Archive of Our Own

- - -

Yoongi remembers, with startling clarity, the day Jimin moved into this apartment as if it were yesterday.

The first years after he graduated weren’t bad. He’d been lucky enough that his first book made it onto the bestseller lists. Things were going well. He was earning more from writing than he had ever expected. So when the lease on the place he’d paid for with his scholarship ended, he’d been able to move somewhere much better.

But the years after that had gone downhill. After his second book, something was definitely wrong. There was a noticeable drop in his income. And if it kept going like that, it meant he’d be thrown out on the street.

Maybe it wasn’t the end of the world, but it had felt like it.

As always, it was as if life simply didn’t want to cut him a break.

Then came the string of clichés: searching for a place, finding cheap furniture, working jobs he didn’t want just to be able to eat, convincing his friends he was doing fine, somehow continuing with his life and carrying all that weight on his back as if it were nothing.

When he found this apartment, it wasn’t just him. Everyone around him knew he wouldn’t be able to handle the rent on his own. So when he said he was looking for a roommate, it surprised no one.

What was surprising was the person who wanted to be that roommate.

Because one Sunday, in the middle of a gathering with friends, Park Jimin was sitting right across from him, cheeks flushed from too much beer. His messy hair fell over his forehead, making him look unfairly sweet, and most importantly, that familiar smile was on his lips. That smile that was alluring, persuasive, seductive, and so many other things.

As if he were shy, but the kind that knows exactly what he’s doing.

“You know, hyung?” he had murmured that day. “I’d really love to be your roommate.”

And that was it. There was no need to think twice.

Sharing a home with Park Jimin, the subject of love novels, the person Yoongi had tried to get over throughout his university years, the one he had known with one hundred percent certainty would never return his feelings and therefore never once taken a chance on, of course that wasn’t a problem. It shouldn’t have been.

Falling in love with Jimin had been so easy that it hadn’t even felt strange. Sometimes he wondered if everyone in their friend group had fallen for Jimin at some point and then tried to get over it, just like he had. Because he was Jimin. He walked around with that halo of light that seemed to brighten every room he entered. He would just smile, and the next second, you’d find yourself in love with him.

Somehow, Yoongi had come to accept that it was a universal condition. Maybe it was something different from love. Something that existed on another plane. Like admiring a painting in an art gallery. He didn’t know.

But in the end, they had found themselves here. Under the same roof, living together.

And he had thought it would be simple.

Because with Jimin, it was always simple.

Jimin had joined their friend group a little later. He was Taehyung’s soulmate, Hoseok’s favorite person to hug, and the only one Jin never got tired of inviting over for dinner every evening. It wasn’t easy to be someone Namjoon would lend his most precious books to, but Jimin had managed to become that person. And the only person Yoongi had ever seen Jungkook, the most competitive man in the world, let win at games was Jimin.

He was also the one selfless enough to beta-read Yoongi’s books every time. At most a day after sharing his draft with him, Yoongi would receive a long email from Jimin.

So back then, when he received that offer, it had felt like part of a dream. If he stopped to think about it, he knew anyone would want a roommate like Jimin.

But…

It hadn’t taken long. At least, maybe not for him to realize that he might not be the best roommate after all.

It had been slow. Like a deadly illness spreading insidiously over months.

The plants in the living room multiplied, new colors appeared everywhere, belongings piled up day by day, folding into themselves again and again. At some point, they kept finding themselves at the same place over and over, the kitchen table. To talk. To try and find a middle ground.

And each time, the distance they managed to cover stayed somewhere close to zero.

Ten months, he thought.

Ten months. It had taken only ten months for his apartment to become like this.

Jimin looked at him with a remarkably calm expression. As if he had just finished some kind of meditation to prepare for this conversation. He folded his hands neatly on the table and placed a gentle smile on his lips.

Yoongi had long ago named it “the devil’s smile.” It had that magical effect of muddling his thoughts and making him reconsider whatever he was about to say. It was, in a way, devilish.

“So… would you like us to see a relationship counselor or something?”

Yoongi blinked. “We’re not in a relationship, Jimin-ah.”

Jimin nodded. “We are in a relationship, hyung. We just happen to share a house.”

He gestured around them, as if necessary. There was such a professional air to his posture that it somehow made Yoongi feel unprepared.

It also made him want to laugh.

Because the bone-framed glasses he wore whenever he worked on something had slid down to the tip of his nose. His oversized T-shirt hung off one shoulder. The short gray shorts he wore while cleaning had faded orange blotches in certain spots from detergent.

“We need to accept this situation, hyung. We need to make peace with ourselves and our home.”

Yoongi knew that voice.

Since Jimin had been forced to quit his dance classes because work at the company he’d just joined had gotten busy, it had really started to affect him in negative ways. It was hard to remember exactly when it had begun, but for at least three weeks now, it could be said that Jimin had become thoroughly involved in all those podcasts he listened to.

He shook his head side to side, trying not to laugh.

“You’re actually right, Jimin-ah.”

He leaned forward. He reached for Jimin’s hands resting on the table. When he took them into his own and held them gently, he looked just as close as Jimin to the brink of conducting some kind of ritual.

He squeezed his eyes shut and murmured, “I accept the smell of your paint and your chaos. I accept that neon orange color in the part of our home that belongs to you. I accept the view of rainbow vomit currently taking up half of our living room—”

Jimin pulled his hands out of his grasp with a sharpness that bordered on harsh.

“You’re making fun of me!”

“Of course I’m making fun of you!” He didn’t even need to think twice as he said it.

He turned. He gestured toward their living room, visible from the open-plan kitchen.

Even to an outsider, it had to look like some kind of nightmare. As if he would jolt awake any second now, realize all of this had only been a bad dream, and take a deep breath in relief.

The imaginary line Jimin had drawn and claimed split the room perfectly in half was there.

At this point, it could hardly even be called imaginary anymore.

The simple Ikea couch he’d bought with the last of his money when he first moved in sat in the middle of the room. The real issue was that tiny gap between its two large cushions. Because that gap represented their so-called “imaginary” line.

And the division on the wall Jimin had painted using that line as a reference turned the imaginary into something real.

The side to the left of that line was covered in that orange color that had caused him to catch Jimin in the act the moment he came home. It was almost finished. Newspapers were still spread across the floor, and the entire place smelled like paint.

The floor lamp he’d bought last month had now been drenched in such a glaring shade of turquoise that it managed to be one of the first things that caught the eye the moment you walked into the room.

He didn’t even want to talk about the throw pillows on the couch. Put two together and they spelled out “fuck off,” but the lettering was done in some kind of colorful handicraft and looked raised.

All the books were stacked haphazardly across the mini desk he’d shoved into the corner. Various modern art paintings hung on the wall. A large full-length mirror he hated winked at him from the corner. And the rug Jimin insisted was very expensive, though it didn’t look it at all, was a nightmare in its own right.

In front of the window sat all those green plants he frequently neglected to water.

And the poor side to the right of that line was his. It consisted of the gray wall that had remained the same since the day he moved in, a lumbar cushion he used because his back often hurt, a floor with no rug, and a small side table he’d dragged next to the couch just to hold his computer.

He sighed again in the face of all this chaos. “When you look at this, doesn’t something feel off to you too?” he asked, trying to understand. “Can’t we really find some kind of middle ground, Jimin?”

“I mean, technically that’s why I suggested a relationship therapist.” Jimin shrugged.

“Jimin…” he said, shoulders slumping as if giving in a little. “You know exactly what I mean.”

He nodded. He lowered his bent knee and leaned closer to the table. “Yes, hyung. You really do need a bit of color.”

That made him let out a humorless laugh. These things used to be fun. Especially when everything had just started. He used to think Jimin was somehow joking with him. But no, Jimin was completely serious.

He wanted to be himself and gave him space to be himself too. But continuing like this while seeing each other so clearly was hard.

When he walked into the living room, the calm and simplicity he was looking for only existed when he looked to the right side.

In the middle of all this chaos, it no longer felt possible to write with a clear head. Especially in this period where he’d lost his inspiration, it felt like it pressed down on him even more. When he went to his room, his bed only made him want to drop everything and lie down, and because of the open kitchen layout, the kitchen somehow offered him that same space.

There was nowhere else to go in their small little nest anyway.

Unless he actually tried writing in the bathroom like Jimin had once suggested.

“Couldn’t you use… a little less color? Something that won’t strain the eyes?” he asked, as if he hadn’t suggested it a million times before. “This really gives me a headache, Jimin-ah.”

For the first time since the start of the conversation, Jimin’s shoulders dropped. He looked around the room as he pushed his glasses up from the tip of his nose.

Finally, he said, “I understand you, hyung.”

He looked like he’d thought about it for more than just a few seconds.

“But I really love becoming one with the places I live in. Belonging there.” When he looked into Jimin’s eyes, the glimmer there was visible. “And it’s hard to keep that inside. I think that’s exactly what you don’t understand. Look at your side.”

He turned toward where Jimin gestured, as if he didn’t already know the room by heart. Jimin’s voice sounded gentler now.

“I know I stand out, but we split the room in half from the start, right? I’m just as colorful as you are gray.” When he let out a breath, something about it felt more pessimistic than it should have. “As much as I hate those gray walls of yours, I can’t force you to be colorful because I know you don’t like it. But you can’t take my colors away from me either. That would be unfair.”

That might have been the saddest part. Jimin being right, as always.

He was his roommate. He was the one who had agreed to go into this from the beginning. They’d both been on the same page about splitting the room in half.

Jimin had never been an irresponsible roommate either. He always paid the rent on time, never delayed his bills, did the grocery shopping when it was his turn, and was always meticulous about cleaning.

No matter how much he hated those damn orange walls… Jimin had just as much right to them as he did.

So he took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. You’re right.”

He turned to Jimin. Now he looked just as upset as he did.

“I know I’m right, hyung,” he said, trying to smile. “Still, I’ll try to pick a better color for you, okay? What about yellow? A light, soft yellow. Does that suit you?”

“If you want orange, you should do orange, Minie.” This time, Yoongi reached out and took his hand with an expression that was entirely free of mockery, friendly instead. “I’ll deal with it, okay?”

“Hyung.” He squeezed his hand in warning. “Yellow or not?”

Yoongi looked at the way he’d raised his eyebrows in challenge. He was looking at him with an expression that almost refused objection.

Once again, he was defeated.

“Yellow sounds better, yes.”

Jimin smiled.

“Okay. I’ll save the rest of the orange for my bedroom and paint this place yellow as soon as possible.”

He smiled back. This time, there was more bitterness than gloom in his smile.

“We are completely opposite, right?” Yoongi said, the past ten months with him flickering before his eyes like a film reel. “We’re probably not even the last two people who shouldn’t be living in the same house.”

“Even so, we’re handling it well. And my relationship therapist offer still stands.” Jimin raised one eyebrow. “Seokjin hyung’s elementary school friend does this for a living, and I heard he’s very good at what he does—”

He let out a quiet laugh. “We really don’t need a relationship therapist, Jimin-ah.”

Jimin rolled his eyes like a child as he leaned back in his chair. “Fine! But if you regret it later, I’m not getting involved.” He got up from his seat with an aggressive push. “Now, do you want a free coffee or not?”

Yoongi leaned back. Watching Jimin open and close the cabinets with deliberate intent, he said, “If you’re making it like always, I do. Also, I got you those coffees you like. From the market at the end of the neighborhood.”

With a sudden, unexpected cry of delight, Jimin said, “You’re the best!”

No matter how opposite they were, moments like this felt like home. Warm. As warm and vivid as the orange on the wall.

And Yoongi had never quite learned what to do with these colors.

- - - 

As a writer, having writer’s block wasn’t a rare occurrence. It wasn’t strange. It wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t unexpected. It was nothing. It was actually the kind of thing he’d come to expect by now.

But this felt like the first time. It wasn’t passing. It was like he was rolling down a dark pit. There was no inspiration, no spark, nothing that stirred the urge to write when he looked at it.

Right now, all he had was this half-painted orange wall he stared at while biting into an apple.

The years he’d spent in the orphanage had been so bad, and he’d been transferred so many times, that getting used to a place had always been difficult for him. Maybe as a result, he’d grown accustomed to having few belongings. Less was good. Easy to leave, not addictive, nothing you had to get used to. At the very least, having fewer things meant not getting attached to a place.

He wasn’t sure if it had turned into some kind of internal war, but even looking at a place that didn’t belong to him stirred a kind of aggression in him. As if the reason he’d lost his inspiration lately was this. Jimin’s overly colorful side. Now, when he looked at the part that belonged to him, he only started to see himself as someone more gloomy, more gray.

It felt like half of a photograph had been put under a black-and-white filter.

“Hyung, the bathroom’s free now!”

He let out a deep sigh when Jimin shouted from inside, completely unaware of everything.

Gray or not, if he didn’t want the publishing house to give up on him, he had to start writing this week. He had to write something, send the draft, and wait for a positive result.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t even have enough money to pay the rent for this house he’d been turning his nose up at.

- - -

Maybe because he didn’t have a formal job compared to the others, Yoongi continued to be the first person to arrive whenever there was a gathering.

So it wasn’t strange for him to be curled up in the corner of Namjoon’s couch for the past half hour, clinging to a bottle of beer while staring at empty surfaces. In a way, it was familiar.

When Namjoon came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel as if he’d finished the “preparation” stage he’d mentioned, he tried to smile. Yoongi tried to smile back. When it came to Namjoon, he knew very well how much he hated doing anything in the kitchen.

As Namjoon dropped the towel on the arm of the other couch and walked toward him, his eyes were on the clock on the wall. “They’ll be here soon. Maybe today we should play a game instead of watching a movie.”

“If we’re playing Uno again, it might make Tae mad.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, thinking how nice it would be to sleep for a bit. “Also, since we played truth or dare at the last gathering, things between you and Seokjin are weird enough already.”

“Hey, we handled that very professionally. We’re perfectly fine.” Namjoon protested instantly, but they both knew that protest meant nothing.

Because Jungkook had asked Namjoon to give Jin a lap dance, and Namjoon had been so enthusiastic about it that he probably hadn’t expected to come just from Seokjin’s lap dance.

No one in the room had expected it, either. That’s why everything had felt strange enough.

“Anyway.” Namjoon sighed as if he understood there was no point trying to change his mind about that. “I was going to ask about your book. How’s it going? I had a brief talk with Jimin, but he said he doesn’t need to beta-read it yet.”

“Because there was nothing to send him.”

The voice that came out was emotionless, raw. He always hated talking like this. But it was hard to take any other stance against the thoughts that dragged him into anxiety attacks.

“I thought you’d reached an agreement with the publishing house.”

“We did.”

“Then?”

That was where the problem started. For a moment, Yoongi didn’t even know how to explain it to Namjoon, because he would probably think he was being stupid. That it made no sense for him to make things harder for himself when he was this pressed for money, and—

“Hyung.” As if Namjoon could hear the noise in his mind, he cut him off. “You know you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, right?”

Yoongi sighed. Of course he knew. But keeping all of this inside was a weight too. He got up, kept living his life, looked around with the same expressions as if his mind weren’t a complete mess. He tried to be the same Yoongi.

“They asked me to write a different ending.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They’re not satisfied with the ending of the book. So they want an alternative from me— something that would allow me to write a second one in the series if the book sells.”

“And?” Namjoon looked a little excited. “Isn’t that a good thing? If the series continues, the publishing house will offer more to keep you.”

“But I don’t want to, Joon.” He sighed. As he set the beer bottle on the table in front of them, he tried to act as if his skin wasn’t prickling all over. “It’s my book. I love the ending of my book. You know, sometimes what I write talks to me and… it has to be like this. This is exactly the ending I settled on in my head. This is where those characters are meant to end up.”

“You don’t want there to be a sequel.”

“Yes.” He said it like a confession that eased his burden a little. “I tried to explain that to them too, but the number they’re offering is really good. They’re paying a lot for a book other publishers didn’t want. So now, in a way, I’m forced to change that ending.”

“Are you trying?”

“A lot.” His answer came so quickly it almost cut Namjoon off. “But inspiration isn’t with me, I’m fighting a writer’s block, everything’s too much. A lot of pressure for something I don’t want to do and… and—” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I just can’t write, and I feel like I’m going to explode at some point.”

“Then maybe you should send it to a few more publishers, hyung. The book you wrote is really good.” As if to offer support, Namjoon draped an arm over his shoulder and squeezed it firmly. “It’s not the end of the road.”

“If I want to be able to pay next month’s rent, yes, it is the end of the road, Joon.” He tried to smile. “I need to sort this out somehow.”

“Jimin wouldn’t mind.”

“I know, but I’m the one who was looking for a roommate. I can’t put him under that burden. Besides, we don’t know what will happen next month.”

He could apply to another publishing house. Maybe even all the ones he hadn’t tried. But for them to take the manuscript, put it in line, read and evaluate it, get back to him with a result, and pay him, it was a long process. Either way, there wouldn’t be any result for the month ahead.

So his only option was to somehow change that ending, present it to the publishing house, and wait for the payment after it was approved.

“I’ll figure it out somehow,” he murmured. “I can do this.”

Namjoon smiled sincerely and nodded. “I know you can handle it,” he said, and his voice felt just as sincere. “Still, don’t forget that we’re here, okay? Always, for everything.”

“Thanks, man.” He tried to smile and took back the beer he’d been handed.

Maybe today was a good day to get drunk.

It was definitely a good day.

- - -

“Hey, handsome.”

Yoongi was laughing at him when Jimin threw himself down beside him with a grin, like those older men who sidle up to a lone guy in a crowded bar, wiggling his eyebrows a little too much.

Friend gatherings were always a little messy. Too much noise, too many opinions. All those weird stories that had happened in the short time they hadn’t seen each other. Some of them sounded pretty suspicious, but they swore they were real.

So there was a lot of background noise. At some point, he’d stopped trying to separate it all out.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, trying to play along.

“You’re quiet today. You look like you’re waiting for the love of your life. That’s why I brought you a drink. The kind you can’t be sure I didn’t put something in.”

In a way, it was funny that Yoongi hadn’t even noticed Jimin was holding two glasses until he held one out to him. But since he’d already drunk more than usual, maybe it wasn’t that strange.

He took the glass from him and studied the colorful mixture, letting out an involuntary chuckle. Since Jimin had bartended for a while, he knew a lot about things like this. And because Yoongi trusted him in a frankly unhealthy amount, he kept drinking whatever Jimin made without question.

Even if most of them weren’t to his taste, it was certain Jimin knew what he was doing.

“You should be more subtle about your intentions,” he said, taking a sip. “Then I wouldn’t suspect you of drugging me.”

Jimin rolled his eyes playfully, then settled more comfortably into his spot beside him. When their shoulders pressed fully together, he braced his feet against the edge of the coffee table. His own drink didn’t look as colorful as Yoongi’s.

“You’re quiet today.”

“Mm.” He shrugged, looking at Jungkook, who looked on the verge of a rage fit now that he’d started falling behind Seokjin. “I’m just not really in the mood, that’s all.”

“Is it still because of the orange walls? Because I couldn’t find yellow paint and—”

“It’s fine, Jimin, really.” He tried to smile. “It’s just that my muses are on the verge of suicide.”

“Ah.” Jimin made a sad sound, like he understood. “Is there anything I can do?”

Jimin usually asked him that, and Yoongi found it funny every time.

Because when he’d been writing his first books, Jimin had been, in a way, his muse. Park Jimin was someone easy to fall in love with, colorful, spreading joy around him, with a lot of friends, successful. Technically, he was someone Yoongi admired as much as he dreamed of being like.

So he’d turned him into one of his characters. Writing him had been fun. In a way he’d never been able to explain, he was a character that pleased him. Writing had been easy, the words had flowed like water. And tragically, comically, Jimin had beta-read those books completely unaware.

Now, looking back, he missed those days terribly. It had been a time when everything felt difficult, but probably everything had been better than it was now.

At least he could write.

He could produce something.

He looked at Jimin. When he looked at him, he knew not much had changed about him. He was still the same Jimin. Maybe not as much as back then, but he still did plenty that could make him his muse.

“I think you did a lot by making me this drink,” he said with a sigh. “Right now, I was thinking of writing one of those annoying guys at the bar.”

“Yah!” Jimin nudged him with his shoulder without waiting. “First of all, I’m not an annoying guy. I’m the type who flirts with the handsome guy watching me from the corner while I dance nicely on the dance floor.”

“I wasn’t watching you.”

“Then your eyes drifted to the wrong place,” he said, pointing. “Because I was definitely dancing there, and you were watching me, handsome.” And then he winked.

It wasn’t an impossible scenario. If he had to admit it, he’d always loved watching Jimin dance. And Jimin was someone who could dance anywhere. Probably even at this small gathering at Namjoon’s place.

Still, he hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t been aware he’d been dancing.

“Then I’ll be honored by the flirting you did with me,” he said, laughing. “It makes this bad day better. I hope you don’t have a roommate, and we won’t bother him tonight.”

“So you’re the type who goes over to the other person’s place instead of inviting them to yours?” Jimin laughed when he raised one eyebrow.

“Have you ever seen me bring someone home?”

“No?”

“Okay, there’s your answer.”

“I thought that was more because you’re going to die of loneliness.” Jimin frowned. “Wait. Do you seriously do that often?”

Yoongi sighed. Sleeping with people he met at bars easily ranked among the things he hated most in life. But if it meant Jimin wouldn’t see him as someone who’d die alone, maybe it was better for him to believe this.

“Not often,” he said instead.

“I see.” Jimin nodded. For a moment, that excited air seemed to leave him, but it didn’t last long. He planted a hand on Yoongi’s thigh to push himself up from the couch, then smiled. “I’m going to go find Tae. We’ll go home together, hyung.”

And he started walking away without even giving Yoongi the chance to say anything.

Yoongi frowned for a brief moment because he didn’t understand what had just happened, but he didn’t question it too much.

That was just how Jimin was. Sometimes it was better not to try to understand him.

- - -

Lately, what Yoongi wondered most was what he used to do back when he could write regularly. Where did he write? What did he eat and drink? What did he think about? What time did he go to sleep, what time did he wake up?

Damn it, what was it, exactly, that made him write?

He had the same circle of friends. The same interactions, the same places, the same venues.

So what was it now that was suffocating him this much, making everything feel this dark? Writing an ending he didn’t want? But sometimes, for the sake of the story, for the sake of the plot, there were scenes he endured, yet even writing those had felt easy.

So it shouldn’t have been this hard. It shouldn’t have been this hard.

“Are you leaving already?”

Since he knew the voice behind him belonged to Hoseok, he didn’t even pause, just nodded as he finished putting his laptop into his bag. As he slung the bag over his arm, holding his notebook, he said, “Yeah. The café is crowded today, I couldn’t really focus.”

“I remember you writing here when it was even more crowded.” Hoseok tried to laugh, but didn’t do a very good job of it. “Maybe you should take a break sometime. Taehyung made a really nice cake and we just put it in the display.”

He didn’t know if his friends talked about him among themselves. Maybe everyone knew he was struggling to write because it showed. Or maybe everything he told one person spread to the others. But somehow, they were worried about him. He understood that.

Still, at a certain point, that worry felt more like pressure.

“Not today, Hoba. But I’ll stop by again as soon as I can, okay?” He squeezed his shoulder lightly and smiled. “Tell Tae hi for me.”

Tae was probably still in the kitchen, because he wasn’t at the counter. Hoseok looked like he wanted to say something, but held himself back and nodded. “Tell Jimin hi too. Tomorrow we’re making those cream-filled cookies he likes. Tell him to come get some.”

“I will,” he murmured, then turned around again, slipping back into that brief, strange silence. Leaving the café felt good. Stepping out of that small, sweet, intimate space and breathing in the rainy air outside made him feel like he could relax a little.

Until his phone rang.

Because it was the publishing house.

“Hello?”

“Hello, am I speaking with Min Yoongi?”

“Yes, this is him.” He stopped at the corner of the sidewalk and checked the time for the bus, and there was a bit of movement on the other end of the line. “We’re calling from Omelas Publishing. Would it be possible for you to come in for a meeting today at two p.m.?”

“Today?”

“Yes, our chief editor has a few details they’d like to discuss with you. They said they’re sorry, but it can’t be handled over email.”

A deep breath.

He could stay calm. There was no need to panic. It wasn’t the end of the road. It wasn’t the end of the road. It wasn’t the end of the road.

“Of course. I’ll be there at two.”

“Thank you, Mr. Min. We’ll be expecting you. Have a good day.”

“You too.”

Damn it.

- - -

Life’s favorite thing was letting him have a few good years and saving all its kicks especially for the years labeled “bad.” Even if he never understood why, whenever things started going wrong, he knew they would go even more wrong.

It had been like that since he was little.

His family’s accident, the orphanage years, university, job hunting, everything.

The only good years he could remember were made up of a few beautiful moments mixed into his university life. That was all.

And here he was.

Soaked through by the rain, about to lose the only publishing house he’d managed to find if he couldn’t deliver the final draft within three days, standing penniless in front of his own door. Every damn day he’d shoved the same keys into this hole, but today he couldn’t.

Because yes, of course everything had to go wrong. Everything had to test his patience.

“Fuck.” Unable to take it anymore, he kicked the door hard. It was Thursday; Jimin should have been home at this hour, but no, he was out too. Because if he’d been home, Yoongi wouldn’t be stuck outside like this. “Fuck my luck.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against the door, begging for patience. As if every calming method he knew had flown out of his mind, he tried to focus only on breathing in and out, but it was hard.

It was so hard.

He had to keep going.

That was the worst part, anyway. Knowing you had to keep going. That even if you were on the verge of a breakdown, you still had to stand up and walk. Or simply insert a house key into a lock.

He pushed himself off the door. When he forced the key into the hole one last time, it slid in smoothly, as if it hadn’t been the thing driving him insane for the past ten minutes. He froze in surprise for a second, but then, as if not wanting to lose the moment, he turned the key and stepped inside.

Feeling the dampness down to his underwear, the thought of being locked out any longer made him sick.

He hung his jacket, still dripping at the edges, on the coat rack; his laptop bag landed in the corner on the floor; his shoes, a little messy, were left on the mat by the entrance.

Then the bathroom.

Yes, the bathroom.

Please, to the bathroom without looking at the living room.

Because damn it, of course it had to be today. The same newspapers were spread out on the floor again, the house smelled of paint from lack of air, a part of the wall was painted yellow. Everything was half-finished.

Everything was half-finished because a large portion of their gray couch in the middle was yellow. Apparently, the paint can had fallen over and the paint had splattered everywhere. Including his lumbar pillow and part of his side table, it looked like the sun.

He collapsed to the floor. Right there, in the first place he found, in his soaking clothes. Without even knowing what had pushed him to this, he let the tears start falling from his eyes. His shoulders shook violently as he writhed as if crying for the first time in his life.

It should have felt good. Like for every other human, crying should have been paired with relief.

But it wasn’t. It was as if every drop that fell from his eyes only angered him more, only fueled the rage inside him; the more he cried, the more he writhed and whined. He kept questioning why he deserved this life.

He hadn’t chosen to lose his family. He hadn’t chosen to grow up in an orphanage. Damn it, he hadn’t even chosen to study literature.

The director of the orphanage had said, if you love reading books so much, then become a writer. Because he didn’t have a family to open his eyes and tell him that in this cruel world, art was something only rich people should pursue. He didn’t have a mother to say, if you want to be a writer, you need savings or you’ll live a mediocre life. Or a father to say writing should remain just a hobby.

He probably would have rebelled against them for not supporting his dreams. He would have turned his back on them a little or sulked. He would have cried just like now. His father would have forced him into a specific department at university to become a lawyer or a doctor, and he would have studied it with hatred.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Right now, he would have money to pay his rent. He wouldn’t have had to beg a publishing house, swallowing his pride.

When he came home, he wouldn’t see his stupid couch, the one he’d secretly been proud of buying with his own money, covered in yellow paint.

Or at least, even a stupid couch wouldn’t hold such a big place in his life.

“Hyung! Hyung, are you okay?”

He didn’t know when the door had opened, but Jimin ran to him without even taking off his shoes, as if he’d found him bleeding on the floor. He wanted to say that muddying the floor wasn’t more important. That it wasn’t even worth the time they’d spend cleaning it.

But he couldn’t say anything. He just kept sobbing, staring at the yellow paint without even being able to figure out what kind of position he was in, while Jimin wrapped his arms around him, shook him a little, and murmured things.

Maybe it was some kind of attack or crisis. He didn’t even care what it was. He just wanted crying to relieve him at least a little, but it wasn’t working.

“Hyung, what happened? Please talk to me!” Concern flowed from Jimin’s voice like water. Yoongi’s ears throbbed as if they would burst from that concern. He wanted him to shut up. Jimin was stupid. He had never seen his love for him. Or understood it even when he’d let him turn the house into this.

Something had to be different.

Something had to be different.

“I’m fine,” he said. His eyes were probably bloodshot, his voice was shaking, and everyone—including him—knew he’d wake up sick tomorrow. “I’m fine, Jimin. Let me go.”

“We need to go to the bathroom. You’re soaked, you’ll get sick.”

“I want to stay here.”

“No—”

“Let go, Jimin.”

“I’m not leaving you here like this.” His voice sounded so certain. It felt impossible to argue against.

He wanted to yell at him. He wanted to truly be angry at him for ruining the couch like this, but every bone in his body hurt so much that he didn’t have enough strength to shout.

Instead, he just said, “We should separate.”

Under normal circumstances, Jimin would have teased him. He would have said, just like Yoongi always did to him, “We’re not in a relationship, hyung.” They would have annoyed each other in the middle of an argument.

But it was a moment like this, and his voice had come out so firm unintentionally that he felt Jimin freeze behind him immediately. His back was pressed to his chest. He was holding him tightly, as if he might slip out of his hands at any second. With what he’d said, the grip around his wrist tightened even more.

“Because of the couch?” he whispered. “Because I went to Ikea and bought the exact same one again, hyung. I’m really sorry. Jungkook came to help with the paint and—”

He squeezed his eyes shut. As if saying it didn’t hurt his heart, he said, “Go, Jimin. Please. I can’t write, I’m practically unemployed now and… and—just go. You should go.”

A sob slipped from his lips unexpectedly. Before he could even process what was happening, Jimin gently slipped away from behind him. Maybe he was leaving.

He stood up. Instead of walking out the door, he took off his shoes and stood in front of him again. This time, trying to meet his hazy gaze, he said, “Okay. I’ll be gone from the house by morning, okay? Now come to the bathroom with me.”

“Please let go.”

“You’ll get sick.”

“I know.”

Jimin took a deep breath. After taking off his raincoat and leaving it at the end of the couch, Yoongi realized far too late that Jimin was crying too. With a quiet sigh, Jimin moved around behind him. He slid his hands under his arms and lifted him up without permission.

A moment later, with Jimin’s support, he was moving down the hallway. He could hear the sound of water running in the bathroom. He didn’t even know when his clothes had come off. But somehow, he found himself under the water in the bathtub. Jimin was saying something. Talking to him. But it was hard to hear him, as if they were standing at very distant points from each other.

Maybe minutes later, maybe hours, while Jimin gently stroked his hair, he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was the reason you couldn’t write, hyung.”

Yoongi wanted to laugh.

It was so ridiculous, one of the muses that so rarely entered his life saying something like that, that he truly wanted to laugh.

“I’ll be gone by tomorrow morning, okay? I won’t even come to friend gatherings until you finish your book.”

“Jimin…” he whispered. He tried to reach for him, but Jimin pulled his hand back just in time and stepped away.

“Shh.” He lowered his head as if it would hide the drop falling from his eye. “Come on, let’s dry you off. I’ll make mint and lemon the way you like it.”

He helped Yoongi stand. Out of respect for his privacy, Jimin probably hadn’t taken off his underwear.

He wrapped him in a towel and helped him out of the tub. He followed him to his room and made sure he was sitting on the bed before taking out a pair of pajamas and underwear for him. Then he turned his back and left the room. Shortly after, sounds came from the kitchen.

With the exhaustion he felt, he couldn’t even remember how he’d put on his clothes, but when he finally stepped out of his room, he looked more human.

Without waiting, Jimin placed a mug of mint and lemon in front of him. Steam was still rising from it.

“I added honey too,” he murmured, not looking at his face. He simply turned his back as if he wanted to busy himself with the dishes.

“Jimin,” he said, wrapping his hand tightly around the mug as if it would absorb all the cold from his body and make him warmer. “I want to talk.”

He expected Jimin to snap at him. Maybe to get angry about what he’d said earlier. But instead, he only let his shoulders drop and placed the cloth in his hand on the counter. Then he turned and walked toward him.

In the open kitchen, they sat across from each other on opposite sides of the island counter.

“I’m listening.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

He fell silent. It didn’t feel like their usual conversations. Jimin wasn’t wearing his usual bone-framed glasses to look like a know-it-all. He wasn’t in one of his oversized, loose, detergent-stained T-shirts. He was wearing a shirt and trousers that showed he’d worked late. His hair, instead of being messy, was carefully styled. Even the rain hadn’t dared ruin it.

One way or another, Jimin managed to look ethereal in both versions.

“Hyung,” he said, just as far from joking. He didn’t reach for his hand on the counter. Knowing how touchy he usually was, he probably wanted to, but didn’t dare. “What you said was serious. Those were your thoughts.”

“Not exactly,” Yoongi said, as if he could still salvage something. “I had a really bad day and—”

“You don’t like that part of the house.” Jimin finished for him. That wasn’t what he’d been going to say, but Jimin still touched the right point. “It’s not a surprise to anyone that you don’t like the colorful part of the house. But if that part is what’s killing your inspiration, then you were right too. And that part is me.”

“No, Jimin—”

“The way you look like your part, I look like my part. And I won’t stand in the way of your job—the profession you’ve dedicated your life to. I genuinely feel guilty for being the one who offered to be your roommate in the first place. We weren’t a good match.”

“Jimin.” This time, he tried to sound firmer, more certain. “Will you let me speak?”

Jimin sighed. He looked like he was about to say something, maybe even object. But in the end, he gave up and nodded.

“I’m going through a hard time. I won’t be able to make next month’s payment, and I’m having problems with the publishing house. And I haven’t been able to write any of the parts I need to write. So I’m in deep shit.” He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath so he wouldn’t relive everything all over again. “I just saw the couch at the wrong time and—”

“Do you remember the first month I moved in?” Jimin reached out and wrapped his hand around Yoongi’s hand that was holding the mug. Somehow, it felt warmer than the mug itself.

“Yes, why?” Yoongi asked, trying to look into his eyes.

“You’d already paid the rent and you didn’t take money from me,” Jimin pointed out. It was something Yoongi had pushed to the background. It was insignificant. The rent date had already passed, so it wasn’t like Jimin had used the whole month. “I’ll pay next month so we can even it out.”

“No, Jimin—”

“And I’ll take my things piece by piece because I’ll probably have to stay with Seokjin hyung until you find a new roommate. I don’t think he has enough space to fit everything and—”

“Jimin!” he said again, feeling the need to stop him. “You’re not going anywhere. This is your home.”

“We realized a long time ago that we’re not what’s best for each other, hyung.” He smiled at him with a faint sheen in his eyes. “Don’t feel guilty for doing what we should’ve done a long time ago.”

“You’re leaving because of what I said.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But like I said, it was something that was supposed to happen anyway.”

He smiled.

That smile felt like a knife stabbing into Yoongi’s heart.

“Please don’t go.”

Jimin squeezed his fingers. It was a kind of consolation. Very different from the way Namjoon had squeezed his shoulder a few days ago or Hoseok had that morning. It was as if he were consoling both himself and him at the same time.

“We’ll be better, believe me.” Then, as if nothing had happened, he gestured toward his mug. “Drink it before it gets cold. I really don’t want you to get sick.”

Then he stood up. He disappeared down the hallway and quietly closed the door to his room, leaving Yoongi alone in the kitchen.

From the very beginning, he wondered what they would have done if it had been the way Jimin had jokingly suggested. If they had really gone to a relationship therapist and solved things through a professional lens instead of their own stupid methods…

Would it have been the same?

Would everything still have hurt this much?

That question would probably remain in a corner of his mind forever.

- - -

If there was one thing he could say about Jimin leaving the house, it was that everything felt heavy and bleak.

Because he hadn’t left all at once. Deep down, Yoongi knew that was what he wanted. It should have been like ripping off a bandage. He should have felt all the pain at once. But Jimin seemed to want to peel the bandage off slowly and make him feel every second of it.

He emptied his room on the first day. It was the day Yoongi learned from Namjoon that he was staying at Seokjin’s. He was lying sick, unsure how high his fever was, and when he woke up with a damp cloth on his forehead, the house was empty. There was a pot of soup prepared for him on the counter, and Jimin’s closet was empty.

Hours later, the landlord sent a short message thanking him for the early payment for next month.

And Jimin didn’t answer his calls.

A few days later, the books in the living room were gone, and the table in the corner was completely empty. In the following days, the paintings disappeared. And the next weekend, a couch delivery from Ikea arrived at his door. In Min Yoongi’s name. The exact same couch as the one in the living room.

Why that hurt so much was debatable. Maybe it was the result of that tiny love he’d thought he’d gotten over—but hadn’t. The shattering sadness of knowing he would no longer wake up under the same roof as Jimin.

Maybe it was realizing once again how gray he was.

Because he felt like he was diminishing.

As the colors in that corner he had always seen as a nightmare faded away, it felt like something inside him was being torn out. He wanted to do something to keep that place he’d prayed wouldn’t get any more ruined from being ruined further. He stood guard at home to stop Jimin when he came back.

But whoever Jimin was getting updates from, he was timing it perfectly. Every time Yoongi left the house, Jimin came back to tear another piece from his soul.

- - -

“So you won’t be here for a week?”

They were in Namjoon’s living room once again. He remembered the last day he’d been there like it was yesterday. In the middle of all that chaos, he remembered very clearly the day Jimin had come up to him with a grin and flirted with him playfully.

If he had the chance, he would go back to that day without thinking for a second.

“The publishing house is organizing some kind of writing camp. For new writers,” he murmured lifelessly. Seokjin didn’t look very interested in the topic. Hoseok made a sound as if to show he was listening, but his eyes were on the phone in his hand.

This was supposed to be some kind of friend gathering. But apparently Jimin had to work late, Taehyung’s grandmother was sick, and Jungkook had a new project he’d been assigned to.

When he put all the pieces together, it wasn’t that hard to guess that Jimin didn’t want to come and that Taehyung and Jungkook had chosen to be with him. On top of that, Seokjin and Hoseok didn’t seem like they particularly wanted to be there at that moment either.

“Are you attending the camp, or are you some kind of instructor?”

“They’re technically expecting me to be an instructor, but I guess I’m also kind of attending the camp,” he said with a sigh. “Actually, I really need to pack my suitcase. I came so I wouldn’t cancel our friend gathering, and since half of us aren’t even here—”

They were all surprised when he got up from the couch as if someone were chasing him.

“I’m really sorry. We’ll see each other when I get back and… Yeah. Anyway.”

He could hear Seokjin saying “Yoongi” behind him. Namjoon was saying something to stop him, but everything happened at light speed as he put on his shoes and left the building. The nausea he felt didn’t fade until he reached home.

A week, he thought.

This week could be good for him.

But the week wouldn’t pass. The camp area was in a wooded place, on the shore of a very beautiful river. With spring just beginning to arrive, it had quite a pleasant atmosphere, and it was reasonable to believe that even writers struggling with inspiration would find it here.

But he didn’t even know anymore if his problem was inspiration.

Maybe that was why he couldn’t write a single word. On top of that, everything had fallen into more of a routine. Wake up in the morning, breathe the fresh air, have breakfast, talk about certain techniques with new writers, read drafts, critique, continue, and sleep. Then another new day.

A week was like both a year and an hour. It lasted long, yet because it was the same routine, it ended sooner than expected.

That beautiful view, that cabin in the woods, it should have been good for his soul. It should have quieted his mind.

But it didn’t help.

Worse, when he returned home, everything had turned into an even bigger nightmare.

Jimin’s keys were on the kitchen island. There was a note tucked underneath them.

“Thank you for being a great roommate.”

He turned to the room. The left side was nothing.

Nothing.

The right side of the room was as usual. The space he used hadn’t lost anything of his being.

But the left side wasn’t as he’d left it. The wall had been painted the same gray as his side. The nail marks were still there where the paintings had once hung. The rug and table that had belonged to Jimin were gone too.

The only thing left was the turquoise floor lamp that had once made itself known the moment you walked into the room.

But it wasn’t turquoise anymore.

As if he’d decided to leave it behind, Jimin had painted it the same color as the wall. A tiny spot on its surface had remained turquoise and gone unnoticed.

Yoongi walked into the room with heavy steps. He waited to feel something. Maybe a kind of relief, maybe a deep exhale. He waited for a long time for the wall, now completely gray again like he’d always imagined, to make him feel something positive.

Inspiration should have come. He should have been filled with calm and tranquility. He should have overflowed with feelings that even the writing camp hadn’t made him feel.

But none of it happened. No positive emotion found him. Aside from the uncomfortable weight in his heart, he hated seeing the room like this in the mildest sense.

A real, pure hatred.

And he absolutely had no idea how to come back from this.

- - -

“I don’t get it… You want to work at the café?”

“What’s so strange about that? You put up a sign on the door saying you’re hiring.”

Spring had come.

But if you couldn’t feel it, Yoongi didn’t know if spring had really come.

So maybe he should try to feel that spring had arrived. Maybe instead of shutting himself in and waiting for something to happen, instead of letting life keep kicking him again and again, he should stand up. Maybe he should be more like who he used to be.

“I don’t know, hyung, it’s really not something I expected.” Taehyung still raised his eyebrows as much as he could, looking surprised. He was holding a set of questions he’d probably prepared to ask potential employees. He looked unsure whether to ask them to Yoongi or not.

It had been a long time since Yoongi had spoken to Taehyung one-on-one. He knew Namjoon, Seokjin, and Hoseok were staying neutral, or at least trying to look neutral. But Taehyung and Jungkook had clearly chosen to take a side against him.

And when he tried to guess how much he’d hurt Jimin, he couldn’t even blame them for that attitude.

“So… does that mean you’re hired? Congratulations? I guess?”

“Are you not going to ask those questions?” Yoongi pointed.

“I’m not putting my friend through a test.”

Yoongi could understand that, but he didn’t want it.

Letting his shoulders drop, he said, “Tae. I’m not asking you to hire me. I’m applying for a job.”

“Okay…” he dragged out. “That doesn’t change anything. You’re hired.”

“Can you please ask me those damn questions?” he sighed.

Taehyung looked between his paper and Yoongi a few times, probably tired of it, and finally gave in and started asking his questions. Even though Yoongi couldn’t understand what some of them had to do with the café or the kitchen, he answered about thirty questions.

Taehyung pursed his lower lip, drew one last line on the paper, and shrugged. “We’ll be happy to work with you, Min Yoongi-ssi,” he said. “Welcome to the Smeraldo family.”

He smiled. “You didn’t ask if I have experience in this field,” he pointed out, but Taehyung didn’t care.

“That’s probably the only point you got a minus on. So it’s fine. You’re opening the café tomorrow at nine. Let’s see if you’re as good about punctuality as you claim.”

Yoongi laughed.

He didn’t tell Taehyung, but talking to him like this again felt better than he’d expected. It felt like one of the stones resting on his heart had been lifted. Maybe that’s why, for the first time in weeks, he felt like his smile was real.

- - -

Back when they were still in university and Taehyung was going to the theater department, he used to talk often about his dream of opening a café, and they all saw it as some kind of joke.

But then it turned out he was quite serious.

He was very good in his field. He’d gone on tour with the theater troupe he was part of and made enough money to leave all of his friends speechless. They were all sure Taehyung would become an amazing actor and get quite famous.

Until they heard he’d spent all that money to buy a café near campus.

It had been an interesting experience. Yoongi still remembered holding a grudge against Taehyung for a short while. Because it wasn’t easy to achieve success so quickly in such a field, and he had. Then he’d pushed it aside like it was nothing.

But now, looking back, he could understand how far-sighted he’d been about it.

He’d studied that major for his grandmother, made her happy and shown his success. Then he’d moved forward for his own happiness. And now, he was watching him for the first time as he finished a cake with a big smile on his lips, enthusiastically singing along to the song playing in the background.

He was witnessing for the first time what Taehyung looked like in the kitchen where he always got lost.

He was happy. He looked happy. As if he’d never tasted the cruelty of the outside world, as if all the bad things had stayed away from him.

It looked so surreal, and somehow it was a scene to aspire to rather than envy. He didn’t want to be him. He wanted to be like him. Taehyung stirred that desire in him.

Hoseok stuck his head in through the door and said, “Busy day! Those beautiful hands of yours should hurry because our brownie cake is sold out again!”

Yoongi sighed and pushed himself off where he’d been leaning. After all, he’d always liked being in the kitchen. Now wasn’t any different. As he rolled up his sleeves for a cake, for some reason it actually felt good.

And here, the days passed quickly. Business was good, and Taehyung didn’t seem to struggle at all when handing out wages.

A week after Yoongi started working, when he came out of the kitchen near closing and sat at a table while Hoseok mopped the floors, he felt a faint sense of déjà vu. It hadn’t been that long ago. He’d been sitting here scribbling some lines of his first book. Taehyung would come over now and then, joke around with him, and say he wanted the first signed copy.

He remembered like it was yesterday how Jimin, sitting right across from him, had pouted and argued that after all that beta reading, he definitely deserved the first signature.

It was strange. It made the hairs on his arms stand up.

So he found himself saying, involuntarily, “Hoseok. Jimin’s good, right?”

Hoseok leaned on the mop in his hand and looked at him. For a moment, he hesitated as if he didn’t know what to say. But in the end, with a forced smile, “Don’t worry, hyung.” he said, “He’s at least as good as you.”

Considering Yoongi wasn’t good at all, that wasn’t the best answer he could have hoped for.

Not at all.

Still, he didn’t say anything. He just nodded.

- - -

The fact that the house no longer felt like a home was just as funny as everything else.

Since he ate all his meals at the café and voluntarily went in early and stayed late, he didn’t have separate expenses at home. So the salary he earned seemed enough to cover his rent. The fridge was completely empty, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d turned on the TV, but it didn’t matter.

His laptop had been sitting on his desk with its lid closed for almost a month.

Writing now felt very far away.

Still, he told himself he was fine. As if putting distance between himself and that depression was slowly opening his mind. Being away from a blank screen he stared at without feeling anything felt better.

Except on some nights.

On some nights, even without the smallest idea in his head, his fingers itched so badly that lying in bed and staring at an empty ceiling felt like torture. Sometimes he scribbled a few lines in an empty notebook. That felt like it worked well enough until the words made their way toward Jimin.

Sometimes, like now, he found himself in the kitchen, standing by the coffee machine.

He stared at the red light indicating the coffee was ready longer than necessary. Then he filled halfway the mug Jimin had bought him for his last birthday. He always joked about it. He constantly teased him about how, because of its size, it should be considered some kind of bucket. So he always filled the mug halfway.

Now he walked into the living room, which felt rather cold. He sat on his side of the couch. The first light of the day filtered in through the window where Jimin’s plants used to be. It was still technically night, but that faint color was entering the room as well.

And in that tiny light, the small turquoise dot on the floor lamp Jimin had left behind was illuminated. As the first light of morning hit that spot, it felt like it was looking at him. Even though he felt cold, Yoongi didn’t move. He kept looking at that spot.

He thought that this house no longer felt so warm.

Finally, he tilted his head slightly and smiled at the spot.

“Do you see how boring it is without that dot?” he murmured to the lamp. “You’re so gray that without that turquoise, you’re nothing.”

His whisper made the hairs on his arms stand up.

Whether he was talking to the lamp or to himself was debatable.

After all, before leaving the house, Jimin hadn’t just painted it—he’d painted Yoongi too. Yoongi now felt grayer than before. More dim. More empty.

And it seemed like Jimin had wanted to make sure no color was left behind while painting him. He didn’t even have a small turquoise dot left to add color to him.

He felt pathetic. Like a real pathetic person.

- - -

“You should invite him.”

“Hm?” Yoongi raised one eyebrow at Hoseok, who was locking the café door, trying to understand what he meant. Hoseok was, as always, trying to get him to look somewhere with strange eyebrow and eye gestures.

Finally, realizing that wasn’t a very successful method, he sighed and directly pointed to the man waiting for the bus on the corner. Even though Yoongi couldn’t quite remember the man’s name, he knew he was one of the café’s regulars.

“What about him?” he asked, trying to understand.

“Invite him to the bar too,” Hoseok muttered, nudging him. “The guy’s been trying to flirt with you for weeks.”

Yoongi raised both eyebrows at that. He planted his feet more firmly so Hoseok wouldn’t push him further and laughed. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Come on, hyung…” he whined. He was probably scrambling for him to make a move before the man’s bus arrived, but since he had no such intention, there was no rush. “He’s handsome, judging by his suit he has a good job, and he’s got his eye on you.”

“I wasn’t aware of that, Hobi, but even if I were, it doesn’t matter. I’m not interested.”

“You’re going to die alone.”

“That’s fine.”

“Hyung!” Hobi grabbed his arm a little aggressively. “You need to move on. You can’t stay stuck on Jimin.”

“I’m not stuck on Jimin.”

“Okay. When was the last time you slept with someone?”

“Why does that matter, Hoba?”

“Answer my question.”

He sighed. It was a difficult question, because he probably hadn’t slept with anyone since they’d started sharing the same house with Jimin. At first, bringing someone over while he was living there hadn’t felt right. Besides, the idea of touching someone while the man he was in love with was sleeping in the next room made his stomach turn.

After that, the book process had been very intense. When he started his third book, he was only going out with the friend group, and since he had enough fun with them, leaving the table to make a move on someone hadn’t felt appealing.

“I thought so,” Hoseok said as if he could hear all the voices in his mind. “Come on— Oh, shit.”

When he turned toward the point that had caused Hoseok’s disappointment, they both watched the man get on the bus.

That only made Yoongi laugh more. “Next time,” he said, slinging an arm over his shoulder. “We’ll be late, let’s go.”

Hoseok didn’t look very pleased with the situation, but he still followed him with a sigh, as if he knew there was no other option.

Luckily, the bar Seokjin had suggested for the gathering wasn’t that far. They only had to walk a few blocks. Which meant it would pass quite quickly while listening to Hoseok’s strange memories.

Finally, just as Hoseok was about to finish his exaggerated story about how he’d spilled wine on a girl he’d flirted with last week, they stopped in front of the bar. He turned to him with a smile. As if his story hadn’t been cut off, he suddenly shifted all his focus to Yoongi.

Yoongi said, “What?” It wasn’t hard to tell there was something strange about the situation.

“Since I might’ve skipped a small detail, you might want to know Jimin’s inside too,” Hoseok mumbled. A light breeze swept across Yoongi’s skin. For a moment, it felt hard to breathe. “And he… according to Tae, I mean— Uhm… he’s here with a friend?”

“Friend?” he said, trying to understand. He hoped it was someone he knew. In that brief second, he prayed to a God he didn’t even believe existed. “Who?”

“I don’t know. I just know he invited someone.”

He stopped. It was fine. It had to be fine. They didn’t have any relationship between them beyond friendship and being roommates anyway. So no matter what his situation was, he couldn’t interfere. There was no point in making this strange now.

But at the end of the day, after weeks that felt like years, it would be his first time seeing Jimin. It felt like he hadn’t heard his voice in a century. How Jimin would act toward him was a complete mystery, and inside Yoongi there was a deep longing that gripped him.

He swallowed. “Okay,” he said. It wasn’t okay, but he said okay. “It’s fine, Hoba. Is that why you were insisting I bring someone?”

Hoseok looked guilty. Still, without trying to dodge the topic, he nodded gently in confirmation. “I’m sorry, hyung. I just want you to be okay.”

“It’s really fine.” He nudged his shoulder with his own. “I’m the one who ruined everything. So I’m the one who has to put up with all this.” He tried to move inside. “Besides, we were never anything to begin with.”

Hoseok didn’t say anything. Or maybe he couldn’t find the right words. Because in the end, he walked beside him in an unusually quiet way and moved through the bar with him. It wasn’t very crowded inside. Maybe because it wasn’t that late yet, there was still some time. Still, the fact that it was an airy place without a gloomy atmosphere relaxed him a little.

Seokjin was waving at them from ahead. His intense waving had caught everyone’s attention, and the others turned to look at them too.

Yoongi shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. If they couldn’t see his hands shaking, then they weren’t shaking.

A few steps away, Jimin lifted his head. When their eyes met, Yoongi expected him to look away, but instead Jimin smiled shyly and nodded. For a brief moment of confusion, Yoongi didn’t know what to do, but it didn’t last long. Because within seconds, Jimin turned to the person beside him and said something with a smile.

Then the supposed “friend” lifted his head and murmured something while looking at them.

“You’re late!” Taehyung raised his empty glass as if to show he’d already finished his first drink. “Why did it take so long?”

Yoongi rolled his eyes. Trying not to look at Jimin, he moved to sit at the very end of the couch around the round table. Jungkook shifted a little, and Hoseok immediately followed behind him.

“You asked us to close the café,” Yoongi said.

“I said you could close early!” As always when he drank, he was talking loudly again. “You should’ve closed early!”

“We couldn’t kick the customers out, Tae,” Yoongi sighed. “Also, there was an issue with the oven. I baked some of the cookies late.”

“Do you all work at the same café?” When an unfamiliar voice murmured toward them, it made Yoongi lift his head. When he raised his eyebrows in surprise, it seemed to mean something to him. “Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. It felt awkward since I already met the others.” The man tried to smile. “I’m Taemin. I came with Jimin.”

“Nice to meet you, Taemin. I’m Hoseok and this is Yoongi.” Hoseok gestured to him. “And yes, the two of us work at Taehyung’s café.”

Yoongi involuntarily watched Jimin swallow. His eyes shifted to Taehyung. As if he were giving him an accusing look. Even though he didn’t understand why, Taehyung shrugged and moved his lips to murmur something Jimin didn’t seem to understand.

In the end, it didn’t concern Yoongi.

“That’s nice. Jimin talked a lot about Taehyung’s café. I’ll make him take me there sometime.”

“You can come anytime. Now that there’s an extra hand in the kitchen, we’re putting out more fresh stuff daily. Also, hyung is really good with cookies.”

As nice as it was for Hoseok to praise him, it didn’t really help in front of a man who, at first glance, was clearly dating Jimin. If anything, it made him feel more useless. He didn’t know what Jimin had told him about them. Or if he’d said anything about Yoongi at all in the first place.

But there was a strange way of saying he made cookies instead of introducing himself as the author of a book that had once made the bestseller list.

He liked working with Tae and being in the kitchen. Lately, it even felt better than writing.

But being known this way instead of by the profession he’d chosen made him falter for a moment.

Still, he didn’t correct anyone. He just put on the most normal smile he could manage and nudged Hoseok. “Let’s get something to drink.”

“I’ll come with you. Does anyone else want anything?”

When Jungkook stood up with them and asked the table, almost everyone listed their orders. So they headed toward the bar knowing they’d have to return with not two glasses but two trays. If they’d gone alone, Hoseok would probably have asked Yoongi if he was feeling okay.

But since Jungkook was with them, as if knowing it would be more useful,“Taemin, huh?” he said, “Is he Jimin’s boyfriend?”

Jungkook shrugged. “Jimin says he’s not, but they’ve slept together a few times. So if you ask me, calling him a boyfriend makes sense.” He frowned. “Actually, I’m sure Taemin thinks they’re dating.”

Yoongi swallowed. It was hard to act like he didn’t care about what Jungkook said.

He’d never made a move on Jimin. He’d never told Jimin he felt some kind of love for him. On top of that, he’d caused Jimin to leave the house they shared.

So maybe it was unfair that everything he was hearing affected him this deeply.

Hoseok hummed with interest. It was clear this wasn’t the answer he’d expected. He knew he wished the best for Yoongi. But him being a guardian angel didn’t mean everything would turn out the way he imagined.

“One whiskey.”

After Jungkook’s overflowing order, he could feel both of them looking at him. It felt like a long time since he’d last seen Jungkook. Considering he was practically Jimin’s closest friend, it wasn’t that strange.

But there was something old and familiar in the worried look he gave Yoongi. “Are you sure about the whiskey, hyung? It’s still early and—”

“I need something strong,” Yoongi said with a smile. “It was a long day.”

It wasn’t. Aside from a last-minute rush of customers, it had been a pretty easy day. He’d even had free time because of the issue with the oven. But no one knew that except Hoseok. So there was no problem.

“Okay…” Jungkook nodded, not looking very pleased. As he gathered the orders onto a tray, Yoongi found himself downing the whiskey and asking for another. He gave them a small smile in response to their looks. “I’ll drink the next one slowly,” he said, as if it meant anything.

“Take care of yourself, hyung,” Jungkook muttered uneasily. He picked up the first tray. “I’ll take these.”

Hoseok sighed. As Hoseok left with the other tray, Yoongi watched the bartender pour his second glass. Then he took his drink and slowly returned to the table. Even though he felt Jimin’s eyes on him again, this time he didn’t make the mistake of looking at him.

“You can stay with me too, Jimin-ah. There’s no need to rush.” As Yoongi settled into his seat, Seokjin was murmuring in a tone that clearly showed he wasn’t pleased. “I live alone anyway, so—”

“It won’t be a problem at all since my roommate moved out.” Taemin cut in, which made Yoongi involuntarily lift his gaze. Jimin was looking down at his lap like a guilty child. “It’ll be good for Jimin too. He deserves a place of his own.”

“What I mean is he already has a place of his own right now.” It was clear Seokjin was trying to be polite. He usually didn’t interfere with people’s decisions. But when it came to the friend group, Yoongi knew how protective he could be. “My place is big.” He turned to Jimin. “Of course, it’s still your decision, Jimin, but I’m not uncomfortable with our situation. Don’t rush into such a big decision.”

Yoongi swallowed. It was no longer possible to count how many times he’d swallowed today.

He had a faint flashback to the day Jimin had said how happy he’d be to be Yoongi’s roommate.

They’d been in a bar again.

Damn it. They’d been in a bar that day too.

He averted his gaze. He tried to smile, but that hurt more than anything. After finishing the rest of his whiskey in one go, he nodded to himself. What time was it, anyway? Maybe it was time to go home. Maybe he shouldn’t have been here in the first place.

“Jimin is a great roommate,” Taehyung sighed. “I shared my dorm room with him. The most colorful person in the world.”

That only made Yoongi laugh more. Considering he’d once called it a “nightmare,” it was definitely funny. Because now he wanted all those colors, only and only for himself. He thought they were supposed to be his. With him, in the house they’d lived in together.

Not with this man named Taemin.

“Luckily, I love colors!” Taemin joked. “I’d just painted my wall orange, and Jimin loved it so much that he cried because he loved it?” He scrunched his face into a ridiculous expression, and Yoongi didn’t even know how long he’d been watching his stupid face. “He said he’d always wanted a color like that. It was actually kind of a funny moment. We laughed for a long time because Jimin was crying.”

Yoongi set his glass down on the table a little too hard by accident.

“I’ll be right back,” he said as he stood, not even knowing what he was thinking.

But the knowledge of Jimin crying in front of an orange wall put a massive weight in his chest. It made him want to tear himself apart. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs and go cry in front of that same wall. And punch Taemin in the face at least once—

Damn it, maybe before anything else, he needed psychological help. Because his thoughts sounded pretty sick.

When he slipped out through the first door he found, he ended up in a stairwell that gave a view down to the trash containers. Thankfully there was no disturbing smell around, and aside from the streetlamp that lit the whole area weakly, it was completely empty.

As he pulled out the pack of cigarettes he kept in his inner pocket, he closed his eyes as if it would mean something, trying to calm down.

After lighting the cigarette and taking the first drag, he gripped the railings tightly and leaned forward. He wanted to cry. To spill all the tears he’d been holding in for so long right here and be rid of them all at once. But it wasn’t that easy. Of course it wasn’t that easy.

Nothing had ever been easy for him.

The door behind him opened. He heard a few footsteps. Then the body that stood right beside him, one he didn’t even need to look at to know who it was, said, “You’re smoking.” It was probably a pretty interesting piece of information for him.

“Sometimes,” Yoongi murmured. “Rarely.”

Lately it wasn’t that rare. But he left that part out.

Jimin hummed with interest. When he held the railings like Yoongi, he stared at the brick wall across from them. “Nice view.”

“I needed some air.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Why?” He turned to him.

When was the last time Yoongi had seen him this close? When he’d been curled up crying in their house, or the next day? How long had it been? Weeks? Months?

The season had already turned.

“Taemin stepped on the wrong spot,” Jimin said with a shrug. “It was just that the whole thing was still fresh, and seeing a stupid orange wall triggered some feelings.”

“I’m sorry you cried,” Yoongi murmured. “Orange walls aren’t stupid.”

“Hyung…”

“Are you going to be roommates with him, Jimin?”

Now he was looking at Jimin, who had straightened up from where he’d been leaning. As if there was any chance an answer that would satisfy him could come. For a moment, he felt like a little kid asking his mother for ice cream. Like she was about to say it wasn’t good for his health.

“Why not?” Jimin shrugged. Now he was looking everywhere except at Yoongi.

It was obvious he’d come here after work. He was wearing a pale blue, neatly pressed shirt and dress pants. Yoongi knew how much he hated being outside like this. But Seokjin’s place was so far from here that he probably hadn’t wanted to stop by to change.

“I don’t know,” Yoongi said, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense and—”

“Why?” Jimin searched his eyes. As if he cared less about what he was saying than what he saw there. “Taemin is a good person. His place isn’t in a bad location either. It’s a twenty-minute drive to my workplace.”

Yoongi nodded. “He shouldn’t forget to water your plants,” he said, swallowing. “You always forget.”

“Ah.” Jimin lowered his head. There was a faint smile on his lips. “I wish you’d told Seokjin hyung that too.”

“I did.” He looked at his cigarette. It kept burning, kept running out. But he couldn’t find the strength in himself to take another drag. He watched it keep turning to ash.

“Then Seokjin hyung is as bad as I am about that,” Jimin murmured. “I already lost my orchid.”

He swallowed.

Damn it. Yoongi swallowed again. That disgusting knot in his throat wouldn’t go away.

“In the mornings, he has to make your coffee. Only the coffee they sell at that market at the end of the neighborhood. Not anything else.”

“Seokjin hyung is pretty far. I haven’t had it in a while.” He paused. “I’m managing.”

“I’ll buy it for you and give it to him,” Yoongi said without even thinking about what he was saying. “And those long gummy candies I like. With sugar on top.”

“It’s fine, hyung.”

“And he’ll have to separate the laundry into blacks, dark mid-tones, colors, light mid-tones, and whites for you,” he said. Maybe drinking the whiskey that fast was making him get drunk faster than he should have. “And on rainy nights, he has to watch The Notebook with you at midnight because you’re scared of lightning and you hate admitting it.”

Jimin was looking at him. Something in his eyes was somehow tearing everything inside Yoongi apart.

“And when you have a migraine, he has to lie beside you in the dark and—”

“Hyung, what are you doing?”

Jimin whispered so softly that it was hard to hear even though it was just the two of them.

“Nothing. I’m just saying Taemin has to be good enough to be your roommate because you deserve that. As you can see, I wasn’t that successful.”

Jimin wet his lips. Now he looked like he was almost about to cry. “You were a perfect roommate.”

“I wasn’t.”

“We just had different tastes, hyung, that’s all. It’s not your fault.”

“Is that why you don’t talk to me, Jimin?” he said as a tear slipped down his face without permission. “If the only problem was that we had different tastes, why don’t you answer my calls?”

“I needed some time.”

Yoongi looked straight into his eyes. “But I missed you so much.”

Jimin looked like he was about to say something, but what he heard silenced him. He didn’t know if it was in a good way or a bad way, but Jimin paused as if he hadn’t been expecting Yoongi to say that. Then, just like him, as if trying to get rid of the lump in his throat, he swallowed and stepped closer. He took the cigarette from Yoongi’s hand and threw it into one of the trash containers. Yoongi didn’t even know when his cigarette had finished.

He held his hand gently. “I’m sorry for putting distance between us,” he said as his grip tightened. “If you want, can we be like before again? Send me what you write. I’ll beta-read for you.”

“I don’t write anymore.”

That was when the real pause came. Jimin’s grip loosened in shock. He just stared at him as if he’d said the stupidest thing in the world.

“Why?”

“I lost my inspiration.”

And for the first time, it wasn’t metaphorical. It was real. His inspiration had been Jimin. It had always been him, and now he was so far away. Writing felt pointless. Like getting involved with something he knew he couldn’t succeed at. So instead of disappointing himself, he should choose to accept it.

“Hyung, you’re an amazing writer.”

“Anyway, Jimin,” he said. It wasn’t the right moment to hear those things from him. Because he didn’t feel ready to hear them. Because he knew very well that Jimin could convince him to start writing again. “I just don’t write anymore. I’m in the kitchen at Taehyung’s café, and it’s been good for me.”

“Tae didn’t tell me about that.”

“You never came to the café.”

Jimin fell silent again. That was a clear enough answer. He found himself nodding to himself.

“You didn’t want to run into me because I usually wrote there,” Yoongi said with a laugh and turned his head toward the empty space. “But good news. I usually don’t leave the kitchen. So you can come to the café comfortably. We won’t run into each other.”

“It’s not like that, hyung,” Jimin sighed. “Yes, you’re right, but… it just wasn’t the right time to run into you.”

“I understand.” He nodded once more. “You made our friends into informants to avoid running into me. You found ways to come into the house when I wasn’t there. You left our house. You didn’t let me explain myself. You disappeared and— and—” he squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck it. Forget what I’m saying,” he said, trying to calm down. “Just make sure Taemin takes good care of you, Jimin, okay? An orange wall doesn’t solve everything.”

“I know, hyung. Thank you for thinking of me.” Jimin lowered his head as a tear slipped from his eye. Yoongi wanted to reach out and wipe that drop away, but he knew very well he had no right to. “I hope you’re getting along well with your new roommate too.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about me, Jiminie,” he said and grabbed the handle of the door he’d come out from and opened it. The music inside instantly spilled into the empty space. “Let’s go back in. Don’t keep your boyfriend waiting any longer.”

And without giving him a chance to say anything, he turned back the way he’d come.

There were good and bad sides to having talked to Jimin.

But the bad sides seemed to outweigh the good. Because this ache in his chest was either the pain of having suppressed his feelings for Jimin for years and now things being like this, or a sign that he’d have a sudden heart attack tomorrow morning.

Let’s hope it’s the latter.

- - -

If Hoseok was right about one thing, it was probably that the man he mentioned really was flirting with him.

Taehyung had gone to visit his grandmother, so it was just the two of them at the café, and while Hoseok was finishing the cake he’d been working on, it was Yoongi’s turn to watch the register.

If the name he gave for his coffee was correct, his name was Woosung.

And considering it was the weekend, this time instead of a suit, he was wearing clothes that reflected what Yoongi thought was his own style. He looked like a member of a rock band.

Since he was standing at the counter instead of waiting for his coffee at a table, Yoongi could feel his eyes on him.

“I wasn’t sure you were a barista.”

“I’m not, but I’m sure the entire country can make filter coffee,” he tried to smile. He was still careful as he poured the drink into the paper cup. “Our barista has something to do. I’m marking all the drinks I can’t make as sold out.”

That made the man laugh a little too much. It was pretty obvious he was trying to talk to him as he leaned his elbow on the high counter. “Then this place needs more baristas.”

“Mmm.” He closed the lid on the paper cup and handed it to him. “I don’t think I could handle seeing another Taehyung. I should get used to making some drinks instead.”

“I worked at cafés for a while. And with hands like that, I’m sure you’re good at everything.”

At his sudden move, Yoongi raised both eyebrows, which made the man laugh again.

“Sorry, Yoongi-ssi, that was a bit of a fast start. I’m Woosung.”

Yoongi looked at the hand he held out. After a small hesitation about whether to take it or not, he shook it and tried to make a joke. “I know that. I just wrote it on your cup. And you know I’m Yoongi.”

“You have a nice name tag.”

He looked at the tag on his shirt. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking when he decorated it with a black cat tag with glowing yellow eyes, but now he learned it caught attention.

He pulled his hand back. He moistened his lips and watched the man study him as if evaluating his next move, and it amused him. “You’re not very good at this, Woosung,” he said with a sigh. “Just ask me out, okay? Don’t be so scared.”

“You’re going to reject me,” Woosung challenged.

Yoongi nodded in agreement. “Well, at least you’re good at analyzing.”

“I don’t want you to reject me, so I won’t ask.”

The little bell on the café door chimed. When Yoongi turned to the register out of habit, it turned out the person who came in wasn’t that unfamiliar.

“Hyung,” Jimin said, as if he hadn’t expected this.

Yoongi tried to smile. “Sorry. I can ask Hobi to take care of you if you want. Taehyung stepped out for a bit and I’m in charge here.”

“No, no, it’s fine. It’s nice to see you.” Unlike him, he smiled in a genuine and sincere way. “Still, can you make coffee?”

“He can definitely make filter coffee.” Woosung lifted his paper cup as if to show he’d been listening to the whole process. “I can say it’s good.”

“It’s just filter coffee,” Yoongi rolled his eyes. “It would’ve been good no matter who made it.”

Jimin watched the interaction with a strange expression. Finally, he nodded absentmindedly. “Then I’ll get a filter coffee.”

After entering the order and taking the payment, Yoongi prepared Jimin’s coffee the same way he’d made Woosung’s. It wasn’t in the order, but because he knew how much Jimin loved them, he placed one of the cream-filled cookies on a plate and put it on the tray too. If Taehyung were here, he would’ve done the same.

Jimin was waiting where Woosung stood.

When Yoongi pushed the tray in front of Jimin, Woosung raised his eyebrows and said, “So you reject me and I don’t get free cookies?” That made Jimin, who was pulling the tray toward himself, pause for a moment too.

“It’s your fault for trying to flirt with me without even knowing me,” Yoongi pointed out. “He’s the owner’s closest friend, so he has infinite free cookie rights.”

Jimin paused. After moistening his lips, he took the plate of cookies from the tray and set it on the counter, pushing it toward Woosung. “They’re really good, you should try them,” he said. “Yoongi hyung makes them now. With the right moves, I’m sure you can earn infinite cookie rights from him too.”

And without saying anything else, he just picked up his coffee cup and walked off toward the tables.

That left the two of them in a sudden silence.

“So…” Until Woosung leaned forward with a knowing smile and said,“Is that handsome guy the reason you rejected me, or…?”

Yoongi laughed. “Wow,” he said. “You really do have good analysis skills, Woosung. Now shut up and eat that cookie, or I’m taking it back.”

After raising his hands in surrender, Woosung took the cookie.

As Yoongi wiped down the counter, Woosung was practically losing himself over the cookie that Jimin was supposed to eat under normal circumstances, saying how good it was.

Minutes later, there was the sound of a loud door in the café. When he looked through the glass, Jimin was walking aggressively down the sidewalk, moving away from the café.

“Just so you know, we call this jealousy among the people.”

Yoongi shook his head. “Impossible.”

Woosung rolled his eyes. “Say what you want. That guy was jealous of you.”

Then he went back to drinking his coffee, leaving Yoongi alone with a strange war inside his mind because of those damn words.

- - -

It was strange to see Jimin again at a friend gathering.

He’d gotten so used to seeing only three people at Namjoon’s place for so long that even the noise from Taehyung and Jungkook sounded like music.

He supposed sometimes feeling the absence of the things he complained about was a great way to understand how valuable they were.

“This time we’re playing truth or dare!” Taehyung pushed the coffee table aside and settled on the floor, making it very clear that no one had the right to object.

Jimin settled right next to Taehyung, which meant he was directly across from Yoongi. When Taehyung stole one of Namjoon’s philosophy magazines to have a flat surface to spin the bottle on, it was easy to tell Namjoon wasn’t happy about it.

But as always, he couldn’t say anything to them. Yoongi knew Namjoon couldn’t bring himself to be harsh with any of them.

Eventually Seokjin cracked a few dad jokes and settled next to Yoongi, while Hoseok took the spot on his other side. Namjoon and Jungkook sat across from them.

When his eyes met Jimin’s for a moment, he smiled.

These days, some things were easier. As time passed and he stayed away from the house as much as possible, everything seemed to normalize. As long as he didn’t see that room and didn’t make eye contact with his computer—

“We’ve played this game so much I’m not sure we have any questions left to ask each other,” Hoseok rolled his eyes. “And no, Jungkook, we are not putting chocolate on garlic and eating it.”

That was one of Jungkook’s most popular combinations he tried to make them eat in every game. But no one accepted it, and that was usually where the game ended.

“If you suggest that, you’re out of the game,” Taehyung warned and leaned forward to spin the bottle.

Seokjin lifted his head, looked at Jimin, and raised his eyebrows. “Truth or dare?”

“Mmm… Truth?” Jimin murmured hesitantly.

“Alright, Jiminie… Tell us… Are you in love with someone right now?”

“Couldn’t you find a more cliché question?” Jungkook threw himself back dramatically. When his back hit the floor, he said, “What are we? Twelve or something?”

“We’re at the age where we find true love. So these questions should be asked now,” Seokjin defended himself and looked at Jimin. “Answer or shot.”

Jimin shrugged. Before leaning down to spin the bottle, he said, “Yes.”

Yes, he said.

Yoongi looked at the bottle spinning on the floor. It was hard to tell whether the bottle or his head was spinning. It was hard to say anything. Hard to make a joke out of it. It hurt, and it was hard not to show it.

Hoseok, as if he needed to offer support, placed his hand on his back and gently patted him. Yoongi knew no one noticed, but it still felt wrong.

When he’d agreed to be Jimin’s roommate, he’d thought he’d gotten over that stupid little crush. He’d been almost sure of it. During the time they’d lived together, it had been easy to get used to him. Spending time with him was nice. As long as he didn’t look at Jimin’s side of the house, Jimin was great.

But maybe he’d been so deep in it that throughout that whole process, he hadn’t been getting over that so-called stupid little crush—he’d been settling deeper into it. It had been seeping into him more day by day.

Now that Jimin was gone and this pain in his chest hadn’t gone away, it meant that he was even more foolish than his love.

Yes.

Are you in love with someone right now?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Damn it.

“Hey, Yoongi hyung?” Jungkook leaned over and shook him, and he jolted like he’d woken from a deep sleep. “I’m talking to you!”

“Sorry. I think I drank too much.” He shook his head. “What were you saying?”

“You only had one beer,” Jungkook muttered pointedly. Then he gestured to the bottle. “Truth or dare?”

Yoongi blinked. “Truth.”

The game felt distant now. He didn’t want to play. He wanted to go to that living room he didn’t want to see and curl up on that stupid gray couch and cry.

“Hmm… Who was the last person you slept with?”

“How would I know that?” Yoongi sighed in annoyance.

“What? Who else would know but you?”

“Hyung hasn’t slept with anyone in almost a year. I’m sure the last person he slept with doesn’t even remember hyung.” Hoseok laughed jokingly.

“Yoongi hyung doesn’t sleep with anyone?” Taehyung looked at him in surprise as if this was very strange while leaning down to spin the bottle.

“What’s so strange about that? I wasn’t in the mood. I didn’t want to see anyone.”

“But—” Jimin frowned. Whatever he was about to say, he seemed to give up and straightened. “Come on, hyung,” he said. “Don’t be shy. Don’t act like you don’t have a sex life just to hide that person.”

It was clear he’d struck a nerve, but the reason was unclear.

“Not all of us are as fast as you, Jimin-ah,” he said. “When you love someone, you don’t want to sleep with others. And unfortunately, I wasn’t as lucky as you. The man I’m in love with isn’t that aware of me.”

Jimin paused. “What do you mean?”

“Mm? Aren’t you in love with Taemin? And Jungkook mentioned you two slept together. I’m just putting the pieces together. Luck.”

Not just Jimin, but for a moment everyone in the room went silent. Jimin looked like he was about to say something, but he didn’t. And then, like some kind of joke of life, the bottle stopped between Jimin and him. And Jimin didn’t wait to ask a question.

“Who are you in love with, hyung?” he said, looking straight into Yoongi’s eyes.

“I didn’t say truth,” Yoongi pointed out.

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

Jimin laughed. “Who are you in love with, hyung?”

Yoongi leaned forward. He grabbed the shot glass from beside Seokjin and downed it. Then he spun the bottle once more and leaned back against the couch behind him. When the bottle stopped between Namjoon and Jungkook, they looked as if they were unsure whether to continue or not.

Because the atmosphere was strange. Jimin still looked at Yoongi with a big expectation, as if he hadn’t realized the turn had passed. He was waiting for some kind of answer. As if he held a bit of a grudge that Yoongi had taken a shot instead of answering.

But when Namjoon tried to break the tension by saying “Dare,” and Jungkook put him in an awkward position in response, the game somehow continued. Thankfully, the bottle didn’t stop between him and Jimin again. In fact, Yoongi considered it a kind of luck that it didn’t land on him often.

He didn’t look at Jimin again. He made an effort not to make eye contact with him, as if things would only get stranger if he did, and continued the game.

Finally, when it came to Taehyung and Yoongi again and he chose truth once more, Taehyung licked his lips knowingly. “So you’re saying you didn’t sleep with that guy at the café?”

Hoseok giggled and shook him. “Everyone expects you to sleep with that guy, hyung!” His excitement was completely obvious.

“Woosung is a good friend,” Yoongi shrugged. “He tried to sleep with me, but I told him I wasn’t interested. Now when he comes to the café, we just hang out.”

“He keeps trying his luck.” Taehyung raised one eyebrow with a heavy implication.

“That’s his choice. I’m not interested.”

Hoseok’s shoulders dropped while Taehyung made an understanding sound. Meanwhile, Seokjin said, “Hoseok showed me his photos. He looks handsome.”

Yoongi hummed in agreement. There was no need to deny it. “Hoseok exaggerates everything a bit too much. Let’s continue.”

Even without looking at him, it was obvious Hoseok rolled his eyes.

Then the bottle spun again. Again and again. Nothing strange happened. No new secret that no one knew was revealed.

Until Jimin’s phone rang.

When Taehyung glanced at the caller and gave Jimin a meaningful look, Jimin silenced his phone and tossed it onto the couch.

“That’s it for me,” Yoongi said, getting up. “I’m opening the café tomorrow.”

“Didn’t you have a meeting with the publishing house tomorrow?”

“I canceled.” He shrugged at Seokjin. “I have nothing to bring them since I didn’t write.”

Seokjin nodded understandingly. Then he stood up too. “I’m leaving as well. I’m tired enough. I’m not as young as you anymore.” Then he turned to a certain person. “Jimin? Are you coming?”

Yoongi frowned. He had to resist strongly not to ask the question that was itching inside him. Jimin had said Taemin’s place was in a good location. So it made no sense for him to be heading in the same direction as Seokjin.

As Jimin grabbed his bag, he said, “I’m coming,” and added, as if it would answer all his questions, “If I come home after you, you’ll complain all day that I interrupted your beauty sleep.”

Seokjin smiled proudly and squeezed Jimin’s shoulder. “You know me, Jimin-ah,” he said.

Yoongi shot Hoseok a quick look. He seemed just as clueless about this.

He stepped out quietly behind them at the door. By the time he put on his shoes, Seokjin and Jimin had already said their goodbyes and were heading down the stairs.

He said goodbye too.

Then he quietly left the building and walked toward his own home. For once, it felt like there was no noise inside his head. As if the knowledge that Jimin was in love with someone had overturned everything and consumed all his emotions, leaving behind a vast silence.

And the worst part was that the silence in his head felt much worse than the noise ever had.

- - -

“Is this a good color choice?”

Woosung looked up from the ice cream he was spooning while Yoongi was busy spreading newspaper on the floor.

“If I don’t paint this stupid wall, I’m going to keep hating this house.”

“Then why don’t you talk to Jimin instead?”

“I already told you he’s in love with someone.”

“And you don’t know if that person is you.”

Woosung was a good person. As bad as he was at flirting, he was just as good at communication. He said what he thought without hiding it and easily threw things in Yoongi’s face that most people avoided.

“He didn’t say it wasn’t Taemin. He didn’t deny it,” Yoongi said, shoulders slumping as he looked at the paint cans he’d bought. Even though a week had passed, the bottle-spinning game felt like it had happened yesterday because he relived that night every day. Jimin had said yes.

He was in love with someone. And he hadn’t denied the reality Yoongi had thrown in his face.

Woosung straightened up, set the ice cream container on the table, and sighed in a way that showed he was getting serious. “Yoongi, I just want to ask you one thing. Are you and Jimin like before?”

Yoongi turned to him. He looked at him mockingly. “Do we look like we are?”

“You’re not,” Woosung pointed out, as if that was exactly the answer he wanted. “You don’t hang out with him, you don’t properly talk, and after friend gatherings you always end up worse.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Woosung.”

“Who Jimin is in love with,” he pointed out directly again. “That’s exactly what you don’t know.”

Yoongi placed the brush he was still holding onto the newspaper and walked toward the couch. Sitting across from him, he said, “So? I’m not going to find that out anyway.”

Woosung groaned and threw his head back. “Why can’t you read my hints for once?” There was no need to be a prophet to understand how fed up he was with Yoongi’s stupidity. “I’m saying you need to confess to him, Yoongi. Jimin should know you’re in love with him.”

“I can’t lose him.”

“You already lost him.”

And it hurt. That was exactly what he meant. Woosung didn’t hold back when he talked. He put everything Yoongi avoided right in front of him and pushed him to face it.

“But—”

“You can’t lose someone more when you already don’t talk, don’t communicate, don’t share anything anymore. That’s not possible. And when you have nothing left to lose, it’s easier to confess.”

It was a logical thought. Maybe it really was what he needed to do, but even though he almost knew the answer, he couldn’t see himself in that scenario. He would only humiliate himself more in front of Jimin, and he didn’t want that.

What would happen? He’d confess the love he thought he’d gotten over but actually hadn’t, and then Jimin would say, “Okay.” Because there would be nothing else he could say. Because he was already in love with someone.

Someone who wasn’t Yoongi.

“You need to get this out of your system, man,” Woosung said, reaching out and holding his hand.

“It’ll make things weird in our friend group.”

“It won’t get weird unless you let it. And from what you’ve told me, you already made it weird enough from the start.” He looked at him almost pityingly. “I only saw Jimin once, Yoongi,” he said, reminding him of the day they first met. “And it was obvious he was jealous of me. Even if I hadn’t seen him, I could still put the pieces together.”

“Please don’t give me false hope, Woosung.”

“I’m just looking at what’s in front of me. I’m thinking about the person you’ve told me about. The Jimin in my head wouldn’t avoid you for weeks just because you separated the house.”

More like months, Yoongi wanted to correct him, but he stopped himself.

“What if it’s not me?”

“Then you’ll really try to move on,” he said with a smile. “The biggest reason you can’t move on right now is this. Uncertainty.”

Yoongi sighed. Closing his eyes and leaning his head back, he said, “I hate you. I really, really hate you.”

- - -

There were two things worse than Woosung convincing him to talk to Jimin.

First, he was waiting for Jimin to stop by the café to talk to him.

Second, when Jimin did stop by the café, Taemin was with him.

“Come on, hyung, you can’t back out now.” Since Hoseok already knew about his entire plan, he tried once again to drag him out of the kitchen. “It doesn’t mean anything that he came with him. Taemin already mentioned wanting to come here.”

“They’re clearly on a date, Hobi,” Yoongi said as he kneaded the cookie dough a little more aggressively. When he placed the last one on the tray, he immediately moved on to the next batch.

Just then, the door burst open noisily. Taehyung walked into the kitchen with his usual cheerfulness and looked around. Seeing the two of them standing close and in the middle of a whisper, he raised his eyebrows. “What are you plotting without me?”

“Yoongi hyung was going to talk to Jiminie, but he backed out because Taemin is with him,” Hoseok exposed him instantly, earning a look full of all Yoongi’s disappointment.

“What? Why?” Taehyung turned to him and walked around the counter. “Taemin is a sweet guy. Pretty likable. He won’t have a problem sharing Jimin for a few minutes.”

Yoongi laughed. A few minutes, he thought. A funny amount of time for someone who wanted Jimin to himself forever. Then he lowered his head and broke off another piece of dough. “Exactly,” he said. “And I don’t want to share. I’ll talk to Jimin when he comes alone. If he wants, the cream cookies just came out. You can take them.”

After humming thoughtfully, Taehyung stared at him for a long moment.

As if there was something beneath Yoongi’s attitude that he could read, he stepped closer. “Hyung,” he said finally. “Jimin doesn’t want me to talk to him about this, and you don’t look very eager either, but… what was the reason you separated the house, really?”

“I don’t know,” Yoongi said.

Damn it, he really didn’t know.

He thought he’d lost his inspiration, he didn’t want to write, he needed a job that made money, and that room with its two opposite poles was constantly in front of his eyes. It wouldn’t go away. Something felt wrong. But apparently, the thing that would fix that wrongness wasn’t painting the whole wall gray—it was painting it orange.

Or yellow.

That sun-yellow that ruined his couch.

“You don’t know,” Taehyung repeated carefully. “Didn’t it have anything to do with Jimin?”

“He didn’t listen to me,” he shrugged. “I told him not to leave.”

“Were you clear enough?”

“I don’t know, Tae.” He dropped the dough and turned to him. “I said we should separate the house in the middle of some kind of crisis, and then Jimin didn’t want to listen to me. It was like he’d been waiting for it all along and chose to cling to that idea and leave.”

“Hyung.” This time it was Hoseok who murmured it like a warning. “That sounds exactly like the problem you need to fix.”

“I don’t know,” Yoongi said again. As if he were slowly realizing something, he dropped his shoulders while his hands were still inside a bowl of dough. He couldn’t cry in the middle of the kitchen, especially over something they were going to sell.

He kept blaming himself, but wasn’t Jimin also at fault? He had pulled away. He had pushed him when he tried to talk. He hadn’t listened. That huge gap between them now was partly because of him too.

And in the end, here they were.

“Anyway,” he said, turning his back and pushing the tray of proofing dough into the oven. “Like I said, it’s not the right time now. I’ll talk later.”

Neither of them said anything. Yoongi knew what they wanted to say, but they chose to stay silent. As Taehyung quietly left the kitchen, Hoseok returned to his cake.

He wanted to remind Taehyung to take some cookies for Jimin, but then he gave up on that too.

Last time, Jimin had chosen to give them to Woosung. Maybe he didn’t want to eat those cookies anymore because Yoongi made them now. So there was no need to force it.

- - -

Painting the wall somehow felt good.

Even though Woosung had tried to change his mind, finally opening the paint cans that had been waiting on the floor for a week and striking the first stroke against the gray wall on his day off felt very different from what he had expected.

Like a kind of therapy.

He liked simplicity. The idea of turning into someone like Jimin felt far away to him. He couldn’t handle too many things. Keeping everything at a minimum was a kind of instinct for him.

But now, looking back, he couldn’t understand why he had treated simplicity as staying away from colors. Did simply existing mean being colorless? Because even when the walls were orange, he could have kept fewer things on his side. He could have still bought a lumbar pillow but chosen something more vibrant. Maybe that was what he had been missing from the beginning.

Maybe the reason he was fading more each day was because he was isolating himself from all of this. That was all he could think about until the left half of the wall was almost finished. Himself. For once, instead of other things, he was dealing with himself and his own thoughts.

Still, painting wasn’t easy and it took hours. The brush he’d bought was a bit small, so he was progressing slowly. And his arm had started to ache from the unfamiliar exertion.

When the doorbell echoed through the house, Yoongi was almost about to take a break to eat. He wasn’t expecting anyone, so assuming it was Woosung made sense.

“I told you not to come because I’m not changing my mind— Jimin?”

Opening the door while complaining because he thought it was Woosung and finding Jimin behind it wasn’t even the last thing he expected. It was beyond that.

“Hyung. Sorry for coming without telling you. Are you free?”

Jimin spoke quickly, almost aggressively. He didn’t look angry, more like he’d been standing at the door for a while measuring what to say. He’d spoken like a memorized sentence at lightning speed. But then he paused with awareness. With a slight frown, he looked at the overalls Yoongi was wearing.

The denim overalls Yoongi hadn’t worn in ages were hanging off one shoulder. There were paint stains on his old white T-shirt. And considering he hadn’t looked in a mirror in a long time, it was hard to guess exactly how he looked.

And for Yoongi, it was just as surprising. It was hard to guess why Jimin was here, and that made everything more tense.

“I… yeah— I’m free. I mean— come in.” When he stepped aside, Jimin entered with a few seconds of hesitation. “Sorry, it’s a bit messy. I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

Jimin was quiet. As he took off his shoes in the usual corner and stepped inside, his eyes roamed only over the half-painted wall and the paint cans on the floor. As if he didn’t know what to say, he swallowed and placed his bag on the kitchen island.

“You… What were you doing?”

Yoongi followed right behind him. “Nothing.” He scratched the back of his neck nervously. “That wall was bothering me, so—”

“Is that why I’m here?”

“Huh?” He looked at Jimin and his glossy eyes, trying to understand.

“Taehyung said you wanted to talk to me, so I thought I could come. And now you’re painting your wall like you’re mocking me—”

“What did Taehyung do?” Yoongi raised his eyebrows, trying to make sense of it. “I didn’t ask Taehyung to do anything like that, Jimin. I wouldn’t mock you like this. I wouldn’t make a plan behind your back.”

Jimin looked around as if trying to understand. As if he were trying to connect everything and reach a logical conclusion. Considering he seemed just as confused as Yoongi, it had to be difficult. Finally, Yoongi pulled out the stool beside him and gestured for him to sit at the island.

“I’ll make you coffee and then we can talk, okay?” he said. Then, as if just remembering, he walked into the room and opened the already open window wider. He’d experienced how heavy the smell could be for someone coming from outside during the painting process.

Luckily, there was enough coffee in the machine and aside from reheating it for a few minutes, there wasn’t much to do. For a moment, he considered choosing a different mug for himself, but at the last second changed his mind and poured it into Jimin’s birthday gift as usual. And for Jimin, he chose one of the mugs he used often.

When they finally sat across from each other as two people who didn’t know what to say, they both parted their lips at the same time.

And for a moment, that softened the atmosphere and made them smile.

“I’m not painting the wall for you,” Yoongi said finally, unable to hold it in. As if he needed to clarify that completely. “I didn’t even know you were coming.”

“Sorry.” He nodded. “I was talking to Tae, and he said you wanted to talk to me last week but backed off because Taemin was with me.” He shrugged. “He got a little too excited when I said I could come. He convinced me, and when I came and saw you like this…”

“You thought it was some kind of plan?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” He swallowed. “You know, painting walls isn’t really your thing. Especially orange.”

“It turned out not as bad as I thought.” He shrugged and traced his finger along the rim of his cup. “Doing it yourself is kind of weird, but I’m managing.”

Jimin nodded. “You’re doing a good job.”

“Hearing that from you is a compliment.”

Jimin smiled. As he took a sip of his coffee, he seemed unable to take his eyes off the room. But when he finally did and looked directly into his eyes, he said, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“It’s you,” he said suddenly.

It felt like dropping a burden. As if the ton weighing on his shoulders had suddenly disappeared. It made no sense. He should have panicked and lost his mind. He should have called Woosung and complained about how stupid he’d been to listen to him. Jimin would probably ask what he meant, and he should immediately come up with something and fix it. He should lie.

But for once, he listened to his stupid friend and that voice deep inside him that had been trying to speak.

When Jimin said, “I don’t understand?” he just smiled.

“In truth or dare, you asked who I was in love with. It’s you.”

It was certain that Jimin hadn’t expected that. As his fingers tightened around his cup, Yoongi felt like he could reach out and physically grab the emotions passing through the pupils he had always loved looking at. The fact that it looked like something close to good was nice—but it could be an illusion.

Because Jimin looked like he didn’t know what to say right now. He slightly parted and closed his lips, giving up on whatever he was about to say each time.

“When I said I lost my inspiration, I was talking about you,” Yoongi said, taking advantage of the moment. Now that he had started once, the rest was easier. “You’ve always been my muse. I tried to get over this love because I knew I didn’t have a chance, and I thought I did. I swear I didn’t have any ulterior motive when we became roommates. Actually, I thought I handled it pretty well until you left.”

He looked at his coffee cup. It was easier than looking at Jimin right now.

“I didn’t want to ruin anything. Until now, I thought the reason I was having a crisis was because I couldn’t write. But the other day, while talking to Woosung, I realized I was afraid of my place in your eyes. Everything was piling up. You kept shining, and I hated looking at this room. Because I’m gray, Jimin.” He tried to smile. “I’m not as successful as you, I don’t have a steady income, and I can’t make this place as wonderful as you can. I guess I just felt like shit and unnecessary. It hurt.”

Jimin reached out. He didn’t say anything, but he held his hand. Yoongi couldn’t lift his head to look at him.

“Then you came. I don’t even know why I said that, but in the middle of drowning in self-pity, you came again and became a light for me. It felt unfair. Then I just said we should separate the house, and you left. You were probably looking for an exit for a while, I’m sorry.”

He couldn’t stop his eyes from filling with tears.

“I wasn’t going to say any of this because I already know you love someone, but I’m trying to move on too and I can’t. According to know-it-all Woosung, if I really want to move on, I have to confess this big stupid love of mine to you and get rid of it—”

“What if I don’t want you to get rid of it?”

“Huh?”

He lifted his head. He looked at Jimin, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. His eyes were red. He was holding his hand so tightly that his nail was digging slightly into his skin.

“What if I don’t want you to get rid of that big stupid love?”

“Jimin,” he whispered. “I’m barely holding myself together. Please don’t ruin me more.”

“I’m not in love with Taemin,” Jimin whined. “You’re so stupid.”

“I know you’re with him. It’s okay. You don’t have to pity me—”

“Jungkook made a bet with me,” he cut him off, still crying. “He thought if he told you I slept with him, you’d lose your mind and get really jealous. Then you’d beg me to come back home.”

“Why-why—” He blinked. “Why would Jungkook think that? Oh my God, was I that obvious about being in love with you?”

“He insisted it was obvious we were in love with each other,” Jimin sobbed. “Apparently everyone except you knew I was in love with you.”

Time stopped. Like a slow-motion movie scene, he watched the tear slide gently down Jimin’s cheek and drip onto the counter. Blood pumped in his ears. 

Maybe he’d forgotten to open the window when he started painting and had passed out from the fumes. Maybe he’d hit his head hard while fainting. Maybe all of this was some kind of hallucination his body in a coma was seeing in a hospital bed. A fantasy of something he wanted to happen.

As if hearing his thoughts, as if trying to remind him of his presence, Jimin tightened his grip on his hand.

“I felt like shit because I thought you couldn’t write because of me,” he murmured. “So I tried to stay away from you. I thought you’d be able to write again.”

“Jimin. You don’t have to say things like this out of pity—”

“Idiot,” Jimin whined. “I’m trying to confess here. Can you shut up for a second?”

“But—”

“I really like you, hyung,” he said without letting him continue. “That’s why I wanted to be your roommate. That’s why I held your hand at every opportunity. I came to you when I was scared, watched my favorite movie curled up next to you, kept making mushroom soup even though I don’t like it—”

“Jimin,” he said, but he didn’t listen.

“I did so much for you to notice, but you’re a complete idiot.”

“I am,” Yoongi admitted. “But if I’m an idiot, then what does that make you for not noticing my love?”

Jimin flinched. As if realizing it just now, he wiped his tears with his free hand and looked at him. Then, with great acceptance, he said, “We’re idiots.”

And silence was with them again. This one was strange. A silence full of anticipation. That strange duality where the next step could either be something beautiful or something that would ruin everything.

Finally, Jimin whispered, “So I’m the one you’re in love with?” As if he still had some kind of doubt about it. His voice sounded unusually insecure. “Not that Woosung guy?”

“Woosung is so tired of listening to me talk about you that if he heard you ask that, he’d laugh.”

“Taemin would laugh too, knowing you thought I slept with him.” Jimin looked away. “He’s just a good friend.”

“So… you and him… you’re not together?”

“No, hyung. We never were.”

“Even with his orange walls?”

Jimin simply shrugged and chuckled softly. “I know someone much better with orange walls.”

When Yoongi’s gaze found his half-painted wall, he looked away, not knowing what to do with the strange embarrassment.

“So what happens now?” he whispered. “I mean, my walls are orange, and I think I found a nice turquoise for that lamp.”

“You need to give me about ten months to be convinced this is real. Because it feels impossible for it to be real.”

He frowned. “Considering I’ve been waiting for years, ten months feels a bit much. How about ten days?”

Jimin took a small moment, as if he truly needed to think it over. “I think ten hours will do.”

“Ten hours,” he repeated. “That works for me too. I need to prove to myself I’m not in a coma.”

They both laughed. Honestly, Yoongi still couldn’t believe this was real. It felt like a moment in a dream he was trying to stretch out so he wouldn’t wake up from it. As if the second he stood up, the dream would end.

That was probably why he couldn’t fully process it.

Because he stood up—and the dream didn’t end. Jimin was still here. The paint cans were still where he’d left them. And nothing, absolutely nothing, had changed.

He raised his eyebrows in confusion and turned to Jimin. “I’m still not awake.”

Jimin laughed faintly. “This isn’t a dream, hyung.”

“It has to be. I just confessed my love to you.”

Jimin bit his lower lip to keep from laughing. Then he stood up and walked toward him. There was a slight hesitation in his movements, but then he seemed to overcome it and wrapped an arm around his waist, hugging him tightly. “You’re really an idiot.”

Yoongi paused for a moment. As he tried for the first time to adapt to the reality of the moment, he slowly wrapped his arms around him.

Jimin was really here.

Fuck.

Woosung was really right.

He watched Jimin lift his head slightly from his shoulder and try to look into his eyes. He didn’t care how stupid they might look from the outside. From this close, slightly cross-eyed, he watched Jimin smile.

He thought about how long he had been waiting for this moment without even admitting it to himself.

“This is the part where you’re supposed to ask me out, hyung.” Jimin looked at him with that strange expression on his face, and Yoongi chuckled. He placed his hands on either side of Jimin’s face and, without hesitation, pressed a kiss to the middle of his forehead.

When he pulled back, he was giggling through teary eyes. “We are definitely going on a date, Park Jimin. You’re going to repaint these walls you ruined by doing your favorite activity.”

Jimin laughed, placing his hands over Yoongi’s, clearly enjoying this far too much. “Okay, but what about yellow?” he said. “I don’t think we should go back on our decision.”

“I bought too much paint,” Yoongi pointed out.

Jimin shrugged. “Just trust me,” he said. “Yellow will be better for all of us.”

Yoongi sighed and turned to the wall. Maybe he was right. Maybe from the beginning, making peace with that sun-yellow that had ruined his couch was the real solution.

But before anything else, Yoongi needed to process all of this and prove to himself that none of it was just a dream.

- - -

At first, it was strange. They didn’t know whether it was because they couldn’t process it yet or because everything was so new, but it was definitely strange. When Yoongi made a reservation at a nice restaurant for their first date, they wavered on the thin line between friendship and flirting.

There was no hand-holding, but there were shy glances. Small compliments scattered between their usual bickering. Looking away quickly.

And neither of them seemed to know exactly what this was.

So Yoongi suddenly stopped on the sidewalk as they walked side by side, as if they hadn’t just had a romantic dinner at an Italian restaurant. This scene was familiar. It was something he had shared with Jimin for years. Walking side by side to the bus stop. Talking about nothing and everything.

“Jimin,” he said, sounding very sure of himself. “We need to fix this first.”

“What?”

“This thing we started wrong.” He gestured between them. “We’re not good at communicating. That’s why right now it feels like I’m walking with a coworker.”

Jimin paused for a moment, but seconds later he giggled. As if he understood exactly what Yoongi meant, he nodded. Then he gently reached out, took Yoongi’s hand, and pulled him along. At first it seemed meaningless, but Yoongi realized too late that Jimin was actually tugging him so they wouldn’t miss the bus.

When he followed him absentmindedly and got on the bus, he found himself laughing at how ridiculous all of this was.

They sat in seats next to each other. Even then, Jimin didn’t let go of his hand.

“What are we doing?”

“I’m inviting myself to your place.” Jimin shrugged as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “That way we can have a real conversation.”

“Our place.”

“Not yet.” This time Jimin gave a sweet, sympathetic smile, free of teasing. It made sense, since that was another thing they hadn’t talked about.

For a moment, Yoongi felt anxious again. Yesterday he’d been on cloud nine after that love confession and his head had been foggy, but now that he stopped to think about it, Jimin had never actually said he was moving back home.

He tried not to show it, but until they reached their stop he struggled with that stress internally.

“You’re overthinking, hyung,” Jimin murmured as he tugged him along again. “Just stay in the moment, okay?”

“That’s hard.”

“No it isn’t.” Jimin giggled. When they entered the building and stopped in front of the apartment, he slipped a hand into Yoongi’s back pocket as if he knew exactly where the key was. It was funny. Maybe it was the first activity they weren’t used to anymore during the day.

As Yoongi chuckled, Jimin winked, pulled out the keys, and opened the door smoothly.

And like they had for months, they went inside and carried on. As Yoongi took off his coat and hung it up, Jimin ran to the coffee machine like this was what he’d been dreaming of the whole way.

“I see, you love me for my coffee.”

“I love that your coffee comes as part of the whole package.” Jimin pointed at him and giggled. Then, as if he wanted to keep him company while the coffee brewed, he walked toward the couch. Soon enough, they were sitting on the same couch that had, in a way, led to their argument.

“We’re making everything weird.”

“I hate that we’re this different.”

They laughed. Jimin recovered first. Turning sideways on the couch and bending one knee, he looked at him with a spark in his eyes. “I don’t want to move back in right away,” he said. “I want to see how our relationship progresses first.”

“You want me to convince you.”

“Kind of.” He shrugged. “We didn’t part on the best terms, and if we’re going to date and live in the same house, we need to get to know this side of each other.”

Yoongi sighed. It was obvious he didn’t like that. He threw his head back dramatically against the couch and pouted. “I miss you being at home.”

“Me too, hyung.” Jimin reached out, took his hand, and pulled him a little closer. “But you’ve failed five times trying to kiss me because you still feel like we’re just friends.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“You keep looking at my lips, leaning in, and then backing out.” Jimin raised his brows with a giggle. “Can you forget the last year for a second?”

“Mmm,” Yoongi nodded distractedly, looking at Jimin’s lips again. “Then… do you want to watch something? Definitely not as friends.”

Jimin nodded happily. “I’d love to.

- - -

If Jimin was right about one thing, it was that they needed to cross the line out of friendship.

Luckily, it wasn’t as hard as Yoongi had imagined.

Jimin had made a habit of stopping by the café after work. Since Yoongi knew what time he’d come, he always made sure to leave the kitchen and be at the counter. Shamelessly, at the register, he flirted with Jimin and even offered to give him his number.

It was all very cliché, but Jimin seemed pleased, so there was no problem.

The problem was that they still hadn’t kissed, and Yoongi was more than eager to do much more.

As he moved on to a new tray of cookies, he sighed. Maybe it was time to make a move.

- - -

“I thought you were taking me on a date?” Jimin raised his brows as they entered the building, but Yoongi didn’t seem very affected. He shrugged as he opened the apartment door.

“I’m taking you on a perfect date.” Then he stepped aside to let Jimin pass. Now everything made more sense.

The room was ready for painting. Not like the attempts Jimin had made months ago or Yoongi’s own efforts. There was enough paint on the floor to cover all the living room walls. The entire area was covered in newspaper. There were real rollers instead of small brushes, and surfaces like the couch were covered with clear plastic sheets.

“Hyung,” Jimin blinked. “You…”

“I spent my entire salary on that very precious yellow paint, so you’d better not suggest another color,” Yoongi whispered as he hugged him from behind, making Jimin actually laugh.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Luckily, so are you.”

Then, after they both changed into old T-shirts and pants, they got to work.

From the very beginning, Yoongi and Jimin had been people who got along by bickering. It was their love language now. So sticking their tongues out at each other, Jimin criticizing Yoongi’s grip on the roller, and Yoongi teasing Jimin about his height all felt familiar and right.

“I can’t believe you kept saying we weren’t in a relationship for months so you didn’t want a relationship therapist,” Jimin said, as if he was only now holding a grudge, dipping his brush into the paint harder.

Yoongi shrugged. When he paused for a moment, he said, “Every time you suggested it, I thought about telling you that if you wanted it that much, you should just be in a relationship with me.”

“If you had, we’d probably be holding our third child by now.”

Yoongi made a dramatic face. “Not my fault. You didn’t make a move first.”

“You kept saying you weren’t looking for a relationship!”

“Because I was trying to get over my love for you!”

“How was I supposed to access that information? I thought we’d never be together.” Jimin flicked some paint at him. “You’re guilty.”

“Well, you kept telling me about guys hitting on you at bars!” Yoongi shot paint back at him, pouting. “On nights I stayed up with you because you couldn’t sleep!”

“I was trying to make you jealous!”

“Congratulations, it worked!”

When Yoongi tried to throw paint at him again and lost his balance, the most ridiculous thing that could happen did. His foot got caught in the paint, and as he tried not to fall, he grabbed Jimin—who ended up right on top of him.

The paint bucket that had tipped over had already splattered everywhere.

After a moment, once the shock of the fall wore off, Jimin giggled. “Good thing you covered the whole room in newspaper.”

But when he looked back at Yoongi, he found something else there.

Yoongi was looking at him with dark eyes, and in those eyes was a glimmer of love. As if falling and getting paint everywhere didn’t matter, he held Jimin tightly where he lay on top of him.

What came next happened naturally. Under that gaze, with a warm sincerity in his chest, Jimin leaned down and, holding Yoongi’s cheeks, pulled them both into a deep kiss.

There was something unshakable about their kiss. It was more intense than Yoongi had ever imagined. Beautiful. Even as a writer, he could never have imagined a kiss could feel this deep.

When Jimin settled over his hips and continued, Yoongi held his face in return. Without caring about the paint from their earlier battle smearing everywhere, he kissed him open-mouthed. As their tongues met in a small battle, it was sweet—just like their usual bickering.

When Jimin shifted his hips slightly in the middle of the kiss and made everything even more heated, Yoongi let out a soft whine. As if it were possible, he pulled Jimin closer. On top of the scattered piles of newspaper on the floor, they moved toward becoming one.

In the end, Jimin was the first to pull back to breathe. When he braced his hands on Yoongi’s chest for support, he pressed his hips down more firmly. That made Yoongi instinctively grab Jimin’s hips and hold him tight. Without meaning to, he pulled him closer against himself.

With a hazy mind from all the kissing and quick breaths, he looked at the man in his lap.

“Do you… want this?”

“More than anything.”

And that was it. This time, Jimin leaned in with more certainty. As he joined him in another kiss, he sped up the movement of his hips.

When Yoongi slid his hands under Jimin’s shirt and found his nipples, they both let out soft moans.

“Harder, hyung.”

And Yoongi had no strength to resist him. So he pressed his thumbs harder, rolling them. When he got another moan out of Jimin, he felt even more satisfied and tried to get up from the floor.

When Jimin whined, Yoongi ignored it and stood up. Pulling Jimin along with him, he didn’t think before tugging the plastic sheet off the couch and pushing Jimin onto it. He pulled Jimin’s t-shirt off and tossed it aside, looking into Jimin’s laughing eyes.

“We don’t have money for a new couch.”

“That’s tomorrow’s problem. Come here.”

When Yoongi leaned in and pulled his shirt off as well, Jimin laughed more. Moving in sync with Yoongi, he undid the button of his pants. Within seconds, Jimin was gripping the back of the couch like his life depended on it, his back pressed against the armrest. And Yoongi, kneeling between his legs, was giving him the best oral of his life.

“Hyung— wait.” Jimin tried to push him away, breathless. “Please. I want your dick first.”

Instead of pulling away completely, Yoongi kissed the inside of Jimin’s thighs. It was teasing enough to make Jimin giggle. At one point, Jimin got so ticklish that he instinctively closed his legs, and Yoongi just laughed more with his head trapped there.

“These legs are a very nice place to die.”

“Hyung!” Jimin whined, trying to push him away with his heels against Yoongi’s shoulders. It didn’t work. Yoongi just leaned in more with a chuckle.

“Alright, alright. Let’s get you ready.”

Jimin seemed to settle. When Yoongi looked at him, he was sure he saw excitement there.

“It’s been a long time.”

“For me too.”

After a short, sympathetic glance between them, Yoongi spat on his fingers and moved them to Jimin’s entrance. He traced small circles with one finger, watching Jimin’s reactions.

But then, as if that wouldn’t be enough, he stood up without pushing his finger in. When Jimin whined in disappointment, he laughed. It didn’t take long for him to return from his room with lube and condoms.

As Yoongi poured lube onto his fingers, Jimin murmured smugly, “You sure it hasn’t expired?”

Without warning, Yoongi pushed one finger into him and watched Jimin’s back arch. Now he was kneeling on the floor beside the couch. “I bought it after our first date, baby, so don’t worry.”

Jimin whined more, clearly pleased by that information, nodding faintly.

As Yoongi pushed in a second finger and picked up the pace, he watched Jimin come apart. “You’re so beautiful, Jimin-ah. So perfect.”

Jimin moaned more. Praise seemed to do something to him, making him even harder. Lying there completely naked, he looked like the most precious sight Yoongi could ever see.

“Hyung, please—” he said when he caught his breath. “I’m ready.”

“One more finger.”

Without making him wait, Yoongi added a third finger. Once he was sure Jimin was ready, he stood up, watching him whimper. He freed himself from his own pants and underwear.

Jimin’s eyes were fixed on him with great interest. Then he sighed and closed them. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“I should be the one saying that.”

“Just shut up and come here.”

Yoongi obeyed. He rolled the condom on. Positioning himself, he pushed into Jimin slowly, looking completely overwhelmed. When he was fully inside, they both moaned at the same time.

As Jimin wrapped his legs around him, breathless, he said, “You have no idea how much I’ve imagined this. I wanted to lie on the couch and give you head while you wrote.”

Yoongi looked at him in disbelief, caught between laughing and being turned on. “Not something I expected to hear from my roommate of months.”

Jimin nudged him. As he moved his hips, urging him on, he whined. “Like you were any different.”

“All my fantasies were full of love and affection, Park Jimin. I’m not as shameless as you.”

“Hyung!”

“Okay, sometimes I thought about coming up behind you while you were cooking.”

“And?”

“And we’d cook together! What do you want from me? I’m not as dirty as you.”

“I’d give you head while you cooked.”

“Jimin!” Yoongi stopped and looked at him. “I can’t believe this. What kind of fantasies do you have about me?”

“You’ll see them all in time.” Jimin grinned. “Now will you move? I need to come.”

Yoongi shook his head. Holding onto the legs wrapped around him, he started moving, caught between laughter and surprise. But then the pleasure flooded his body and took over his mind. As they both reached the edge, their moans mixed together.

In the end, Yoongi came into the condom, breathless against Jimin’s neck, while Jimin made a mess between them with his own release.

But as always, once everything was over and they came back to themselves, they giggled at the chaos.

“Now you’re stuck with a yellow-painted couch. That’s karma, hyung.”

Yoongi closed his eyes. He felt very comfortable where he was.

“If you’re moving back in, I don’t care, Jimin-ah.”

- - -

Strangely enough, Yoongi remembered the day Jimin moved into this apartment as if it were yesterday.

And now, as he moved in for the second time, everything felt like yesterday again.

Still, there were big differences. Jimin had deliberately changed some of his things. His desk was now in the bedroom. There were fewer abstract paintings on the walls. The windowsill looked the same because he’d replaced his dead plants with new ones, and Yoongi didn’t mind that. His rug was this time big enough for both of them and gray.

Even though Yoongi didn’t love seeing gray, it fit the room. And it was a lighter gray leaning toward white.

This time, instead of watching Jimin in horror, Yoongi was helping. He voiced his opinions openly. While teasing him, he also helped hammer nails into the wall.

And earning a kiss for every bit of help wasn’t bad at all.

In the end, this place felt like home again.

“Have another slice.” When he pushed the last slice of pizza toward Jimin, Jimin took a big bite and leaned back. As he sipped his soda, he tried to guide the slice in Yoongi’s hand toward Yoongi’s mouth.

When they finished their last slices together, it was obvious they were exhausted from carrying and arranging all those boxes.

Jimin sighed tiredly and leaned his back against the lower part of the couch. Since he’d finished his soda, he kept sucking on the straw until it made that annoying sound. That was enough reason for Yoongi to nudge him with his foot.

Jimin was now looking at the wall that was yellow. That made Yoongi turn and look too.

Jimin was right about the color. Because it was a very light yellow, it didn’t strain the eyes and didn’t look strange. If anything, it leaned close to cream. It made the room feel quite airy. Now that Jimin’s paintings were spread out more nicely, the room no longer looked divided.

There were still very few things on Yoongi’s side, but at least the room felt whole.

They had also covered the awful paint stain on the couch with a throw for now. Because in some spots, especially where the paint was shaped like handprints, it didn’t look very appropriate. And it was a constant reminder of all the physical activity that had taken place.

“I’m just curious, hyung. Why are you… so afraid of things?”

Yoongi shrugged. He kept staring at the wall absentmindedly.This wasn’t something he talked about with anyone. He had never told anyone about that big fear inside him.

“I guess because I lost everything so quickly, I try not to get too attached to too many things. I’m someone easy to give up and—”

“You’re not.”

“You left just because I told you to go, Jimin-ah.”

“Hyung!” Jimin frowned and straightened up. Setting his empty soda down, he crawled toward Yoongi around the pizza box. In the end, he slipped under Yoongi’s arm as if that had always been his place. “The man I was in love with was implying that I was killing his inspiration. I was hurt. I wasn’t giving up on you.”

“But that’s what I thought and—”

Jimin cut him off with a kiss. His hands were greasy from the pizza, and in a way that should have been gross, but he still cupped Yoongi’s cheek with affection. “You’re valuable. Not just to me. To all our friends. Even to that guy at the café.”

“Woosung.”

Jimin rolled his eyes. “Whatever his name is.”

That made Yoongi giggle. “Are you still jealous, Jimin-ah? You don’t have to be.”

“And you don’t have to feel worthless. I won’t give up on you, okay? Never ever. Even if you want to turn the whole house gray, I’ll be right here.”

Yoongi nodded. Now there was a lump in his throat, but it wasn’t a bad one. He pressed a kiss to Jimin’s chin. “Then we’ll get through it together,” he said. “We’ll find a middle ground for everything. Like our home.”

Jimin nodded lovingly. “Like our home,” he said.

Then he rested his head against Yoongi’s chest. It was strange how everything had started and how it had ended, but somehow all of it had led to Yoongi’s life becoming the best version of itself. So it was okay.

It was definitely okay.