1.

“What--what do you think about a guy like me?” Taehyung asks. He has no idea why he’s
stuttering. But then he thinks about the painfully corny crush he’s been developing over the past few
years, and then again, maybe he kind of does.
Yoongi--Yoonji--no, Yoongi, doesn’t even spare him a glance. He just keeps staring down at the
book on the desk, tucking his fake hair behind his ear.
Taehyung tries again, sliding his glasses off his face. If Yoongi won’t cooperate for this skit,
Taehyung will at least try to be funny, or cute, or at the very least, not make an ass of himself. “These,” he
says, “these are the glasses I’ve had for the past nineteen years.”
Yoongi finally turns his head and looks at him. “How old are you?” he asks, his face doing a
rather poor job of holding back a challenging smile.
Taehyung blanks. He imagines the caption that will appear on this frame; ​he’s been wearing them
since he was born?
He’s pretty sure he’s blushing underneath the layer of makeup. ​Shit.
“Nineteen,” Taehyung blurts. And then, handing the glasses to Yoongi, “they’ll help you
concentrate really well.”
Yoongi’s mouth molds into a little pout and he places the glasses on top of his head. For some
reason, it feels strange for Taehyung to see them on him, even if they’re not really ​his.
Thanks, ​Yoongi says, and then he folds his hands neatly on top of the desk, tilting his head.
He looks--pretty, Taehyung thinks. Or something. The stylists had put just the faintest amount of
blush on Yoongi’s cheekbones, and his bangs fall into his eyes. Yoongi is a handsome guy. Taehyung
knows that. He just doesn't understand how it’s translating so nicely into, well, ​this.
Taehyung says something stupid; ​I haven’t been able to concentrate since you arrived, ​and then
Jungkook finally comes over and kicks him out of his role.
From where he sits at his fake school desk for the rest of filming, Taehyung listens to Yoongi
being snarky and funny and oddly charming, pulling his fake hair into a messy ponytail, and attempts not
to let it show on his face that he knows exactly why this is making him feel so bizarre.
_____

When filming is over, Taehyung watches the stylists pull the wig off of Yoongi. Taehyung
watches as Yoongi wipes away the eyeshadow, the lip gloss, the blush. Taehyung watches as Yoongi
changes back into his dark, casual clothes, the school girl uniform discarded somewhere on the floor, and
still, still, still, feels no sense of relief.

2.

It’s still winter, after all.

Taehyung coughs so hard in the entrance to their dorm that for a moment, he gags.
“Gross,” says Jimin, affectionately patting him on the back. Taehyung’s offended, but then Jimin
helps him take off his coat, and ushers him into his bed.
_____
It’s inevitable, really.
 Yoongi’s the best person to have around when someone’s sick. Taehyung knows this. Seokjin
fusses too much, Namjoon is too clinical, Hoseok is a sympathetic vomiter, and though he loves them,
Taehyung really doesn’t trust Jimin or Jungkook with his health.
Taehyung knows this, but in tandem with his crush, it’s a little...embarrassing. That’s not really
the right word, but Taehyung’s thoughts are too soupy to fish out the right one.
So; Namjoon ushers him into his bed when he creeps out into their living room, forces him take
an unholy combination of medications, and then, there’s Yoongi. Namjoon had probably sent him in.
He presses the palm of his hand against Taehyung’s forehead and it comes away warm and damp.
“You have a fever,” he says. Taehyung opens his mouth to say ​I know, ​but then he sneezes,
instead.
He's already taken something, so there's really nothing left to do but just wait it out. Yoongi seats
himself at the foot of Taehyung’s bed with headphones and a notebook, whispering, ​just go to sleep,
Tae-yah.
Taehyung ​tries​ to sleep, but it's mostly just him tossing and turning and being jolted awake by the
urge to cough, and then there's Yoongi looking fondly at him from the foot of the bed, and it's starts to
feel like a very specific version of hell.
Taehyung is sweating, but he feels cold. He shoves his feet under Yoongi's thighs where he sits
and it helps, marginally. ​Warm enough? ​he asks. Taehyung shakes his head, face pressed into the pillows.
Somewhere on the brink of consciousness, he feels Yoongi slipping hot packs into his socks.
_______

Inevitably, Taehyung rolls out of bed, into the bathroom, and he vomits. Then, equally as terrible,
Taehyung thinks, Yoongi crouches down on the tile next to him, rubbing his back soothingly, and
watches him do it.
His stomach is empty but the gagging just keeps going, and then Taehyung starts to cry. His body
aches in strange places and throwing up is by far his least favorite activity, cold sweat rolling down the
back of his neck and the divot of his spine. His head pounds.
Taehyung takes a deep breath and the gagging stops. He's still on his knees, clutching the toilet
bowl helplessly. Yoongi's hand smooths down his hair and goes back to rubbing slow, soft circles into his
back.
“Do you feel a little better now?” he asks.
​ aehyung says vehemently, but then he laughs a little; the sound of it messy and weak,
“​No,” T
punctuated by sniffling. Handing him mouthwash, Yoongi laughs, too, a high pitched staccato that
contrasts the sound of Taehyung, refracted as it echoes on the tile.
“​Aigoo,​” Yoongi coos, and somehow it lightens the stale, sour mood, thumbing away Taehyung’s
tear tracks. “Our Taehyungie is still just a baby.”
If Taehyung blushes, he blames it on the fever.
______

The fever goes down, and Taehyung must be starting to look better, because Jungkook saunters
into his room and starts making fun of him for crying.
“Come here,” Taehyung says, reaching, albeit a little by weakly, for the hem of Jungkook's shirt.
“I want to sneeze on you.”
 Jungkook shrieks and skitters away, laughing. He nearly barrels over Yoongi in the doorway,
holding two bowls of ramyeon.
“Don't be gross,” Yoongi scolds him, but still, he looks affectionate and amused. If Taehyung
wasn't still on a ton of medication and slightly delirious, he'd probably want to kiss him.
“I can't help it, Yoongi-hyung,” Taehyung says, reaching for the bowl. “It’s how I was born.”
For a moment, everything feels bizarrely intimate.
Yoongi sits down at the foot of his bed again.
Taehyung figures that watching someone vomit and sweat through two layers of clothing for 48
hours counts as ​some ​kind of bonding.
Whatever, T ​ aehyung thinks.
He’ll take it.

3.
On stage, Taehyung watches from the wings as Yoongi turns himself inside out, all his teeth
suddenly sharp and arranged to kill. The bright lights cutting through the darkness always reveal the
sharpness of Yoongi's face that his hair usually hides, and ​that's​ what Taehyung is always looking to see;
the rest of him.
For a while, Taehyung thinks, back when he was still just a kid, he hadn't been paying as much
attention to Yoongi all these years as he thought he was. Or rather, Taehyung had just been seeing parts of
Yoongi, and thinking it was all of him.
At the end of the concert he holds Yoongi's hand in his, and bows. Feels everything sink into him,
slow. On the other end of the line Jin does something silly and then he's in a stadium full of laughing,
smiling people, and his heart feels big enough for the sky to pass through.
As they leave the stage, he looks over his shoulder and sees Yoongi staring out at the crowd as
the spring day instrumentals play on and on and on, one last time. Taehyung wishes he had a camera, or
something like a photographic memory, because Yoongi has that expression on his face he only develops
when he forgets people can see him, his hat pulled low over his eyes.
Because it always gives Taehyung an idea for a song that he can never seem to remember by the
time they get home.

4.
“Are you sure it's not just because of the skit?” Namjoon asks.
Taehyung groans and smacks himself internally. He's accidentally gone and revealed a little too
much to Namjoon, who getting way too introspective about it.
Taehyung hides his face in his hands, embarrassed. “No, hyung,” he says, “I already felt that way,
before.” He remembers how flustered he had been, finally being in a situation where he was allowed to
flirt with Yoongi. ​Encouraged ​to flirt with Yoongi.
“Oh,” Namjoon replies. He looks appropriately contemplative. “​Oh. T​ hat makes a lot of sense.”
Taehyung imagines that Namjoon is shuffling through a lovely little slideshow of all the
embarrassing and strange things Taehyung has done in Yoongi’s proximity for the past year in his head,
but this time, with context.
“Don't tell Yoongi-hyung,” Taehyung pleads, blushing.
 Namjoon jostles him, smiling. He looks like he wants to pinch Taehyung’s cheeks the way his
grandmother used to. Taehyung is really glad Namjoon is their leader.
“You're so cute, Taehyungie,” Namjoon smiles. “I would never.”
Taehyung buries his face in Namjoon’s shoulder. “What am I supposed to do?” he mumbles.
“I don't know,” he says. “Whatever you want.”

5.
Yoongi is--has always been--capable of incredible cruelty. Everybody knows this. He’s got a
sharp tongue and a history to him that bites.
Sometimes, Taehyung has trouble reconciling this part of Yoongi with the rest of him. But it
doesn’t matter so much these days, Taehyung thinks. He’s not the only one who's changed.
Maybe if they weren’t who they are, Taehyung would be able to look Yoongi in the eye and say
yeah, I have a big, stupid crush on you, hyung, ​or; ​I think I’m in love with you.
But they are who they are, so Taehyung just continues feeling like his heart is just another lonely
human, calling from a phone booth in the rain.

6.
At the next concert, Taehyung discreetly takes a picture of Yoongi’s back as he faces the crowd,
arms folded around himself like a hug, staring before they go; all the lights flickering around him like
stars, velvet darkness expanding upwards, his face hidden.
He looks at it a little too long before he goes to find Namjoon.
Namjoon smiles up at him from where he sits on the hotel bed, laptop laid out in front of him.
“You want to write a song?” he says, looking proud and slightly paternal.
Taehyung nods, shy. Nervous. He’s never made a song totally on his own, before, and bighit has
rejected a lot of the things he ​has ​made, already.
Namjoon pats the empty space next to him on the bed. Taehyung sits.
“Let’s do it,” Namjoon grins.
Taehyung tries desperately not to think to hard or too obviously about Yoongi, who’s asleep just
down the hall.

7.
The thing about love, Taehyung thinks, is that there’s really no way to know its happening until it
already has.
Sometimes Yoongi will speak to him in in their Daegu dialect, and it sends him back to
strawberry fields all day long, sends him back to tan lines, to blue jeans.
Once, Yoongi spent all day helping Taehyung look for the watch his father gave him when he lost
it in the dorm. He had silently helped him put it back on while Taehyung blinked away hot, burning tears,
the leather soft and worn.
Yoongi understands Taehyung’s roots; why he is the way he is. It’s not exactly born from having
the same home, either.
Taehyung has always thought that home was something you picked up in pieces and glued
together, anyway.
 Right now, Yoongi is asleep in the back seat of the van. Taehyung watches the streetlight roll
over his face, bright, dark, bright. Cyclical. Rhythmic.
Taehyung leans his head on Yoongi’s shoulder and he doesn’t stir. He inhales the smell of
Yoongi’s skin; his cheap jasmine body wash and the smell of the shampoo in the dorms that isn’t really
anyone’s at all.
Hoseok once told Taehyung that he and Yoongi might be more similar than they think--or maybe,
inverses of each other. Where Yoongi pulls inwards like black hole, Taehyung bursts outwards like a
dying star.

8.
“Where’s Yoongi-hyung?” Taehyung asks.
Seokjin’s eyes don’t leave the game of mario kart he’s playing with Jungkook, expertly avoiding
a banana as he says, “how am I supposed to know?”
“You’re his roommate,” Taehyung supplies.
“Hyung,” Jungkook says, cackling, trying to kick Seokjin’s controller out of his hands,
“technically, you are, too.”
Taehyung and Jungkook make a face at each other good naturedly. Then, Yoongi comes out from
the kitchen and says, “did you need something?”
Taehyung falters. Yoongi’s hair is a little damp, dark with water, still drying from the shower.
He’s wearing black like he usually does, all the way down to his socks.
“Taehyung?” Yoongi says.
Taehyung blanks. He wanted to ask Yoongi about the lines Taehyung has intended for him in the
song he’s working on, but now with Yoongi here in front of him, he feels shy. Unable to say it.
Jungkook snickers, the little shit. Somehow he catches on to everything. Taehyung elects to
blame Namjoon.
“Have you seen my glasses?” Taehyung blurts.
Hoseok gets up to peer around Yoongi in the kitchen doorway and starts laughing, slapping
Yoongi on the shoulder. ​Taehyung-ah, ​he cackles, ​holy shit.
Yoongi smiles at him fondly, a little feline. “Tae,” he says, “they’re on top of your head.”
Taehyung blushes. Seokjin is losing it on the couch with Jungkook, the game of mario kart briefly
abandoned.
Yoongi pats him gently on the shoulder as he passes through the living room.
“It happens,” he says.

9.
In the kitchen, Yoongi sits at the table with coffee that looks like it might be cold. He has, very
clearly, been up all night in the studio and only just returned home. It’s a habit that everyone hates.
He blinks unseeingly at the wall next to the fridge, out of his mind with exhaustion.
Taehyung looks at him from the doorway, pained. The makeup artists are going to have a field
day with the bags under Yoongi’s eyes, Yoongi’s neck is going to hurt all day, and seven hours from now,
he’s going to crash. Spectacularly.
Taehyung makes himself a bowl of cereal and sits down in the seat next to Yoongi. His spoon
clinks against the ceramic of the bowl, and Yoongi sips silently at his cold coffee.
 Yoongi yawns.
“Up all night?” Taehyung asks.
“Mhm,” Yoongi mumbles, his voice scraping with disuse.
Taehyung brings his hand up the plane of Yoongi’s back and rests it on the nape of his neck,
squeezing. Yoongi’s eyes flutter closed, for a moment, and he tilts his head to the side, trying to stretch
his neck.
Taehyung’s fingers scratch at the fine hairs of his undercut. Yoongi breathes out through his nose,
slow.
“You must be tired, huh?” Taehyung says, rubbing warmly at Yoongi’s back again.
Yoongi’s head turns and he faces him, a stirred up kind of look on his face. His eyes flick back
and forth between Taehyung’s own. “Yeah,” Yoongi replies, quiet, quiet, quiet.
Yoongi feels strangely as though he’s just been figured out, a little bit. One layer peeled back, his
insides buzzing, stuffed full of bees. His heart, trained like a guard dog, pulling at its chains.
It's nice, to just be acknowledged instead of scolded, for once. Some strange, unnamed part of
him kind of wants to cry.
Taehyung gives him a sleepy little smile and slides out of his chair, moving to put his empty bowl
in the sink.
“Are you hungry, hyung?” Taehyung asks.
Yoongi nods. Down the hall, it sounds like everyone else is waking up.
Taehyung pours him some cereal.

10.
You can do whatever you want, N ​ amjoon had told him.
Well, that was a lie, Taehyung thinks. If he could do whatever he wants, he wouldn’t have such a
hard time showing up in Yoongi’s studio with something to say that isn’t ​I love you, a​ nd; ​I’ve been really
miserable without you.
Taehyung watches Yoongi’s profile as he screws with a beat, and he want to be able to say that to
him. Wants to be able to tell him about his song idea. It’s hard.
Yoongi’s fingers tap the desk like a piano, rhythmic.
Sometimes the hurdles are inside us, too.

11.
Taehyung can’t sleep.
It’s not really that unusual--his circadian rhythm has been screwed up since before debut, and
falling asleep in the van has its consequences.
He’s sat up on the couch in the living room, scrolling through his phone, and his hair keeps
falling into his eyes. It’s too long. He keeps meaning to ask one of the stylists to cut it for him, but
they’ve been putting his hair up lately and it’s harder to tell, that way.
His hair gets into his line of vision, and then it does it again, and as soon as he starts thinking
about cutting it, he just can’t ​stop.
He goes into the kitchen. Finds the scissors. Flicks on the light in the bathroom, combs his bangs
down flat across his forehead with his fingers.
 He makes one, tiny cut, and he can’t really see what he’s doing--his hair is in his eyes for god’s
sake and the scissors in his hand block his view into the mirror. It’s not too short, it’s just blunt, maybe a
little uneven, and Taehyung figures this is why he shouldn’t be left alone for too long. He starts doing
things like cutting his own bangs, or cutting his own clothes.
Well, T​ aehyung thinks, having a staredown with the recently chopped chunk of hair in the mirror,
I’ve gotta commit to this, now.
He’s about to make another cut when the light flicks on the hallway and Yoongi appears in the
doorway, scrubbing at his eye with the heel of his palm, yawning.
“Uh,” Taehyung says, still holding the scissors.
Yoongi blinks at him tiredly. He looks from Taehyung’s face to the scissors and back again.
“Taehyung-ah…” he says, and his voice is rough with sleep, “what are you doing?”
“Cutting my hair,” Taehyung replies, trying to sound like this isn't the last thing he should be
doing right now. “You know. With some scissors.”
“Well,” Yoongi says, as dry and sarcastic as ever. “You’re doing a real bangup job.”
Taehyung’s face burns red in the fluorescent lights.
“Let me,” Yoongi says, stepping in onto the tiles, grabbing the scissors out of Taehyung’s hand.
“I can fix this.”
And then; Yoongi’s face is only a few inches from his own, and Yoongi’s free hand comes up to
grip Taehyung’s chin between his forefingers, tilting his face down.
“You can’t just cut straight across like that,” Yoongi says, gentle. It’s too close to see what's
happening with the scissors so he just looks elsewhere, instead. Yoongi’s hair sticks up funnily in some
places and flattens out in others, mussed with sleep and leftover hairspray. A bit of an inbetween state,
Taehyung decides; his stage makeup has been removed but there’s still some leftover eyeliner smudged at
the corner of his eye, and he seems to have forgotten to take off all his rings. “Gotta cut it at an angle, or
some shit. Feather it.”
Taehyung laughs, quietly, the sound of it rooted somewhere in his stomach, low.
He looks at their reflections in the mirror out of the corner of his eye; Yoongi tilting his face
down, hand carding through his bangs, the two of them, in pajamas. It’s a really nice image, Taehyung
thinks, if you just cut out the scissors. If they just weren’t who they are.
Yoongi puts the scissors down, and Taehyung ruffles his hair. It looks normal. It’s out of his eyes.
He wasn’t asking for much.
“Thanks,” Taehyung says. Yoongi stares back at him through the mirror, pretty, pretty, pretty.
Still charming and alluring through the smudge of the reflection, through the layers of sleep.
“Yeah,” Yoongi says, turning his head to look at the real Taehyung. “Looks good.” If Yoongi’s
being honest, it looks the same as always, but that’s kind of what he means.
Taehyung ears turn red, and the expression that flashes across his face has its claws in something
Yoongi shouldn't want anything to do with. But he does. He hopes somewhere on the other side of the
mirror, they're different people. People who can do things without an audience, who can kiss someone
without being a little afraid of it, too.
The night feels unraveled, all those gradient blue shadows in the yellow light. Yoongi turns a
warm color and skitters out of the bathroom. Distantly, Taehyung realizes that Yoongi hadn’t done
anything other than help him cut his hair.
 He hears the sound of Yoongi’s bedroom door closing gently. Taehyung itches to write down
lyrics.
​ aehyung tries to remember. ​All love looks like you.
Every thing smells of light, T
12.
Every now and again, Taehyung gets this quietness about him. He is a person composed entirely
of people, places, and things, Yoongi knows. Taehyung holds on to whatever he can get his hands on. His
heart feels things more harshly than most, and when he gets like this, it seems like--as gruesome as it may
sound--someone has pried open his chest just to watch his heart beat. Just to watch him live. Watch him
love.
Taehyung gets like this on a day in Hawaii, everything slowly winding inwards. Yoongi drags
him out of the hotel to the pier. He really likes hanging out with Taehyung at times like these. Seokjin
once told him, late at night, that he and Taehyung might be more similar than they think.
So, the sun starts setting on the horizon. So, Taehyung smiles to himself, holding up his phone for
a picture, the matching bracelets they had bought sliding loosely down his arm. For a few minutes, as the
sky turns pink, Yoongi feels the opposite of alone. The feeling of community, of people who are on your
side, people who are in something together. The feeling when the check is paid but you're still sitting at
the table. The nights you don't remember, and the ones you do.
Back when they were younger, Yoongi didn't understand this side of Taehyung. Now, he knows,
he had only been seeing one part of Taehyung, and thinking it was all of him.

13.
Taehyung sits down next to Yoongi in his studio, after having pulled up a chair.
He watches, stiff, as Yoongi plugs the USB into the side of his computer and opens the audio
track.
The file name is just a bunch of randomized numbers and letters that his computer assigned it, but
in Taehyung’s head, or maybe in his heart, it’s called ​any way I can. ​It’s Taehyung’s song. Namjoon
helped, but it’s Taehyung’s song. ​This is all yours, ​Namjoon told him. ​This is all you, Taehyung.
Yoongi turns to him. “You composed a song?” he says. He looks proud. Taehyung’s heart skips
one two three i​ nside his chest, pounding against the cage of his ribs.
Taehyung nods, nervous.
Yoongi presses play. There’s radio static in the intro, and then it crackles into a sharp, staccato
electric guitar loop. The drums come in with the bass. In the spaces where the chorus is supposed to fit,
the music slows down but the drums get louder, and then there’s a little keyboard riff with an effect on it
Taehyung has long forgotten the name of.
It’s more indie rock than it is bangtan’s style, but Taehyung doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if it
ever makes it onto an album, because he’s made it, Yoongi is here listening to it, and to Taehyung, that’s
what matters.
Yoongi starts to smile. His profile is sharp and angular in the glow of the computer screen as the
sound clips slide by.
He pauses it about halfway through.
“Taehyung-ah,” Yoongi says, “this is really cool.”
Flustered, Taehyung blurts, “Namjoon-hyung helped me a lot.”
 Yoongi’s hand moves and rests on Taehyung’s thigh as he looks back at the screen. “Yeah,” he
says, not looking at Taehyung, “but it sounds like ​you.”​
“Hyung,” ​he whines embarrassed, instead of saying ​hyung, I’m stupidly in love with you. Y ​ oongi
presses play again and Taehyung feels like a beehive pitched into the river. “I--uh, I wrote something, too.
For you. Kind of.”
“You did?”
Taehyung nods, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans. He’d spent a long time writing out the
lines he wants Yoongi to say in the beginning over the radio static in his best handwriting, in a notebook
he stole from Hoseok. “It’s for the intro. Um, I want it to be your speaking voice, with the old radio effect
on it through the static, you know?” Taehyung wishes that his bangs were still long enough to hide
behind. “I think you would sound the best.”
He hands the paper to Yoongi. Watches him unfold it, carefully, revealing Taehyung’s overly
neat handwriting in red pen.
Bite the hand that starves you, ​it says. ​Tell it we all come out ugly and interesting and ready to
scream. ​A pause. ​Over. I​ t’s like a radio transmission. Taehyung had thought it would sound cool, but he
still feels the hot rush nervousness expand in his blood. It isn’t helping that Taehyung can’t figure out a
name for the look on Yoongi’s face.
Taehyung wrings his hands together in his lap as Yoongi stares at the ink.
Yoongi looks up. “​Taehyung-ah,​ ” he says, and then he pulls Taehyung by the front of his shirt
and kisses him. ​Oh, T ​ aehyung thinks, his brain short circuiting. ​Oh, oh, oh.
Yoongi’s mouth parts, and Taehyung’s hand winds into the hair on the back of his head, growing
out of it’s undercut. He pulls back a centimeter and Taehyung can’t seem to do anything but chase him.
Taehyung smiles against Yoongi’s mouth, and this time when Yoongi leans back, Taehyung lets
him go.
“Sorry,” Yoongi blurts, pink, everywhere, “I--”
“Hyung,” Taehyung interrupts, picking up Yoongi’s hand between his own, warm, “aren’t you
going to kiss me again?”
Yoongi blinks at him.
The song loops and starts over. Radio static. Taehyung can almost hear what it will sound like,
one day.
“Yeah,” Yoongi replies. “Yeah, I am.”