strolls the meat stick man himself: Benny Blanco, you remember just in time. Yes, he looks like he smells like a plastic-encased tube of beef “product”, but hey! Nobody’s perfect! He’s gotta work it! From what Jimin’s said in passing, Benny’s talented, he’s friendly, he’s a fan of the boys—

—And then he’s standing right in front of you, far less greasy up-close than you imagined, and smelling nothing like cured gas station meats. Color you Jungshook!

“Hello,” he says. “Namjoon says you’re the translator?”

“Yup. I’m YN.” You introduce yourself, perplexed. Yoongi and Taehyung were still getting final touches done to their makeup, but the rest of the boys are filing into the room now, looking picture-perfect. Surely he should have greeted them before coming up to you? Did he not know annyeonghaseyo?

“Great,” Benny says, smiling widely at you. “Could you let V know it’s nice to finally meet him in person? And tell Suga I’m a huge fan.”

Dutifully, you translate Benny’s message to the members (and then pass on their returning gratitude for his support). Not knowing quite where to stand, you watch awkwardly as Benny waves goodbye, and Diane begins snapping photos of him and the band. The concert is going to begin sooner rather than later, but you realize you never actually asked Sejin where to go and where you’re supposed to sit. 

On cue, Benny approaches again.

“Namjoon says you’re watching the concert tonight, sweetheart?”

Sweetheart? You look around, but Benny Boliviano’s eyes are trained on you.

“Yop.”

“Me too,” he says. “Come on, let’s go.”

You steal one last look at the boys as Benny confidently strides from the room—though the coordis and makeup artists are flocking around the members, Yoongi’s eyes still manage to find you through the chaos. He looks more alert than he did one hour ago, you note with relief.

“Good luck,” you call, prompting Jimin and Hoseok to shout out their thanks—but Yoongi’s expression remains unreadable as you follow Benny into the hall. You’re accompanied by someone who’s either Hybe staff or with Benny—you don’t know—but the man seems to know where he’s going as he escorts you into the stadium.

It’s packed. You’d been able to hear the noise backstage—and you’d known the concert was being held at a stadium in a major U.S. city—but even so, you’re unprepared for just how many people have actually shown up for BTS. You stumble for a moment, goggling at the sea of Army before you—and then Benny slides up right beside you, letting out a low, appreciative whistle.

“Holy sugartits,” he says. “You know, the boys invited me to perform Bad Decisions with them on-stage tomorrow night? I’m shitting balls right now.”

You can’t blame ol’ Benny Beluga. The atmosphere is lit. Now, when you imagine your Eomma at the concert with Daehyun and Soomin, you feel a tremble of pride. Had it been like this in Seoul, too? You’re hardly paying attention to Benny, who continues to chirp happily at you regardless of your silence. And then—the stadium goes dark and the screens light up and holy Benny-looks-like-he-smells-like-baloney. It’s starting. Wahooee! Here comes Meeyooee!

It’s hard to articulate the feelings that rocket through you when Yoongi first appears, the epitome of cool confidence as he smirks at the crowd. All you know is that you’re suddenly incredibly grateful that you didn’t end up attending the show in Seoul, because you’re not sure you would have been able to hold yourself back—you might have just thrown in the towel and taken a one way trip to the bone zone, without even waiting to hear Meeyooee’s take on the whole Susu Gaga conundrum.

Ah. Speaking of. Benny’s been drinking like a fish all night. The person who escorted you shows up to hand him a new solo cup of beer every twenty minutes like clockwork. Each time, Benny asks you whether you’d like a drink; each time, you’ve declined… until Ga-young shows up on stage and suddenly a beer doesn’t sound so bad.

And then another.

At Benny’s raised eyebrow, you smash your solo cup to the ground like Thor, before promptly picking it up because littering? As if!

“ANOTHER!”

And another. And then, after you’ve finished your fourth drink, Yoongi does this incredibly offensive hip swiveling thing during Telepathy that makes you want to flip over a table. And that’s followed by a smirk so confident it should be outlawed when he raps in your general direction.

It’s bad for your health.

Turning around to see the entire stadium awash in Army-bomb purple ain’t exactly great for it either. Nor is the realization that the only thing louder than the music is the sound of thousands of people chanting your soulmate’s name. The television screens pan over the crowd to show you dozens of women who’ve arrived at the stadium with signs that read YOONGI MARRY ME. Seconds later, your light in the dark, Hobi-wan, actually laughs and screams, “YOONGI MARRY ME!” when the members gather to give speeches. Like it’s some big, private joke everyone in the world is in on except you. Well, look who’s laughing now, girls? Ha. Ha HA!

“Fuck,” you mumble into your drink, brooding too hard to remember to be proud of Taehyung when his English speech goes off without a hitch. By this point, you are thinking to yourself one thing and one thing only, which is: what the heckie. One more drink on top of the other four you’ve guzzled back couldn’t hurt! You’re young, you’re relatively charged up, and you’re standing next to the Benny Beefalo. This is la vida loca, baybee! Hello world, it’s the youth you were told so much about! Who cares that Ga-young is twerking in booty-shorts and called Yoongi oppa and said he’s a hitter-and-quitter? Who gives a Bulgarian split squat that you’re surrounded by a horde of feral fans who would eat you alive if they knew you existed? Not you, that’s for dang certain!

Needless to say, you’re not in the soberest of mindsets by the time the concert concludes. Luckily, Benny manages to successfully escort you backstage again, where you are greeted with utter pandemonium. Different crew members sprint around with cords, hand-towels, water bottles, and clothing—the members are piled together on the couch you’d found Ga-young on earlier, speaking with Yuna, while the cheers and chatter of the crowd leaving the stadium rings in your ears, even back here.

Ah, corn nuts. Yoongi’s hair is all sweaty. The members look elated, the post-show adrenaline surely still thrumming through their veins, and you are staring at Yoongi, you’re staring, and then the man turns to look at you and he doesn’t even look away! No. No, instead he just smirks at you. Smirks—as if that’s allowed! Surely it isn’t. He can’t keep getting away with it. He so clearly gives less than zero fucks about what his behavior does to your palpitating heart.

Benny kisses your cheek and murmurs some sort of goodbye before beelining to Jimin, and then you are left standing alone, prepared to personally solve the California drought with the way Yoongi is still just looking at you, when Yuna takes pity on your poor, skanky soul.

“Did our translator get a bit sloshed?” she teases in high spirits, clearly pleased with how well the concert went. “Follow me, you can ride back to the hotel in my shuttle.”

You stumble after her, listening faithfully on the ride back as she speaks happily about how the crew’s hard work paid off, and how Taehyung’s ending ment is already trending on Twitter. She even congratulates you on a job well done for helping him with his speech. 

Somehow, you make your way back into your hotel room without incident, and manage to strip, shower, and slip into your nightclothes.

Then you’re left to wait. Left to think of what Ga-young said; to remember the energy of the crowd; to recall how utterly in his element Yoongi looked up on stage. You’ve never seen him so animated, so confident, so completely in control—

ENOUGH! You must keep busy. You must not surrender. Idle minds are the horny-gal’s workshop, and you can not afford to let your mind be overtaken by your stupid, needy clot! Wait, no. Your clit. Your stupid, needy clit.

Fuck you, Hana, you fugly slut! WE AIN’T DOING THIS TONIGHT.

You try reading, but the words are squiggles on the page. You log on to Twitter, but the Powers That Be (aka the dickladle of an FBI agent assigned to your phone, who probably controls your algorithms) are clearly out to get you, because your personalized feed is flooded with Bangtan-chatter.

So you brush your teeth twice. You change from one pajama set to another. You slather your favorite lotion all over your elbows as you settle into bed to watch a Kdrama on the hotel’s flatscreen, because if there’s one thing you’re not gonna do, it’s walk around with two crusty ass weenises on full display and—

You freeze in bed, staring at your lotion. This is your emotional support lotion. The same one you use every night before sleep. The one you brought over to the dorms back in Seoul when you first started spending the nights with Meeyooee and—

And it’s spicy vanilla flavored.

Which is the scent that Yoongi told Jimmy Kimmel was his favorite scent last night on TV.

Huh.

It’s been at least two hours since the concert ended, so you’ve sobered up a bit, but not entirely, which means you’re just sitting there, mind sluggishly trying to process what it just learned, when the door opens, and your soulmate steps inside. He’s changed out of his concert clothes, and looks like he showered at the venue, too—his hair is wet, his makeup scrubbed off, and thank fuck for that, because you don’t think you could physically handle a smokey eye right now on top of everything else.

“Hey—”

“Good!” you blurt out in greeting from where you’re hunched over like Gollum in bed, earnestly stroking your lubed-up elbows. Yoongi’s dark eyes are sparkling when they meet yours—it’s blatantly apparent that he’s still buzzing from his post-concert euphoria as he slips his shoes off at the door and saunters over. Instead of rooting around for his pajamas, or even climbing onto the bed to rest beside you, he crosses his arms and looks down on you. There’s something incredibly dominating about the gesture—you, curled up in your pajamas, and him, fully clothed, towering above your form.

“Good?” he parrots back, his tone teasing and wry.

“You!”

The edges of his lips curl up into a slow, almost mocking smile.

“Me?”

Oh god. You’re losing it. Them. Your precious marbles.

“Very! Yes.” Balls. You take a deep breath and try not to give into your sudden urge to self-immolate. “You guys were amazing tonight. Congratulations.”

“Ah.” He drops your gaze at that, eyes skirting over your body to land on the lotion. He’s more bashful in the face of direct praise, you know—often, he’ll choose not to address it at all; sometimes he’ll even shut it down—but the ghost of that smile is still on his face.

You decide to press it just this once.

“Seriously,” you say. "I think Benny and I blacked out when you guys started performing Cypher PT. 3.”

Yoongi hums, turning back to face you at that—but says nothing. A beat passes as his eyebrows knit slightly, seemingly considering something as he stares at you.

Then, without warning, he leans forward. His feet remain on the ground as he plants his hands on either side of your body, caging you in between his arms—have his forearms always been so veiny? They look so veiny!—on the bed.

“Yoongi?” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer you. He doesn’t touch you. He doesn’t do anything but lean forward, painstakingly slowly, until his features blur from the proximity. He tilts his head, his nose millimeters from yours. For one, mad second, as your eyes lock, you think he’s going to do it. Kiss you.

Then he draws his head back just enough to come back into focus.

“You’re drunk,” he says simply.

What. The. Butt?

“A little,” you admit breathily, your frayed nerves leading you to babble. “Benny kept ordering more drinks for himself, and it felt rude after a while not to join him.”

“I see.”

“Yeah.”

Does he even realize how close his hands are to your weenises right now? Probably not, right? Briefly, you wonder what would happen his fingers travelled just three inches to either side—he could grip your elbow, and pull you up to him, and then—

“Do you feel sick?” he interrupts your thoughts, that unreadable expression back on his face. You blink several times, shaking off the daydream, and take a quick mental inventory.

“No.” You shake your head. The room shakes with it. “But even if I was, it wouldn’t have any effect on your charge,” you reassure him, remembering how ill he’d looked in the coat closet. “You’ll be fine to perform tomorrow.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Yoongi says dismissively. In the work of a moment, he’s back to standing tall with his arms crossed, looking down at you. So much looking! Who gave him the right? How dare he just… use his eyes!

“It doesn’t matter if I feel bad,” you push the point, because you’re unsure of what to say. Despite your lingering tipsiness, you sense that the energy between you has shifted. Something’s off. You’re feeling very flustered.

“I don’t want you to feel bad.” Yoongi tilts his chin up to set his sights on the ceiling, running a hand through his long, dark strands as he mulls over his thoughts privately.

“Were you trying to keep up with Benny?” he asks carefully, looking back down at you.

“What?” Whatever you were expecting, it wasn’t that. “No.”

He hums, lowly.

“I haven’t seen you drink this much except for that weekend when Hana visited,” he says. The words would sound accusatory on paper, you think, but his tone is neutral, and the look on his face doesn’t strike you as disproving or critical—it’s more penetrating, if anything. Like he thinks that if he just searches the planes of your face hard enough, he’ll be able to read the truth of your heart, as if it were etched onto your skin.

“You haven’t known me for very long,” you try to deflect.

“I know you.”

You shift uncomfortably on the bed.

“Is everything okay?” he asks suddenly. “Did Benny pressure you to drink, or try to—”

“What?” You interrupt him, neck snapping up in alarm. “Oh, god, no. He… I… it wasn’t anything like that. He didn’t care if I drank or not, that wasn’t honest of me to say. I just—”

Oh, bother. You need to get this chooch back on the tracks! You need to nip the assumptions Yoongi’s making in the bud before they blossom into something far worse than the situation calls for. Benny didn’t make you do anything. That’s not what—

“I spoke to Ga-young today,” you blurt out. Because you’re staring at him, you can see the journey his eyebrows make as they shoot up on his forehead before he regains control and schools his face into a mask of neutrality. “She talked to me in the lounge area,” you continue, feeling bashful. “Before our English session.”

You can tell Yoongi’s thinking through something very hard right now. He surveys you silently for a torturous minute, still as stone. And then—

“Move.”

You peek up at him through your lashes.

“What?”

He gestures for you to scoot over with his hands, but it still takes an embarrassingly long time for you to process his request. When you finally shuffle over a few inches, he wastes no time in climbing into bed beside you, spreading his legs out and resting his back against the headboard. You wait for him to wind his arm around your waist like he usually does. Instead, he plants his hand palm-up on his knee, and then levels a pointed look at you.

You take his hand, exhaling softly as the soulmate connection cuts through some of the lingering dizziness from your binge. When Meeyooee speaks again, his eyes are trained on your intertwined fingers.

“Did I miss something?” he says, his voice measured and low and careful. “Has she—has Ga-young been on your mind a lot lately?”

“Um. Maybe a normal amount.” You shrug. “I don’t know.” But you do know. You do.

Don’t lie to him, you think.

“I think about her sometimes.”

“You don’t need to,” he says immediately, glancing at you. There’s something soft but hesitant in his expression that you can’t quite parse. It gives you a strange, gut feeling—almost like the words he’s chosen carry some meaning beyond what you could take at face-value.

Your next words slip out of you without warning.

“She called you a hitter-and-quitter.”

You’ve never heard a silence so deafening. You don’t know what reaction you’d expected of him—a scoff, perhaps, or one of those querulous noises he makes from deep down in his throat when he has to acknowledge a statement, but deems the practice beneath him.

The look of knowing resignation that comes over his face, though?

Yeah.

You didn’t expect that.

“Ah,” he says, and this ah is distinct in its meaning. This is an ah of corroboration—an ah that gives credence to Ga-young’s statement. He shifts his body so that he’s angled toward you, and says your name softly.

“Hey.”

The noise you make in response sounds strangled.

“YN.” He waits. “Can you look at me?”

You can. You do. Yoongi’s eyes on yours are serious, but not guilty. He nods, as if he’s rehearsing what he wants to say and confirming with himself that he’s on the right track. It’s endearing. It’s a habit of his you’ve picked up on that not even most Army are privy to, you think.

Suddenly, you’re not sure you want to hear what he’s about to say.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” you say. “It’s okay.”

Just when you feel like a listing boat, heeling into the deep, dark, sea, Yoongi’s fingers straighten you out again. The warmth surging between the two of you prevents you from spiraling—it anchors you to him. To the moment. As though he can read your mind—can read your needs—he takes his free hand and places it over yours, until your hand is sandwiched between both of his as he says, voice low:

“I want to.”

Oh.

Oh?

“Okay,” you say.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Yoongi nods. He doesn’t ask again.

“I had a relationship with Suran,” he says bluntly. “Years ago, when we collaborated on her song.”

You suspected as much, and don’t even bother to nod. How this connects to Ga-young, you don’t know.

Ready or not, you’re about to find out.

“It ended poorly,” he says, licking his lips. “We were younger. This was earlier in our careers. BTS was gaining traction, and there was insecurity on both ends.”

“Insecurity?” you repeat.

“Jealousy,” Yoongi confirms. He gives himself another one of those private little nods. “We both made mistakes.”

You force yourself to ask what’s on your mind.

“Did you cheat on her?”

“No. She cheated on me,” he says bluntly, releasing a tiny, humorless huff of laughter at your low hiss. “It’s ok. It’s in the past, now. But for a few months in the aftermath…” He looks carefully at you, fingers tightening around yours. “I slept around. I was careless with some peoples’ feelings.”

“With Ga-young’s feelings?” you hedge, trying to ask what you want to know without really asking. It occurs to you in that moment that Yoongi never really answered your unfinished question—“So, you and Ga-young never—?”—back at the dorm. Not definitively.

“She tried it,” Yoongi says. “After her breakup.”

“Ah.”

“She and Kihyunie had just gotten together when Suran and I ended things. They were into the idol party scene back then.” Yoongi waits patiently for his words to perforate through the wrung-out cheesecloth that is your mind right now; waits for you to meet his eyes and nod before he continues. “They took me out with them when I was sad, so Ga-young was there to see me go through that phase.” He looks at you seriously. “Nothing happened between us, ever,” he offers without any prodding.

“But she wanted something to?”

“Not really,” he said. “I would never do that to my friend. She knows that.”

“But—?”

“There are no buts.” Yoongi shakes his head. “I’m not interested in her, and she’s not actually interested in me. Regardless, I’m past that phase. I haven’t sought out those sorts of bandaid solutions as a way of putting off dealing with uncomfortable feelings for a long time, now.”

You take a moment to process this—everything that your soulmate is electing to tell you of his own volition, while you two sit alone in this foreign bed thousands of miles from any home either of you has ever known. Your continued silence, however, spurs him to continue filling in the blanks. 

“YN,” he says. “I know what you thought of me when we first met.”

Likely due to your revelatory conversation with Hana that morning, his statement throws you.

“Do you?”

“I wasn’t…” At last, he pulls the hand resting over yours away, yanking it through his hair. “You weren’t wrong to be upset with me, or to criticize how I treated you. I was acting like any asshole celebrity. I know that.”

“Yeah,” you say. Because he’s right. He’d been a total wankhammer back then. “I’ve forgiven you. Learning that you have a soulmate is a big shock,” you say. “You already apologized. It’s understandable that—”

“No,” he cuts you off. His eyes are round and almost pleading as they meet yours. You trail off, unused to seeing this expression—one that would look much more at home on Tae, or even Jungkook, you think—on Yoongi’s face. It brings you up short. “Ah. I don’t like to say it aloud.”

“Say what aloud?” you ask.

Yoongi’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows around nothing, a strong indication that he’s nervous.

“Look.” Another swallow. “Being an idol… it means that you’re put in a position of power,” he says. It’s like getting that first sentence out unlocks something in him. When he meets your eyes again, you see only calm, steely resolve reflected in those dark depths. When he doesn’t continue speaking, you understand what he wants—what he needs—from you.

You nod. You give him permission to continue.

“I would be lying if I said there’s not a part of me that enjoys feeling powerful,” he says. Just like that. He’s good at that, you think. Owning up to having thoughts and feelings that others would hem and haw over—that others would deny—for hours. “When I’m on stage, I feel respected,” he continues. “I feel in control. Like I can do whatever I want, and be whoever I want, and be with whoever I want.”

The words aren’t pretty, but they’re honest.

“I see.”

“That’s just how it is.”

Straight. To the point. Again, you nod. Again, you consent to let him continue.

So he does.

“After Suran, I leaned into that side of idol life. I lost myself in it for a while. Or I submerged myself in it. That was my choice.”

He’s nodding to himself again, the movement subtle and almost imperceptible. You both wish and don’t wish that he would look at you, but his eyes are on your hands again.

“I made those choices,” he says, “but that’s not the kind of person I want to be. Other than Kihyun, none of the people I met during that time actually liked me for me. They liked the idea of what Suga of BTS could do for them.”

He looks at you. It’s better when he looks at you, you decide.

“That’s what Ga-young liked, too. It’s empty. I wasn’t happy.”

Ga-young. You’d entered the hotel room two hours ago back to square one—back to wondering if she was actually a threat to what you hoped to build with Yoongi—and now… now, you’re just sad.

Yoongi’s right—you can’t just forget how he’d treated you when you first came to the dorms. There hadbeen something mean about the way he’d interacted with you, then—like he was so sure he already knew everything there was to know about you, and your intentions, and had deemed them wanting.

Unbidden, an image of him pouting in his Genius Lab surfaces from the tide pool of your memories.

Army likes it when I tease them, he’d said flatly, staring broodily at his palms—to which you’d responded that you weren’t one of his fangirls. Is that why he’d acted like he had back then? Like he could, as he said, do whatever he wanted? Take whatever—and whoever—he wanted? Had he just been slipping into that role—leaning into that side of him he’s admitted exists—as a defense mechanism?

Joonie’s words from your conversation in the dorm room office echo back to you. If he’s to be believed—and you have no reason to doubt him—then the answer is yes.

We’ve all been used, Namjoon had said. It’s hard to forge genuine connections with new people when they see an idol first, and a person second…

You take in Yoongi’s profile; breath in his woodsy, sweet scent—a scent that’s become almost as familiar to you as your own, now. There’s something telling, you think, about how Yoongi’s gone about dealing with Ga-young’s drama. Perhaps he’s just a forgiving man by nature; or maybe each of the members are just so used to being used, they don’t even bother getting riled up over it anymore.

You don’t plan to say what you say next.

“Are you happy now?”

It’s a loaded question, you realize belatedly. He could choose to interpret it and answer it in so many different ways.

Yoongi’s thumb brushes an idle pattern over your palm.

“Why are you asking me?” he says with a short, almost dour laugh. “I wasn’t the one who had to uproot my life when we met. I didn’t have to change anything—my routine, or my job, or even my home base. You did. To be here with me.”

If Yoongi wasn’t Yoongi, you’d take his pause as a signal to begin speaking.

But Yoongi is Yoongi, and you know him now. He’s thinking hard; deliberating with himself over something.

So you wait.

Just when you think you can’t take it anymore, you sense his neck turning to you, causing you to look up from your entwined hands. His eyes—smoldering, intense—lock onto yours, and don’t look away.

A tremor shudders through you, your mind going blank as your heart squeezes in your chest. That one look is like a one-two sucker punch from your head to the heat nestled between your thighs. You’re incapable of thinking, of saying anything, of doing anything other than staring back at him, slack-jawed and useless.

Then his free hand flashes up without warning. His fingers lock around your jaw, his gaze hardening as his pupils expand, his dark gaze growing darker. The soulmate connection is electric; shocking. Sparks of heat flash through you.

“Yoongi?” you ask weakly, unable to find the will to jerk your head out of his clutch.

His eyes on yours are almost fully black.

“Tell me this what you want.”

Holy fuck. His voice is deep—rough like craggy rocks—and you watch as his dark eyes flick up and down the length of your body for a moment before settling again on your own. His gaze is unwavering as he growls out his next words.

“Come on.”

Your mouth opens a sliver from pure shock and something else you don’t want to name as his grip tightens around your jaw, one long, experienced finger trailing dangerously close to your lips. You don’t think it’s possible, but his voice lowers an octave.

“Princess.” His breath ghosts across your skin. His lips are so, so close to yours. When he speaks, you can almost taste the words as they roll off of his tongue. “Tell me you feel in control. Tell me you feel free to do what you want to do. That you still feel free to be who you want to be, even now.”

You make a sound that sounds dangerously close to a whimper, unable to form words. ‘Even now?’ What does he mean by that?

You nod.

“Your words, YN,” he says, his voice sounding strained. “I need your words.”

It doesn’t make sense, you think. With your jaw cupped in Meeyooee’s grip, and his words thrumming in your ears, a sense of calm control—of empowerment—steals through you as series of seemingly unconnected events slot into place in your mind.

You think of Yoongi’s pleased smirk when you complimented him on his performance—how he liked your praise, but didn’t begrudge you for prioritizing your own career over his concert in Seoul.

You think of how instead of forcing you to move into the dorm—as his life circumstances had forced you to move to a different country—he’d simply given you a key once he lost his ability to eat, and placed his health in your hands.

He’d expected you to be one way, and over time, you’d surprised him—but the truth is, you had preconceived notions of who he’d be before you got to know him, too. And he’d surprised you back.

Soulmate.

“I trust you,” you whisper. It’s not an answer to the question he asked. The longer the words hover in the air between you, the more you realize they don’t even really make sense in the context of your conversation. But the words seem to make sense to him—or at least, they appease him enough for him to release his hold on your jaw. The soulmate connection shatters, and you suck in a deep, desperate lungful of breath. There’s no point in hiding how rattled he’s made you. Dressed though you are in an oversized shirt and pajama pants, you feel more exposed than ever.

“Yoongi,” you say, the words coming out a little slurred; a little strangled. His mouth twitches, before twisting into a small smile, his eyes gentle and soft on yours now. The emotional whiplash is a lot to sort through. You slump over, abruptly exhausted.

Yoongi makes a low noise, shifting beside you.

“It’s been a big day,” he says at last. “And you’re still drunk. You should go to sleep.”

You can’t even muster up the energy to respond. You nod mutely, blinking groggily at him as he rises from the bed, heading over to root around for something in his luggage.

“Sleep,” he commands you, disappearing into the bathroom.

You intend to turn off the lamp. You intend to wait for him to crawl into bed with you. But sometime between forming those intentions and hearing Yoongi close the bathroom door, your body takes over.

You’re asleep by the time he comes out again.

A/N II: Let it be known! I have absolutely nothing against our talented boy Benny Bahama, even if I do honest to god feel like him and Charlie both look like they carry an aroma of cured mystery meats! SORRY! SO SORRY!

A/N III: My fic, my rules, which means the setlist includes whichever songs I FEEL like including, and my soul just wanted YN to see Yoongi rap in Cypher Pt. III. PLS.

Stayed until 5am reading this. Totally worth it.

something to hold on to (myg)

❦ word count. 17.7k ❦ genre. parent fic, fluff, angst, a bit of boob action ❦ warnings. illness, mention of hospitalisation, mention of minor character death, yoongi is kind of a dick sometimes, accidental(?) flashing ❦ summary. it’s not that you don’t like your job. on the contrary, reading bedtime stories to a certified little princess is something you still can’t believe you get paid to do. it’s just that between all the school runs, snow days and secret second hot chocolates before bed, you may fallen a little too hard for those dimpled cheeks and gummy smiles…. worse still, you’ve fallen for her father too.  ❦ a/n. merry christmas everyone!! this fic is a collaboration with the wonderful @underthejoon​ @kpopfanfictrash​ @suga-kookiemonster​ @junghelioseok​ @bendthekneetobangtan​ @lamourche​ and @hobidreams​. it’s late, lame and cheesy (and probably under-edited) but I like it that way. I hope you’re all having a fantastic holiday, wherever you may be <3 

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Heartwarming and poetic😩😩💘💘

Yoongi is a Rock

That’s it. That’s the plot. Yoongi is a rock. Enjoy! :D And Happy Halloween! This is my treat for you!

rock!Yoongi x reader :D fluff a bit of angst a lot of silliness

Word Count 1.3k

---

Yoongi is a rock, so he doesn’t have much thought. But perhaps, for a rock, his thoughts are a lot.

Yoongi is a rock, so doesn’t have ears, but he can hear, how the wind whips around his solid rock build. He doesn’t have eyes, but he can see, your smile as you climb the other rocks to be with him for a while. And he doesn’t have a mouth to protest the way you step on his surface, shoes full of dirt as you pull yourself up and lay your body down, but he doesn’t seem to mind, because you’re here with him now.

What Yoongi does have is memories, so many for a rock. He remembers the days it took for his rough edges to smooth, the water that slowly disappeared and left him all alone. Surrounded by fish and then surrounded by nothing.

He remembers the sunlight that filled the water’s absence, the heat he felt for the first time and the trees that grew around him. So many memories, he lived for days and days, not really living, but wearing away. The endlessness, the memories, alone he stayed. He didn’t mind, as a rock, the way time took parts of him away. He didn’t mind for days, until he met you.

When he first met you, you were young and free. Would tumble and play around him, all day in the breeze.

Never near him, always in the soft grassy plain or in the trees, of course you would choose to sit in the softness of the earth. It was not hard, like a rock, like Yoongi, would be.

Until one day you did choose Yoongi, climbing with your small limbs over the terrain until you reached the peak, atop the world, looking down at the sea of green, the same sights Yoongi would see.

You drew on him with chalk, a new look for the rock. He became so much more, a flower, a bee, a face, a home, a heart, your spot, it made him happy. When the rain showered down, and splattered away your heart, he went back to being a rock. But Yoongi was changed, more than he thought.

You came back and you played. And your laughter filled the wind’s silence, and your smile shone brighter than the sun, in Yoongi’s opinion, who lived much longer than you, and knew the sun’s rays much better than you.

Then when you grew a bit older, you found solace at the peak of your world, where Yoongi stayed grounded and reliable, and all yours.

At day time you’d let the sun warm your body, giving Yoongi some shade. And at night time you’d watch the stars, and tell Yoongi about your day. It was a routine, like most of Yoongi's rock life, but became something Yoongi began to look forward to, as a rock with nowhere to go. It was a routine Yoongi didn’t want to let go.

When school started, you talked about your school days, your loneliness, your bullies, and Yoongi longed to grow limbs and follow you back to teach those bullies a lesson, but Yoongi was a rock, and that just wasn’t going to happen.

You worked on your homework, pages and books splayed over and shifting in the wind, groaning over problems, sketching hearts into Yoongi instead, until dinner came and you left Yoongi again.

And Yoongi waited. Because well, as a rock, there was nothing else he could do but wait. And wait, he did. He waited for you.

He waited and watched and waited and heard, for any signs when you’d return.

And one day you brought a boy to your special place, laid down a blanket and talked to him instead of Yoongi. And that boy kissed you, and if Yoongi had a heart, it might have cracked, but his hearts were graphite and chalk, and already washed away, so Yoongi endured, listened to your laughter, happy you came back.

And one day you came running, stood high and screamed, and then cried and cried and cried, lying on your side, for you really had a heart, and in your first heartache all you wanted to do was be alone, on the top of the world, atop the place where it felt like home.

Yoongi felt your tears, it reminded him of the sea, and as you cried he thought, things are not lost forever, and one day you too will see.

And one day you came dancing, your dress blowing in the breeze, and sat again and told him about your life like the days when you were young and Yoongi thought, in all the years he lived as rock, and all the things he’d seen, you were by far the most beautiful creature in the world to him.

You were his rock. His connection to something more than wind and grass and trees, you were a piece of humanity that Yoongi yearned to see.

And one day, it was not you who came, but men in yellow hats and thick boots and metal in their hands. They came back again and again, with larger tools and metal machinery and more and more, and the grass and trees you loved so much were cut down and destroyed, but not Yoongi.

And when you finally came back to Yoongi, eyes filled with shock, you questioned and pleaded with the men to stop, but they had a job to do, and laughed at you, and Yoongi stayed, full of pain at your hurt, and wished he was a man too, so he could protect you.

When the men had gone, you snuck back in, and watched the stars, fearing it will be your last, and wished you were a rock, so you didn’t have to go back. And you told Yoongi about your life with tears in your eyes, and you told him how you missed this place, and wished for things to change. You wished you had come back sooner, protected this place instead.

You stayed all night, looking at the stars, you stayed until you fell asleep, and woke up to machinery and men telling you to leave. Yoongi heard the grinding gears and your cries telling them to stop, and he felt the ground beneath him shake, and everything lifting up.

He wished he could tell you not to cry, not to worry, that it will be alright. Yoongi lived as a rock for years and years, becoming less and less, until you came and made him whole and left him with no regret.

And when Yoongi cracked he thought of you, and when Yoongi broke he thought of you, and when he scattered and turned to sand what was left of him was you.

---

---

“Hey sleepy head. You sleep like a rock.”

Yoongi woke up to your lazy kisses against his cheek. He shuddered awake, eyes adjusting to the sunlight filling your bedroom.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” his voice gruff from sleep, “I just had a strange dream.”

“Hmm okay.” You yawn and hold him closer. “What did you want to do today?”

Yoongi grunts, his fingers finding yours, interlacing them together. “A picnic?”

“Really?” Yoongi smiles at the excitement in your voice, pulling you closer, laying kisses on your forehead, breathing in deep.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

---

[Now go listen to the Audio Ver. by @voice-over-ff ]

Ever read The Giving Tree? I haven’t read it in so long but it’s a story that I still think about decades later, this is somewhat inspired by it. I am very proud of this silly story, so I am going to log off and try not to take it personally if this doesn’t get a lot of notes lol, but know if you do choose to show your love, it touches me deeply.

So I originally intended this to be a drabble for my story HOAL, you may or may not choose to view it as part of HOAL universe, set in a future we have not gotten to yet in the story lol. <3

bias and bias wrecker😩😩😩

happy birthday @kimtaegis ♡ cr. namuspromised, dwellingsouls

Beautiful beautiful beautiful💘💘💘💘💘💘

A Boy Like You | Yoongi

→ summary: for whenever you are feeling low, always remember that there is a boy you know who would lift the sky for you.

{or alternatively: Min Yoongi loves you, though he never says it. He’s always been a firm believer in that actions speak louder than any words ever could.}

→ genre: coworker!au, f2l, fluff → warnings: an overabundance of shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to squish his cheeks; kinda ooc but it is what it is → words: 11.5K → a/n: whaddup kids it’s ya girl… back from the dead after months of not writing shit, and what’s this owo… it’s a fluff fic?? miracles do happen… anyway i wrote this bc i just thot “man, wouldn’t it be super epic if i wrote a super self-indulgent fic where yoongi fulfills every single one of my deepest desires?” well… here is THIS!! pls feel free to scream into a pillow bc i certainly did!! enjoy!!

There is a boy you know who likes to show his kindness quietly. It would go something like this:

The air is thick with static; your hair stands up on end: a warning. The scent of raindrops hitting hot pavement graces your nostrils as a waterfall drops from the sky. You see the sea of heads begin to disappear under a canopy of multi-colored umbrellas. You, the lone ranger, rush back into the building from whence you came, dragging puddles and annoyance with you.

You should have anticipated it, should have thought to check the weather app before scrolling through dull social media posts when you left your house that morning. Instead, your fingers are left cold and umbrella-less.

You tilt your head upwards, watching as gallon upon gallon fell from the sky in an endless cycle. The watch on your wrist reads 5 PM, but the sky says it is 9 PM. The dark, swirling mass of clouds above you will continue on its thunderous parade, pausing for no one, especially not for you.

Your work bag is practically weightless, devoid of anything that might protect you from the onslaught of rain. The only thing inside is a small wallet that holds nothing more than dust and a loose promise of a paycheck. There is no way you can call a taxi like this, and the nearest bus stop is at least two blocks away. You are starting to think that your childhood dreams of becoming a mermaid hadn’t been so ridiculous after all.

Then comes the hand of God. It touches your shoulder gently, hesitantly. You turn around to face a stranger, a boy with shaggy black hair and pale moonlight skin. It is not God, but he comes close.

In his other hand is your salvation wrapped in Kumamon print nylon. It is proffered to you with a silent nod, his gaze fixed somewhere behind you as he waits for you to take it. The tips of his ears begin to redden the longer it takes for you to respond. Eventually, your brain connects with your muscles as you robotically pluck the umbrella from his grasp, a stuttered “thanks” leaving your lips.

He nods stiffly once more, removing his palm from your shoulder as though he had been burned. He shuffles for a moment, mouth opening and closing as he struggles to find the words to say. You wait, patience never waning for the strange boy that you have come to know as your salvation.

He doesn’t find the words after all. You aren’t too offended by his silence, but he appears to be mortified. And so, he leaves just as quickly as he had appeared, like a whirlwind dressed in an oversized blazer flapping behind him like wings. He runs through the rain without another thought, an arm raised above his head in a futile attempt to avoid getting wet.

You try calling out to him, wanting to thank him once more and maybe to ask how you can return his umbrella, but he is long gone. A speck of black dashing through the gray.

You clutch the umbrella closer to you, a feeling of something new growing inside of you. It is too small to call anything, but it is warm.

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