desire :v

Yoongi must be the universe’s reward to you for every good deed you’ve ever done.

When Yoongi lets himself to be roped into joining in your newest fixation, it must be your good karma because you sat front-row for each one of your younger siblings’ school events.

When he reminds you to drink your water and not skip your meals, even going so far as to deliver both to you as often as he could, it must be the universe’s payment to you for watering plants and going on that one (1) mandatory tree planting activity.

When he gives you all the credentials to log into his premium streaming platforms even without you asking, it must be fate’s way of thanking you for not making a fuss whenever a barista messes up your order or when a stranger cuts in line.

Yoongi is the good in your life and he has been ever since you were teens, reminding you of what you’ve worked hard for in life because when he wasn’t so busy going through the same hardships you did, he would be at the sidelines waiting for you to finish.

Or he could be someplace else without even sending a lousy text regarding his wellbeing nor his notice that he can’t be at your awarding ceremony tonight because he’s busy doing his job, serving as a reminder that Yoongi must also be the universe’s punishment to you for your missteps and lapses.

When he comes and goes into your apartment freely as treats himself to your newly-bought groceries, it must be retribution because you lost your temper on your college roommate once for eating the leftovers you’ve been craving since the night before.

When he salvages all the spare batteries you have lying around to power up his huge clock back at his apartment, therefore leaving you to eventually spend a rainy night without flashlights because of a power outage, it must be payback for lowering the temperature in your breakroom even with the sign that specifically tells you not to.

Whenever Yoongi mentions his shapeshifting “career” (he argues that it is) to you, a gift he had been born with and one he really maximizes to the fullest potential and profit, you’re reminded how much of it is a curse to you.

Yoongi must be the universe’s greatest reward and punishment for you at the same time because while he’s your soulmate and you spend almost every day with him — you have to see him fall in love with everyone else but you, over and over again.

“You should be splitting rent with me at this point. You’re always here,” you groan as soon as you spot him on your couch, barely escaping the grogginess you’re still in from having a long night. 

His presence isn’t surprising anymore given the time you’ve been with him and how this exact situation has already played out tons of times before (him breaking into your place because he doesn’t want to be alone, you blissfully clueless until you hear raccoon-like searching in your kitchen) — it’s more irking than it is surprising, especially when you wake up at the wrong side of the bed.

“Do you not want me around?” Yoongi laughs heartily, unwilling to wipe his grin off when you don’t react. “That’s what I thought.”

He’s already beaten you to the TV and while he hasn’t had breakfast yet because he thought that the least he could do is wait for you to wake up so you could make it and the two of you can eat together, he’s getting there anyway.

“What type of horrible soulmate kicks out their other half that hasn’t had breakfast yet at 8 in the morning?” he hums, a faux pout on his face that rubs you the wrong way. You’re still pissed at him for not showing up at your awarding ceremony last night for being the top developer in your tech company, his lengthy apologetic text before you went to sleep still not doing its full effects.

“You don’t wanna tread there,” you huff, crossing your arms. “I have a lot on my chest, Yoongi. A lot of hateful, vile, factual comebacks.”

“Exactly!” he exclaims, the smile on his face telling you that he’s taking this lightly; way more lightly than you’d like him to. “We’ve had this conversation a million times before, baby. Sometimes, people just aren’t meant to be,” Yoongi shrugs, his words embedded in you now from repetition alone. “Some soulmates are only platonic.”

“That’s what you want because you’re non-committal,” you hiss, the incoming headache you have for having this conversation too early in the morning making you sit yourself on the couch. Yoongi grins because he knows you won’t kick him out at this point, slinging an arm across your shoulders while you’re still glaring at him. “Your hustle or whatever you call it is falling in love with everyone but me.”

“Uhm, correction — it’s a career,” he tuts. “I have a gift, Y/N. What, I can shapeshift into other people and I’m not supposed to capitalize off of that?”

He had only started offering his services a little more than a year ago, a byproduct of his boredom and his producing internship at the music label falling through. It just came to him in a fever dream and a drunken suggestion from you, and one website domain purchase and a socialite with a lot of connections for a first client later, Yoongi quickly made bank.

SeeAndSaw’s a trial dating service led by Yoongi, one that would answer clients’ curiosities to whether or not they were compatible with a person, and that’s where his shapeshifting came in handy. His services continue to be used for a multitude of reasons, the most common one being to see if the client would match with their soulmates (or just a random person, he’s not particular like that) ahead of their meeting. He’s also become a handy instrument here and there, breaking up with people in his clients’ behalf because they were too guilty to do so, to becoming a stand-in for clients that needed to present someone to their families for occasions.

Yoongi acts far too casual to you and not only is its time’s fault, it’s also yours for keeping him around in any way you can have him, even if it’s just as a friend. 

“I keep professing my love for you every two weeks and I’m doing it now while you’re eating my leftovers. People would kill just to have a soulmate as dedicated as me,” you frown, slowly softening the more that you’re rendered awake. Yoongi’s right, you did have this conversation a million times before and it’s the realization of it all that perhaps, at rare times, makes it hurt less.

“We’ve had this talk before,” he sing-songs, digging into the carbonara you took home that he retrieved not even one minute later since you joined him on the couch.

“For someone who makes bank fake dating people, you sure do leech off of me a lot,” you grumble, effectively quietened when he shoves a forkful of pasta into your mouth.

“That reminds me,” Yoongi grins, building up to a dramatic gasp. “I love-…” 

He trails and trails and if only you didn’t know any better, you would know that Yoongi wouldn’t profess his love for you in your living room while you were still in your pajamas eating cold carbonara. Much less, Yoongi wouldn’t tell you at all that he loves you.

“I love doing that,” he agrees, disappointed for a second when you didn’t even react to him doing a cliffhanger about what or who he loves. “My treat for you this week is to get you a new mattress. You’ll be less grumpy in the mornings.”

“The mattress can stay for a little longer. Can you just get me a new alarm system please?” you say without missing a beat, having already thought long and hard about what make-up gift you wanted him to give you from missing out on your awarding ceremony. 

“Why? Are you okay? Did anybody attempt to break in?” Yoongi asks concerned, brows knotted in worry. He grunts under his breath, shaking his head. “I already told you to move into my apartment complex so many times. It’s much safer there.”

That’s also a conversation you’ve had a million times before, all circling back to your attachment to the first place that you bought with your own money. It’s not bad per se, it just looks like it when you show it side-by-side with Yoongi’s place.

“Oh. They already broke in,” you narrow your eyes, oblivious to the panic brewing in Yoongi.

“What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me?! Are you-…” he rants, stopping himself when he sees the irony. “Okay, I get it. You’re not funny.”

You and Yoongi eat cold carbonara in total silence, save for his grumbles of how you should never joke about your safety and yours for how he should start chipping in for your bills if he’s gonna keep showing up like this.

Yoongi swears he doesn’t find you funny. He swears it on his life when a few days later, a guy is sent to your house to update your security system. There’s a couple hundred packages of additional manual locks, along with Yoongi’s letter of how he still doesn’t find you funny, amongst other things.

Please guard your home. Don’t let anybody else in except me.

- Yoongi

( ♡ )

Yoongi despises change.

He’s with the elderly when it comes to online menus in an actual, physical restaurant, annoyed by them to the point that sometimes he just walks out. He can’t help it that he wants a nice, slightly greasy, and good menu because it just goes to show how great the food would be. 

He hates whoever invented and continues to advertise white cooking equipment that’s beyond impractical, knowing to himself that he would disown any friends or family he’ll catch using them. You spent a good two seconds more looking at a white ceramic pot that one time when you were online shopping, and Yoongi’s never been more determined to hurl your phone to the floor.

Yoongi also hates overly-modified cars and overly-decorated phone cases, because as much as it isn’t his business, he firmly believes that sometimes there are things meant to be left alone.

His voicemail is still the same one he had back in college and his standard ringtone for everyone remains untouched — everyone but you.

Yoongi knows that he’s in charge of his time given his very successful career and he worked around his whole schedule just to grant himself the luxury of sleeping in today. He wants to have himself buried in his cold sheets for longer but it’s your call that overrides his phone on Do Not Disturb, shaking him awake quicker.

“Yoongi?” you ask, too wrapped up in your internal to-do list to notice that he answered at the second ring. “Help me please.”

“Spider family in your cupboards again?” he yawns, rubbing the sleep off his eyes. God, he hopes it’s not that again. He isn’t the biggest fan of spiders either but at your insistence (and threatening last time that you’ll ignore him for a week), he forced himself to swallow down the unease.

“No, I woke up late,” you hum, once again oblivious that you’re intruding on Yoongi’s plans. He doesn’t mind though; not at all. “I just got a text about my package and I accidentally used your address again. The front desk received it.” 

Yoongi’s address has already become your secondary one at this point, from food deliveries from staying over to parcels you made him receive because you wouldn’t be home at the time. You’ve gotten used to utilizing his address, his home, so much that you forget which is which sometimes.

“Can you sign off on it as me?”

You know potential and convenience when you have it within reach, and the both of you know that your best friend slash soulmate gets a sense of pride whenever you need to utilize his shapeshifting abilities.

“Okay fine. I’ll even talk you up as a future tenant here because you’re taking my advice and moving to my building, right?” he caves in even if it took nothing for you to convince him, putting on a shirt before finding his slippers.

“What, what? Yoongi, oh! You’re breaking up,” you make a half-assed attempt in avoiding the offer once again. You could afford it with the salary you have now but aside your attachment to the place you have now, being closer to Yoongi in this context would precisely be the demise of you. “Thanks, Yoongs. Bring the package with you when you come over.”

Yoongi’s filial when it comes to you, that much you’ve noticed. He may not be in love with you but his loyalty to you is as clear as day, much of a soulmate’s but not exactly a lover’s.

It’s supposed to be like clockwork when he picks up his parcels (yours in this case) from the front desk but there’s just something he belatedly realizes now, his mouth in a grimace when he has to pry off your package from the receptionist who was unabashedly asking where you were.

He didn’t know that every time this would happen, or in any case wherein you came by yourself to his apartment and therefore passing by the front desk, the sleaze would flirt with you.

“Joohyuk from the front desk always comes off strong, huh?” Yoongi snickers the moment he enters your place, handing you your stuff instead of tossing it like he usually would.

“Tell me about it. He doesn’t give me a break,” you snort, unfazed that he doesn’t greet you with a hi anymore because your current visiting set-up has been executed many times.

Yoongi doesn’t know what to do with the unhinged anger in his brain that unfolds because from your response alone, you’re used to it. You’re used to feeling uneasy and he hadn’t caught on earlier than he should’ve, the guilt weighing down on his chest.

“Hey,” he calls out, his tone leaving you no room for objections. “I’ll receive your packages from now on.”

( ♡ )

You don’t know how you keep holding onto Yoongi despite him grasping you from afar.

It’s a melancholy enough as it is to swallow at the end of the day that Yoongi’s yours but not in the way you want him to be, along with the great possibility that it would always be that way. You don’t heed the reminder when you’re with him and that’s almost everyday of your life, the ache that you’re the only one pining after him remaining as a dull thrum. 

He seeks you in seasons but you look for him in all weathers, the great search of when you’d finally amount more to him still coming up unanswered.

You can handle seeing Yoongi often with the cue that you’re only friends despite the initials on both your ring fingers saying otherwise. You can manage with introducing him only as your close friend to colleagues and acquaintances because you don’t want to end up with a long-winded explanation how he wants you but really doesn’t.

Yoongi can deal with your moony stares at him every once in a while and your professions of love, whether sober or drunken. On the same vein, you can deal with the rejection he serves you every single time.

The both of you are adults who can handle each other, one more high-strung than the other, and it’s only in moments like these that you reach your limit. You’re awfully too aware of how easy it is for Yoongi to work, to be in love with people he only knows vaguely.

“I don’t like to see you when you’re at work.”

You’re momentarily caught with panic when you see a stranger in your living room, only being caught up to date when he’s sprawled across your couch in the same way that Yoongi does, the very same shit-eating grin he has on for giving you a fright.

You don’t know the guy at all and you don’t plan to. You try your best to separate yourself from Yoongi’s shapeshifting business, most especially his clients and the extensions of them that he has to portray. You don’t even want to hear the stories behind his appointments even if he begs for you to hear him out because he just wants someone to talk to. 

The moment you fully accept that Yoongi would belong to everyone but you is the day that you rue him.

And in a longingly heartbreaking fashion, you don’t hate Yoongi — yet.

He momentarily changes back to himself, sneaking a look at his watch to see how many minutes he has more of annoying you before going on a date just two blocks away from your place.

“Why?” he whines, and in retaliation, changes back to the stranger. “I’m Hong Dusik. I’m from the countryside, moved back to the city to do stocks, and my dimples are literally embedded in there. I’m my client’s soulmate and it’s their first date next week but she’s shy and she’s nervous, so she’s having a dry-run with me first.”

Tuning Yoongi out has become a skill you continue to hone and while it isn’t foolproof just yet, it’s helped tremendously when you want nothing more than to kick him (or any form he takes) out.

“Nice.”

“You’re icing me out, sweetie?” his voice lulls, the sweetness behind it cloying until you remember that you don’t know the guy it belongs to.

“My god, your dimples are deep,” you murmur, clutching your bag to your chest. “Switch back, Yoongi.”

“Why? Dusik’s a nice guy.”

You kiss your teeth with the annoyance of a hundred days built up, gritting out your answer that makes him falter momentarily. “I’ve heard already, but I don’t plan seeing Dusik or any other stranger in my home.”

“Aw, you’re so loyal to your soulmate, whoever he may be,” he coughs, shifting back to himself. At any other day, Yoongi’s playful nature would be met with one of your sarcastic remarks but he doesn’t get any this time, the ghost of a frown accompanying his lips.

He’s admittedly nervous when you don’t play along with him, but his urge to sneak one last word in overtakes his trepidation.

“My advice to get over me? Bone it out. Get it out of your system. Soon enough, my initials would fade.”

Come to think of it, Yoongi’s advice isn’t all that bad.

“If Dusik and his girl don’t work out, just send him to me,” you nod, retreating to your room.

“Good! I’ll-…” he grins, satisfied with ticking you off until your words sink into him, the double-take that he makes giving him an ache on his neck. “What?” Yoongi murmurs, “I didn’t mean it that seriously.”

( ♡ )

In a parallel universe or in a different life, Yoongi actually lives with you. In that reality, you’re still soulmates and the difference is that he loves you back. He doesn’t have the ability to shapeshift and you don’t have to profess your love repeatedly either.

In a parallel universe or a different life, Yoongi’s cooking you dinner. Dinner would be just takeout from a drive-thru that he transfers to plates because the two of you barely ate the bourgeoisie food at your awarding ceremony. You’re still the top developer in your tech company, but the difference is that he’s there and you get to introduce him as your soulmate and not just a friend who coincidentally bears the same initials on your finger.

In a parallel universe or a different life, Yoongi is your soulmate before he is your friend. He doesn’t condense your love for him as a mere obligation. He doesn’t bat an eye at your confessions because in that reality, he’s the one who loves you more than you love him.

You don’t have that life though — what you have at the moment is Yoongi, your soulmate, not being able to see what was wrong signing you up for a dating app. You wouldn’t have known if not for the couple hundred notifications you receive in your personal phone that you left at home.

You wouldn’t be this angry if Yoongi could just accept that he went out of line.

“How many times do I have to say it over and over again?” you yell, hands flailing around helplessly. The smug look on Yoongi’s face remains, strengthened only by his stubbornness. “I love you and it’s just always been you!”

This is not the life you pictured with your soulmate. In your head, you don’t even see a particular space the two of you would live in. The home you see in your dreams is ever-changing, the layout of it never staying the same. The only thing that stays in the life you picture is Yoongi. Your Yoongi.

“Why can’t you put me in your choices atleast? We’re soulmates and you’ve been my only choice but I’m– fuck!” you exclaim, sucking in a sharp breath when you feel a momentary stab at your chest. “You don’t even consider me to be a potential girlfriend even if my initials are on your finger!”

In another world, Yoongi doesn’t look at you with a clenched jaw when you speak your mind. The two of you have grown sick at this conversation but the difference in your world now is that you’re beyond angry at him, the frustration unmistakeable when you look at him.

“Why can’t it be me, Yoongi?” you seethe, fists clenched tightly that your knuckles turn white. “For fuck’s sake, when can it be me? When can it be my turn? When do you pick me?”

Yoongi didn’t mean for you to be heated with him. It was a practical joke, only following through with the half-hearted advice he gave you when he showed up at your apartment as Dusik. 

He just wanted to prove a point that you don’t want to give up on him as much as he doesn’t want you to stop trying for him. It’s selfish, he’s selfish. And if only Yoongi could focus on how conceited he is rather than the anguish he feels about you being angry and upset at him, he would wipe off the arrogance from his face.

“I hate your job so, so fucking much. It looks pathetic to me even if I know you must enjoy it a lot,” you burst, saying your truth that you’ve tried to minimize in order to make way for his self-esteem. “Your business is to be these random people’s dream guy but you’re mine. You’re my dreamboat, my ideal guy, my person! I’m your soulmate but I feel like shit. Just utter, hopeless shit that you visit almost everyday because you don’t want to be alone!”

He can’t put it into words but in the simplest way he could put it, being alone feels like a punishment more than it is a solace. Yoongi lives alone and he can handle it, but him tolerating it doesn’t mean that he loves it. 

It’s always been you and him, one way or another. In the trench of your love, waiting for Yoongi to come around is worth it. In the shore of your doubts however, the novelty of having Yoongi is starting to wear off.

You make up your mind then and there, the ascent from your trench to your shore increasingly coming fast by the day.

“Leave. You’re not staying the night here.”

Yoongi breaks by then, a dry sob leaving his throat while he tries to plead with the resoluteness in your tone.

“What kind of-“

“What kind of soulmate throws out their other half in the middle of the night?” you interrupt, knowing that Yoongi only mentions your status when he’s desperate. “The kind that doesn’t want to be soulmates anymore.”

You sound the most casual you’ve ever been and Yoongi’s annoyed at you for it, his eyes narrowed into slits. He’ll oblige for the night, on his way to the door when he looks at you.

“With all due respect, Y/N, screw you. You don’t mean that,” he mutters, chest heaving up and down. He’s convincing you as much as he’s convincing himself. “You’re just angry, you’re sad, and you don’t mean that.”

Your back’s turned to him when he leaves, or atleast attempts to do so because he doesn’t want to make his exit when you refuse to even look at him.

“I mean it right now, let’s focus on that,” you chuckle, already turning off the lights in the apartment without sparing a single glance at him. “Go away, Yoongi.”

( ♡ )

Unsurprisingly, you find Yoongi at your house the next day when you come home from work.

He probably has your key fob microchipped on him nowadays, your huge fight from last night not being enough to deter him from coming over. He’s a stubborn and mostly annoying stain you have in your life at the exact second, the two of you unwilling to apologize to each other.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” you mutter, rolling your eyes when you set your bag down on the counter. You’re on a time crunch, the window you have of preparing yourself to look divine already closing down steadily.

“The fuck are you doing home?” Yoongi retorts just for the sake of it and simply because he wants to keep the conversation (if it was even called that) going, trying to ignore the fact that he totally bombed his comeback and makes up for it by staring at your leftover dumplings on his plate.

You’re busy fending for yourself, your eyes too preoccupied in rolling to the back of your head that you fail to notice Yoongi’s puffy with all the crying he did last night. You ignore him and go straight to your bedroom, not having enough time to multitask showering and fighting with him.

You’ve already went through your entire routine and dressed yourself up, the frustration in you only skyrocketing up when Yoongi’s still there in your kitchen.

“Either get out or move out of my way,” you say as you retrieve yourself a snack from your cupboards to munch on while you multitask, intentionally bumping your shoulder with him in the process. “I’m going out on a date.”

Yoongi heavily sighs, his fork clattering on the plate loudly. He tries to keep his emotions at bay because this is all his fault, the fight in his body tensing his shoulders.

“You’re lashing out.”

“I’m not lashing out,” you argue, looking at the clock to see if you could still fit in fighting with Yoongi between spraying your perfume and meeting your date by the front door. “Lashing out would be me bringing my date home and fucking him loudly in my room.”

He stabs the dumplings a little too harshly and a little too unnecessarily, fitting two in his mouth while clenching his fists because he knows a nasty remark is just bubbling to be said.

Yoongi’s being childish and your patience has already run thin to deal with him especially when you’re mad, the huff that leaves you sounding extremely personal.

“What are you even doing here? Go back to your house.”

“My appointment’s just at the next block. Your place is closer.”

“You could’ve just driven there directly instead of camping out here.”

Yoongi sarcastically smiles, his eyes in crescents as he makes a show of tilting his head. “Can I notspend time anymore with my best friend? My soulmate, even?”

“Stop saying the s-word,” you grit. “Don’t say that when I bring Jimin home.”

The resounding tension that envelopes the two of you finally snaps, manifesting into a scoff from Yoongi so offended and loud that it resonated in your apartment like a clap of thunder. 

“Jimin from high school? You’re exes for a reason, remember?” he exclaims, eyes blinking in disbelief because he figures he must’ve heard you wrong. “He broke up with you when he went abroad for college because he can’t do long-distance. What makes you think he’ll give you the time of day this time?”

None of his words register in your head, blissfully letting them fly over. Jimin only invited you to catch up and you obliged; it’s not like you didn’t have years of love amongst yourselves to shroud yourself in anonymisity. Plus, it’s not like he asked you to try again with him — it’s dinner. Just dinner.

“He’s already outside. Also, it’s clearly a short distance this time.”

“Don’t be smart with me,” Yoongi scoffs, standing up abruptly with his arms across his chest. “I’m gonna barricade the door if you come home with him.”

“Good. I can come home with him to his place.”

“I’ll barricade his door,” he retorts without even thinking, his brows knotted in exasperation.

“Go fuck yourself,” you narrow your eyes at him, letting your glare at him linger until you get to the front door. “While I fuck Jimin.”

“You’re so-“

Yoongi points an accusing finger at you, unable to finish his sentence now that you’ve left. You’re stubborn.

If he’s being honest, the thought of you merely giving Jimin the time of day makes him uneasy. It puts a void on his stomach and an even larger cavity in his chest.

And if Yoongi’s being more honest, he doesn’t even have an appointment nearby. He just wanted to be with you whichever way he can.

( ♡ )

Yoongi used to hate crossfit.

He hated even the concept of it because the trainers for it at the gym have a superiority complex when talking about it as if it was revolutionary; as if launching yourself a feet into the air while doing push-ups from point to point was groundbreaking.

Even his friend, Jungkook, knowsjust how much he hates it. He didn’t particularly have a preference when it comes to working out, but Yoongi’s random and unprovoked hate for random things is starting to rub off on him. They both hate crossfit… right?

Jungkook doesn’t know how to react when he sees Yoongi doing pull-ups with one hand diagonally while a kettlebell’s on the other. He doesn’t know what to feel seeing him agitatedly do push-ups while wearing a weighted vest and with his feet up on a medicine ball. 

Jungkook, for a fact, does not know what his cue should be when he sees Yoongi running 24kph on a treadmill with his eyes fixated on the phone in his hand, although he’s about 99% sure that this is not exactly crossfit.

He’s known him for years now and there’s barely anything between them that they don’t know about each other. Jungkook, however, doesn’t know the threshold of Yoongi’s emotional constipation, slightly concerned when he sees his friend’s mind drift elsewhere.

“Yoongi, are we okay there buddy?”

“Huh?” he squints, looking up from his dessert which he’s just been staring at the past two minutes.

Jungkook clears his throat, vaguely mentioning to the poor utensil in his hand. “You’re bending the fork.”

“It was already bent when you handed it to me,” he weakly counters, setting the metal down without much concern.

“I uhm, I really don’t think so.”

Yoongi only supplies with him a scowl and normally, being the filial and nosey friend that he is, it was cue for him to inquire what was going on. Jungkook likes including himself and it’s one of the numerous things he has in common with Yoongi, but it was clear as day just how differently it manifests for each of them.

Yoongi’s only been staring at the mocha crepe cake because he knows he would be incessantly interrupted by Jungkook once he started eating it, but come to to think of it, the younger hasn’t asked him even once.

He narrows his eyes at him, crossing his arms with a sly look to his face.

“What are you waiting for? I know you’re dying to ask me.”

Jungkook scoffs, rolling his eyes so passionately that Yoongi saw you in him for a second. “No, you’re dying to be asked. It’s always like this! You want to get something out of your chest but you always need me to ask first and then you pretend like you don’t like it.”

His face is far too straight and he got to the point really quickly with his delivery, his posture standing straight at the unimpressed look Yoongi gives him.

“Sorry. Your emotional constipation’s rubbing off of on me,” he hums sickeningly, batting his eyes. “Yes, Yoongi? What seems to be on your mind?”

Not even a second goes by before Yoongi breaks, his shoulders falling in recollection. “It’s Y/N. You already know my deal with her.”

“Of course I do. Aren’t we basically the same?” Jungkook tilts his head in thought. “Longtime best friends with our soulmates but the only difference is that the two of you knew at the beginning?” he continues, mixing his drink with his straw just to cushion the impending blow this conversation might inflict on him. “And uhm, that you spend every waking moment refusing her but magically, your friendship isn’t ruined over it?”

“You go on and on like an audiobook.”

He’s not the least bit offended because he does have the voice for it, but it wasn’t so audiobook-ish of him when his hands flail and his voice pitches in remembrance. “Oh also, you’re a shapeshifter! Poor Y/N has to watch you date all these people except her.”

“Which side are you on?” Yoongi looks down on his feet, the sigh that leaves him slowly weighing as much as the conflict in his mind. “There’s one more difference, by the way. I think she’s making me jealous.”

Now, Jungkook doesn’t flatter Yoongi all too much because his ego outnumbers his and that’s coming from him! But this is the one time that Jungkook has to hand it to him, his friend’s delivery and impeccable timing giving him the best chuckle he’s had this week.

“She’s intentionally making you jealous? God, Yoongi. Are we skimming over the fact that maybe she’s just grown sick of you?”

“You don’t get it!” he whines. “She’s entertaining her ex from high school. This stupidly blonde, stupidly genius, stupidly always available guy named Jimin! What a stupid name too. Seriously, he’s so-…”

The café’s well-lit and the acoustics are good too but there’s just this one cloud that forms above Jungkook when Yoongi mentions Jimin’s name, his brows suddenly furrowing in annoyance.

“Jimin?” he clarifies. “Jimin who?”

“This isn’t a knock-knock joke.”

The urge to smack Yoongi would always be larger than Jungkook’s intent to be the bigger person, his curiosity bursting at the seams. “What’s his family name, you idiot?”

“Why does it matter? You don’t know him anyway. It’s Park Jimin,” Yoongi rolls his eyes as he soothes the side of his head, equally as annoyed now. 

The gasp coming from Jungkook alone shushes the entire café, his eyes as expressive as ever and his voice even louder, forcing Yoongi to sink further to his seat until the onlookers take their eyes away from the table.

“You’re joking me!” he booms, running his hands though his hair in a frenzy. “Guy from Busan, stayed until high school, then went to Harvard for college?”

“How do you know him?” Yoongi questions but at this point the how doesn’t matter as much as the why, his friend’s expression enough to keep him at the edge of his seat.

“Because he tried poaching my soulmate too!” Jungkook exclaims, pausing between words because he’s still speechless. “It’s this long story. We’re distant family friends, then I almost lost my bond, then-…”

Yoongi shushes him, putting up a hand for the both of them to stay on track. “Can we get back to me? Can we put a pause on the Jungkook and soulmate show?”

They’re a duo of insufferable people, one more self-absorbed and insufferable than the other. Jungkook sees much of his past self in Yoongi despite the latter being older, the irony of the situation rendering him breathless.

“What do I do about Jimin? Surely, he has a soulmate and it’s definitely not my Y/N,” Yoongi desperately asks for advice even if he thinks it’s beneath him, rubbing his face with his hands.

Jungkook thanks the universe and his soulmate for shaping him to be a better person because he could now hear what he used to sound like back then and by god was he emotionally constipated.

“My Y/N?” he mimics. “Let’s get you back to bed, uncle.”

He makes the internal reminder to get Yoongi away from crossfit because the punch that lands on his thigh is definitely powerful, making him wince loudly that once agains puts the both of them at the center of attention.

“Ow! What?! You can’t just refuse to be a thing with Y/N but then gatekeep her the moment she entertains another guy. That’s not how it works, believe me! I’ve literally been there before.”

Yoongi can hear Jungkook, but he doesn’t exactly understand.

He’s not oblivious to continue refusing the parallels between him and Jungkook but surely, the way it worked out for his friend means that it would for him too, right? 

He’s in denial but he’s not there at the stage yet where he actually acknowledges that he is, stuck in the realm of hope that you’re not sick of him yet.

“Okay what if– what if we try to find out who this Jimin’s soulmate is? Look for them, pluck just one strand of hair, and I shapeshift into them? Then I’ll tell him to back off from other people and only focus on his soulmate!”

Jungkook winces, scratching his head. “That’s wrong. And unethical. You have so many things to unpack, Yoongi.”

“It’s not my fault I can shapeshift!” he exasperatedly sighs, briefly mirroring Jungkook by shifting to him just to prove a point.

“It’s your fault that you’re this constipated to be willing to go to great lengths just to steer Y/N away from Jimin!”

“What do I do then?” Yoongi groans, plunking his head onto the table. He doesn’t even have to raise his head for Jungkook to know that he’s nearing a dead end, his hope about to run out sooner or later. “What did you do?”

“I woke up. Figured I was too self-absorbed back then to realize that it’s always been her for me.”

Jungkook shakes his friend, prompting him to start eating the crepe cake he treated him to but refuse to eat because he’s still wallowing in worry over where he stands with you.

“Wake up, Yoongi,” he sighs, looking down on the markings on his own ring finger that he thanks the heavens for every single day. “The universe works in mysterious ways.”

( ♡ )

Yoongi prides himself for having 20/20 vision.

He’s always boasted about his vision not deceiving him even once, the constant praise whenever he gets his yearly check-ups fully seeping into his head.

He’s neither suffering from a hangover nor vertigo. Yoongi’s mind is in a sound and safe place which is why he doesn’t get how it could be playing jokes on him now, the most crucial of times he’s been going through with you.

Your soulmate mark has completely disappeared.

It simply cannot be true to how his initials disappeared overnight and you just woke up one day to see that they’re gone. Yoongi’s hand is gripping yours tightly as if you’d suddenly disappear too, the glare he has at your ring finger vacant and unnerving at the same time.

“It’s blank. Oh my god, it’s completely blank,” your eyes can’t seem to believe it too, a silent gasp leaving you in shock.

You’ve already said your piece but it’s not what Yoongi’s looking for. You’re not as distraught nor panicked as he is and he knows right there that you’re only fucking with him, making him sigh in exhaustion.

“It’s obvious why you didn’t study liberal arts,” he mutters, rubbing your finger furiously. It makes absolutely no sense when not a single hint of his initials peek through, the worry over his lack of a mark on you growing by the second.

“Huh?” Yoongi says under his breath, his pursuit of trying to get your stint to budge leading him closer to you to the point that your foreheads almost bump when he looks to you. “Okay, what’s the secret? You used pot concealer instead of liquid? You color-corrected? Tons of setting spray?” he tries, licking his lips that turned dry in exasperation. He’s running out of ways you could’ve executed this, mind turning up empty. “You uh, you got it tattooed over with your exact shade match?”

The dread that fills Yoongi is liquid hurt. It builds up from droplets and takes form wherever it flows, turning murky in contained and neglected spaces. He can’t move on from the hurt that’s in his chest when he glances at your empty ring finger and then to his that still has yours; that still links you to him, yet unreciprocated.

“Why is it not budging?” 

“You’re rubbing all the way to my bone,” you chuckle, unable to read the anxiousness behind his tone. He looks disturbed even, lips parted with no explanation coming to mind.

“You’ve got me, Y/N,” he painfully chuckles, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. He bites too hard that he draws blood, eyes flickering ever so often. “Where did you hide the cameras this time?”

“Yoongi, I’m telling you! It’s really blank!” you chuckle but not as easily as the last time, sensing the atmosphere in the room that only favored you but not him. “Quick, walk into the wall. Let’s see if I feel it!”

He doesn’t know how you still have it in you to joke. He doesn’t know how you’re not panicking and as much as he’s figured that this is only one of the rare times where the universe favors you, he didn’t know it would result to this.

“First, I’m not walking into a wall. Second, you stop lying to me.”

“I’m not lying! I’m really serious!” your hands raise in defense, taking a step away from him. The starting notes of your laugh start to build but it never comes out fully because Yoongi interrupts you with a bitter laugh, throwing his head back in frustration.

You’re laughing. You’re unfazed and you’re laughing at Yoongi being at the end of his rope, his worry over losing his soulmate turning unrequited.

“Well then congrats on not having me as a soulmate anymore. I’m so happy for you!”

“What’s with the attitude?” you raise an eyebrow at him, scoffing in retaliation. It had only been lighthearted (for you, atleast) awhile ago and perhaps, maybe even humorous. You didn’t expect that he would receive the news like this at all. “No, congratulations to you, Yoongi, because you’ve been whining for years how you don’t want me and now you finally got it!”

The truth you say has been Yoongi’s for the longest time and the old him would’ve been thrilled because you finally got it. You finally got where he’s coming from and he didn’t need to deal with you pining after him but now that the realization comes here, one that you say to his face — it doesn’t feel good at all.

“Yeah, and I know and regret that now because I didn’t actually think the universe would listen!” his voice raises, pointing at his chest. “Fuck me for not thinking that the universe would stop to listen to my half-hearted wishes, am I right?”

“You’re right. Fuck you, actually!” you agree in spite, practically spitting your next words. “You’re so conceited. Why are you turning on me the moment you get what you thought you wanted?”

Yoongi doesn’t get it too.

He doesn’t get how he lets the flaw of his own insistence slip through his fingers so carelessly. He doesn’t even know what he wanted in the first place and it terrorizes him to know that he might just never know why, the answer for it only seen as a distant memory of you.

He doesn’t get how long he’s retained his insistence of preserving his safety zone by trying to deter you from loving him, when in reality, you’re the epitome of security itself. He didn’t think it through at all.

Yoongi didn’t think when he spent the past few years of his life rejecting your confessions and proposals in every opportunity that he could. Didn’t even leave you hanging from a thread of hope at all that he’d like you back; just a clean, straight refusal.

He didn’t stop to consider that the universe works in mysterious ways, because if he did earlier, he would’ve prayed to make you stay despite not being the type to get on his knees at all.

“Because I didn’t actually think we would stop being soulmates! I didn’t think that there’d be a reality where we aren’t together!” his voice cracks, his hands trembling at his sides. “It’s always been us, Y/N. I’ll always want you around.”

“Do you just want me around or do you want me?” you ask, the silence that follows after it being an accumulation of the ones you’ve had to spent alone when he rejected you. “I can’t be the background noise in your life, Yoongi. Not anymore. Y-yes, I know there are soulmates that are meant to be platonic but I don’t want that,” you stress, the tears springing to your eyes. “I can’t have that.”

It’s an ultimatum you didn’t know you would ever make at all.

“It’s either you have me as your soulmate or you don’t have me at all,” you say in strength, your thumb hovering about the ghost of his initials on your finger. “I can’t stand being your friend anymore.”

“You’d throw that away?” Yoongi croaks, taken aback. “You’d throw that– us away after all this time?”

“I would.”

“Your initials are still on my finger,” he reminds, sniffling as he pushes his hair back. This can’t be. You seriously can’t be posing this ultimatum to him, one that would determine both his present and future.

“Yours aren’t on mine,” you shot back. The lump on your throat is far too large to even swallow, each breath you take making it harder for you. “For the love of god, Yoongi, can you not deflect?” 

Yoongi’s the most panicked that he’s ever been in his life and in your surprising and rarely selfish nature, you don’t even pause.

“This is a big decision, Y/N! Can’t you please just give me some time to think?”

“No. You’ve had enough time to think when you’ve been stringing me around for years.”

The hurt that bubbles up in Yoongi comes like a riptide, unsuspecting yet just as devastating. There’s no pause between his words, much too smooth and articulate for someone who’s as panicked as he is now. They’ve stayed at the tip of his tongue before and lingered in the back of his mind even longer.

“I can’t think because I’m not sure about you, Y/N! I’m not sure if I’ve always kept you around because I want us to be more like soulmates than we are as friends,” he sobs. “I don’t know if I can love you how you love me.”

The liquid hurt in Yoongi’s bones solidifies but yours evaporates. It should hurt for you — you know that it should pain you the most now. You wait and you wait for the hiss before the sting but it doesn’t come. 

The weight lifts off from you instantly and you don’t even know why or how it happens. Whatever it was though, you let it carry your burdens for you. You only painfully nod, leaving Yoongi in your own house.

Yoongi can’t love you the way you love him — it’s the answer you’re looking for now, and it’s the same answer you swallowed down when you first professed your love for him years ago. 

.

.

.

Jimin didn’t expect you to report back to him this quickly and this late at night to say the very least, his sleepiness being pushed back when you stand at his door.

You slur the words but you’re not even drunk with alcohol. You’ve walked the long way to Jimin in order to take off your mind from your fight with Yoongi but there was just something n your system, one that made you even forget who you were fleeing.

There’s no Yoongi that comes into your mind during your walk, in fact, you were starting to think that the name didn’t even make sense to you because you couldn’t put a face to it. All you knew was where you’re going and who you were going to — only Jimin.

The more you walked and the more you came closer to Jimin, it was only him that filled your mind. In fact, you didn’t even know where you came from at this point, the details a blur in your head except for Jimin who’s standing in front of you.

“It worked. He bought it.”

It’s the last words that Jimin heard from you before you quite literally froze up, eyes closing solemnly despite standing upright until you open them again, the glaze behind it shining brighter the more you looked at him.

“Jimin, my love,” you drawl, squealing in delight as you launch yourself to him in a hug. “What a handsome soulmate I have.”

Jimin flushes at the realization, frozen in his position as he only puts his hand at the small of your back, patting you in comfort.

He needs some pen and paper, his notes, and the brainpower to calculate his next decision.

( ♡ )

Yoongi makes no move to drive himself home.

He doesn’t even have the willpower to leave from where you left him, his knees giving in to situate himself on the couch where he could sink further in his self-loathing. He has half the mind to recognize that you need the space, especially tonight, even if it means leaving the comfort of your own home because he (your demise) was there.

He doesn’t know anything, other than the fact that he’s repulsive and he wants nothing more than to go seek you but he doesn’t know where he should start; if you would even want to see him in the event that he finds you.

He considers calling your phone and at this point, he’d be contented even with the line ringing or you declining. Yoongi stays rooted in your house as a placeholder that he doesn’t even know you would be acclimated to having, stuck in the very space with no purpose at all.

He’s waiting for either you or a miracle and both revolve around him being able to see you for just one more time, then another, then again and again after so. He’s waiting for you and only you, and he didn’t even think you would come through the door in first place — much more with someone else.

The door beeps open and Yoongi launches himself from where he sat, his stance protective the moment his eyes land on you and Jimin.

The guy is just as shocked to see Yoongi of all people, lips parted open in surprise. Jimin’s just about to ask Yoongi what the hell he’s doing here in the first place but he’s cut off when you grumble against his neck, forgetting momentarily that you were clinging to him by the hip the whole time.

“What are you doing with Y/N?” Yoongi questions, taking large steps towards the both of you. There’s practically smoke coming off from the top of his head, his fists clenched at his sides,

“Taking her to her room, obviously,” Jimin scoffs, attempting to dodge past Yoongi with you in tow but to no avail, the latter’s arm outstretched.

“She’s drunk.”

“She’s not,” Jimin insists, punctuating his desperation.

He moves past Yoongi this time but he doesn’t get far at all, his arm being wrung tightly. His hand awaits on your back out of instinct, the whiplash putting the both of them on edge.

“Hey, buddy, Y/N’s drunk.”

Jimin groans, prying Yoongi’s hand off him just as easily as he clamped it. “She’s not drunk! Not in that way, atleast,” he mutters, putting you closer to his chest that sets off Yoongi further. “Just back off.”

“What do you mean not in that way?” Yoongi bursts, his vision darkening. He sets out a hand once again to get you away from Jimin, his hold on you much gentler. “Asshole. I said don’t-…”

“She’s drunk, but not actually drunk!” Jimin caves, pinching his nosebridge but not before swatting away Yoongi’s hand. The latter belatedly realizes that Jimin’s not even holding onto you to keep you steady, it was purely you clinging to him. Jimin can’t put it into proper, technical terms because he’s always known that Yoongi isn’t his equal ever since high school, dumbing it down the best as he could that it physically makes him shudder.

“She’s drunk… in love.”

“What?” Yoongi squints, his face contorted into confusion and disbelief at the same time. “Are you high?”

“I’m not high. I mean it!” he groans, throwing his head back. He looks at you while you slip in and out of consciousness, his thumb underneath your chin to get you to look up. “Y/N’s literally drunk in love.”

You being attached to Jimin doesn’t make sense. What Jimin’s saying now isn’t making sense. You immediately coming to your ex, Jimin, after your fight with him doesn’t make any sense. None of everything that’s happening is making sense and Yoongi’s head is bound to erupt any time, the migraine forming in his temples giving Jimin a smaller window to explain.

“My friends and I made this drug for our company’s upcoming breakthrough and Y/N volunteered to try it out.”

“You drugged her?!” Yoongi yells, eyes wide and furious.

“I think you have selective hearing,” Jimin grits, offended at the insinuation. “It’s this drug that’s supposed to temporarily desensitize you to your soulmate, okay? It worked because clearly your initials are gone from her.”

None of them should be making sense but it does. It scares Yoongi that this whole thing could be condensed down to an explanation because it only makes it much more real; much more vulnerable.

“So I’m still her soulmate?” he asks with a lump on his throat, his rage simmering down back into sadness.

“Yeah, unfortunately,” Jimin snorts, running a hand through his hair. “It’d last for a week but we have yet to know all of the possible side effects,” he kisses his teeth, going through his internal checklist. “So far, we found out that although it desensitizes a person towards their soulmate,” he trails, perhaps a little bit amused if he was saying the truth. “They cling to the first person they see.”

How awful, Yoongi thinks.

“Y/N’s drunk in me,” Jimin announces with a grin. “She thinks I’m her soulmate.”

You’re waking up little by little and Jimin figures that your unconsciousness is only temporary and a one-time thing, considering that you’re back to trying to entangle all of your limbs with him in an eager embrace.

“Snap out of it, Y/N,” Yoongi says outloud to you, completely disregarding that Jimin’s still in the room.

He even makes a move to try and pull you away from him but to no avail, his interruption only making you raise an eyebrow at him. You look at Yoongi from afar despite being near and it’s haunting, the tilt in your head giving your sentiments away.

“Who are you?” you question genuinely, brows furrowed slightly. You turn back to the person you know most in this room at the moment, who’s none other than Jimin. “Who’s he, Jimin?”

“You don’t know this guy?” he questions, his mind computing rapidly.

“Not at all,” you confirm, not sparing a single glance back at Yoongi.

There’s a tense silence because all that Yoongi could hear now is the fuzz in his brain and the pulsing of his heart, his chest deflating in anguish.

“You promise me? You don’t know this guy at all?” Jimin confirms to you once more, assessing you deeply.

“I promise. I’d never lie to you,” you say with a frown, both of the guys knowing that from your tone alone, all you’re saying is the truth.

Jimin takes it down quickly, his tone more somber and less hostile than before.

“That’s another side effect then. Not only can it desensitize, but it also makes you forget about your soulmate completely.”

The two of them are talking as if you’re not in the room with them but it doesn’t make a difference otherwise because you’re only focused on Jimin, your eyes all endeared just by the silhouette of him alone.

Yoongi can’t will his mind to focus on just one thing, his frustration coming off as a strangled yelp.

“You’re shitting me! Make an antidote or something!”

“We still have to wait out the whole week.”

“It’s like you’re just asking me to slap you!” he grits, hand outstretched already yet retreating when Jimin mocks him in return, pointing at you whose head is turned from Yoongi. Of course, you think Yoongi’s your soulmate — of course you’d shower him with affection.

“Can you guys be any louder? I wanna sleep. Please take me to bed,” your attention’s only turned to Jimin, the guy nodding earnestly.

He’s about to coax you into your room when a voice cuts into the air, an eager tap being placed on your shoulder.

“I’m Yoongi.”

You look back at the guy who introduced himself, a smile on his face that doesn’t quite reach his eyes but looks like he’s just begging to be given a sliver of attention.

You don’t mind him though.

“Hi, Yoongi,” you curtly respond, turning your back on him. “Take me to bed, Jimin.”

( ♡ )

Your vocabulary’s not affected by Jimin’s experiment at all, except for the fact that the word you utter most is his name and barely Yoongi’s.

He neither came home nor went to sleep, his mind not being granted even a single second of rest because all he can think about how this is only a mere, flawed glimpse of what you would be like if he wasn’t your soulmate anymore and it’s terrifying. It puts goosebumps onto his skin and instills the fear of fate on him, obvious by the way he’s only been functioning long enough for the past hours for the sake of reliving the same alternate reality again and again.

You come out of your room and there’s still that same dazed look on your face, eyes less crazed but more yearning. Yoongi awaits any reaction from you that would lead him to think everything that’s happened in the last 24 hours is only a figment of his imagination.

It’s early in the morning but the sorrow from the evening already hits you through a frown, your eyes darting everywhere.

“Where’s Jimin?” you ask, shaking your head. “Why am I still here?”

“You live here,” Yoongi answers, keeping his hands to himself. He begrudgingly makes the internal note to relay your momentary forgetting to Jimin later even if talking to him is the last thing he’ll ever want to do.

You gasp then, eagerly nodding your head because that one piece of information definitely traces back to you. “Oh, right,” you nod, your lip curling once again. “Why are you here?”

Yoongi’s not sure how he should answer that.

He’s unsure if he should answer that he’s here and stayed the night because he was worried sick about you after your fight, almost driven to passing out in overwhelm especially when Jimin brought you home.

He doesn’t know if he should say that in your home because it’s only rational since you’re soulmates, and that he dislikes being alone, and that being with you calms him down an infinite amount; if he could just skim over the fact that you barely have any recollection of him and will continue to do so for the next week.

Yoongi can’t determine to whether or not he should tell you that he wants to spend every second with you because should be the precursor for you to believe that you don’t want him anymore, he’s left with a memory of you, no matter how painful.

“Because I live here too,” he says a half-truth, trailing off in remembrance of you nagging him to go back to his house.

“We live together?” you question once again, your face contorted in confusion. “Why?”

You don’t even mean malice with it and Yoongi knows that exactly, the bit of realization even more painful because he knew that you would question him with snark and tears otherwise. In your foggy, Jimin-centric brain, it doesn’t make sense why you and Yoongi practically live together.

Because we’re soulmates, he wants to answer.

It’s the same question he asks himself because he doesn’t know how you let him either — when in reality, he already knows why and it’s because you love him. The even bigger question is if he was even deserving of you.

“Because we wanted to,” Yoongi leaves it at that, clearing his throat as he pushes a plate towards you that he put together on short notice. “Here’s breakfast. This is your favorite.”

You don’t even move to thank him curtly, head tilting in curiosity. You have all the questions yet he doesn’t know if he has all the answers, his heart hurting whichever way he addresses you.

“But why do we want to live with each other?” 

“Because we care for each other.” (Read: because we’re soulmates and because we’ve been friends and soulmates our whole lives and I don’t ever see us parting.)

You nod at Yoongi’s brief answer, stuck in staring off to space for a couple of seconds before you swallow down everything.

“Oh,” you hum somewhat satisfied. “You know where Jimin is?” you open a new line of questioning this time, tone picking up more. “Do we live with him or is it just the two of us?”

Jimin’s testing out his method of withdrawing himself this time, living out the remainder of the week by not making any contact with you and assigning Yoongi to report back to him. He’s not even meant to say everything to you in technical terms, knowing that he has to make up lies the whole week regarding Jimin’s whereabouts.

It’s only and should be a simple, trivial question regarding your living situation but Yoongi can’t help the hiccup that builds in his chest, heart heavy with nothing he can do about.

“Just the two of us,” Yoongi mutters, tracing your initials on his finger discreetly. It was one of the things you did when you felt like confessing to him silently, eyes not even meeting each other’s for you to tell him that you love him. He’s desperate to have you do it to him again — pathetically and helplessly pleading for you to come back to him again. “Always just the two of us.”

.

.

.

Yoongi finds it admirable that you grow warmer to him by the night, nevermind that you’re not doing it for familiarity but rather to get closer to Jimin through him.

Not once does he leave your side whenever you stroll back out to thr living room, plopping onto the couch to eat dinner made by him to which you aren’t weirded about. You no longer inquired him why he’s here, just accepting his presence because the back of your mind tells you that you’re used to him in the first place.

“I miss Jimin,” he hears you sigh for the umpteenth time, an automatic rigid smile painted on his face. He doesn’t want to hear about him at all actually, however he’d do anything just to get you to keep talking in the event that it’s the last he’ll hear from you.

“You don’t say,” he hums, tuning out his name as he tries to pretend that it’s his instead.

You can’t distinguish the far relaxed nature to Yoongi’s intonations because after all, you barely remember any of him and his quirks for you to compare his attitude to. For all you know, he’s just a calm and calculating person that you know in your life, one whose eyes just can’t stop straying to his hands.

Yoongi doesn’t want to feel like he’s mourning but the feeling in his chest is akin to it anyway, something resembling repentance rising out of it from nowhere when you let your curiosity get the best of you.

You’re unfathomably upset because Jimin’s nowhere to be found. One second you’re sighing and at the other you become molten aluminum at thrashing just to see him.

It’s painful to see you like this and he tries his best to gather you to his arms to calm you down, shushing you to the best of his abilities that annoy you even further.

“I don’t want you! I want Jimin!”

“I’m the only one you have,” he says just as urgently, releasing you from his hold but you melt to him anyway, in a fit of tears with your hands covering your face.

It hurts to see you yearn for another person who isn’t him (read: your soulmate) and it hurts more to even grasp that this could’ve been your vignette the whole time that he’s been working, perhaps even the whole time that you’ve been pining after him.

“But I don’t wanna have you,” you enunciate with a sob that wracks your body yet destroy Yoongi’s core, his intake of breath being shallower the more that you refuse him.

“Can you find him for me please? Did I do anything wrong? Maybe he’ll respond to your texts.”

“You’ve never done anything wrong,” he comes to his sense just to scold you, eyes narrowing of why you could’ve conjured up such a thing.

“But I must’ve done something,” you whine. “Jimin doesn’t love me.”

“It’s impossible not to love you,” Yoongi interjects faster than the impulsive thought had formed in your brain, his eyes stern and promising. “Your soulmate must be the luckiest bastard in the world.”

You hear him once again but you can’t understand him, the words meaning nothing to you because you aren’t even sure of the level of relation you had with him before your memory became hazy.

“But my soulmate doesn’t even love me back!” 

You have him there, ironic that you’re going through the same situation twice. You’ve went through it with Yoongi for years genuinely, while you’ve been going through it with Jimin for five days because of an experiment.

“He loves you,” he says it in confidence and assurance, his hands unknowingly making their way to grip your shoulders for you to look at him when he’s speaking the truth. “He’s a conceited asshole and he’s really flawed, but he’s trying his best to love you more than you deserve,” his voice cracks briefly, clearing his throat. “Must be hard to swallow down the fact that the universe is too generous to him because he has you for a soulmate. He must feel like he’s the scum of the earth because he has the greatest, most lovable person in the world loving him, and he used to take it for granted.”

It’s warm. Too warm, too personal, and too familiar — and in your head, Jimin is the only person in your head who fills all three boxes.

“Jimin feels like that?”

“Hmm,” Yoongi agrees, lying easily. “He also hopes that it’s not too late.”

In a moment’s notice, he furthers the distance between the two of you as if the oddly-spurred passionate conversation the two of you had never happened.

Your memory’s not acting up when you remember that you came out to join Yoongi to talk about Jimin, but now, you wouldn’t believe yourself that it’s actually the reason you came out.

This time it’s you who reaches out for Yoongi, clearing your throat.

“Who’s that?” you point to his ring finger, eyes peeking at the initials. It’s just like yours, the irony of it making you giggle. “That’s not me, isn’t it?” 

“And if it was?” Yoongi asks, eyes still gentle but his voice much too mellow to the point that you’d think he isn’t breathing.

“I wouldn’t believe you,” you answer, carelessly shrugging.

Yoongi purses his lips and he knows he should stop prodding now because the last time he did, it ended with him driving you right into Jimin’s arms to experiment him out of your life. He can’t hold his tongue now, even when he knows he’s bound to suffer from himself anyway.

“Why not?”

“Because if that’s me, then I should be in love with you right now and not Jimin,” you trail, your tone reeking obviousness. It’s clear enough for you, atleast, but Yoongi takes nothing but murkiness from it.

“Hmm,” he hums, pointing to your hand. “Why do you love Jimin if his initials aren’t on your finger then?”

“You got me there,” you snort, the words unwilling to roll off easily from your mouth. In fact, nothing forms in your mind anyway, just a mere vision that you can discern yet not verbalize. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I just love him.”

It’s a confession that sets you apart from the soulmate that Yoongi knows, all before you had been desperate enough to desensitize yourself to his very existence.

“You can’t explain love?” he asks gently, eyes lowering down in thought.

“Can anybody?” you counter resignedly, the concept of just settling for the fact that there’s things that are unexplainable being enough for you.

Yoongi feels the most alive that he’s felt since the past day, the smile on his face being so nostalgic and sentimental to you for some reason that it momentarily makes you dizzy.

“My soulmate can. She’d profess her love for me every chance she gets. Would do it in all the ways she could find.”

You can explain love. You’re talkative and you always have the right words to say. You have the stubbornness in you that when put to its fullest power, puts his ego to shame. You have the convincing power of a company in you, one that has nothing to its name and only its very being to prove with.

You can put love into words and it’s daunting how you can condense everything you’ve ever felt for Yoongi into the many confessions you give him. In your loud drunken spiels all the way to your silent telepathic stints — you’re the embodiment of love. You can explain love and it makes sense because you would know your own.

“She sounds like a handful,” you murmur, brows furrowed to how Yoongi describes someone who’s clearly not on the same wavelength as he is with lovesick dedication in his face.

“She’s my handful though.”

“Does she come by here often then?” your brows raise, your headache throbbing the more that Yoongi speaks to you.

“You already know her,” Yoongi smiles tightly, looking right through you. He looks at you like he’s a dog that looks for its owner, ready to be at your beck and call. “I just don’t know if you can’t recognize her.”

“Show me a picture! Maybe it’ll jog my memory,” you offer enthusiastically, already knowing that you’re missing bits here and there but maybe seeing Yoongi’s soulmate would push you to remember faster.

“Maybe another time.”

Yoongi’s turned solemn, breathing shallowly as if he doesn’t want you to have a clue that you’re even seeing him right now.

“It’s just a picture! You looked like you were gonna cry when you were talking about her,” you pout, giving in eventually. “Aw, come on! You’re not sharing her?” 

“No,” he answers almost immediately, masking his certainty with an uneasy chuckle. “I hope not.” 

( ♡ )

You feel fuzzy.

Fuzzy in the sense that you remember clearly the two days you’ve lived but operated with your mind from afar; every interaction and every word crystal clear.

Fuzzy in the sense that it’s overwhelming, the good kind this time, but still overwhelming to the point that you have to take a breather outside of your apartment that feels suffocating to be in.

You’re five days ahead of schedule, the effect of the pill that was supposed to desensitize you to Yoongi and have other as drastic side effects being cut early.

It’s only relief that fills you when you walk out and hear Yoongi’s light snores in your guest bedroom instead of the living room, alleviating your momentary guilt at leaving this time — but only to give yourself the space to think, of course.

It’s only solace that envelopes you when you screw your eyes shut and look to your ring finger while you hold your breath, the consolation of seeing Yoongi’s initials still on there satiating you.

You’re not in your room and not even in the apartment at all. You’re not at the hallway and not even anywhere in your entire apartment complex. You’re not at the convenience store nearby where you typically go on walks just to take your mind off things and buy yourself snacks. He’s already checked and checked — Yoongi can’t find you anywhere.

He fears the worst. The absolute, most heartbreaking worst. He can’t even fathom where he got the strength to dial your number on his phone because he thought he would be faced with nothing, the proof that you’ve cut all ties with him by disconnecting completely.

Yoongi doesn’t know what possesses him when you answer easily on the second ring, your voice lighthearted.

“You’re wrong,” you hum. “Your apartment’s easy to break into just like mine.”

“Where are you?” Yoongi asks first amongst the other hundred questions he’s been dying to do so, the relief that fills him unable to be topped. You’ve just said your location but he still asks, hesitant that this may just be some cruel joke.

You stay quiet at your side of the line, looking around his place with a fondness you can’t even begin to start tackling.

“I’m at home.”

There’s nothing that comes to your mind besides the fact that it actually looks like your home. It resembles your home when you only had a mattress on the floor and no bedframe when you moved in, when you started sticking up pictures with tape that you didn’t know would ruin the walls, and when you finally found your sense of the style and had the finances and time to do it — it resembles your home all at the same time.

There’s several pictures of you and Yoongi together that line up the walls and the shelves, notes written behind them in your handwriting that you didn’t think he would keep.

Your parcels that he received with your name on it are all gathered near the doorway, the flyers of your favorite restaurants hung up by the fridge. Yoongi’s house looks more like your home and it almost brings you to tears.

He never noticed it, in fact. Hasn’t noticed the way that his definition of his home has shifted to your taste and how his definition of love turned into you. It had been gradually building through the years that Yoongi hasn’t stopped to figure that your home has become his, all to the point that he’s been living in it the whole time.

“I’m waiting,” you mutter as soon as you open the door to Yoongi who had ran all the way here in a frenzy, chest heaving up and down. “I’m waiting for you to make it up to me.”

“I’ll do that and more,” Yoongi nods in earnest and immediately leaps in to kiss you, finally feeling that you’ve given him the opportunity to breathe. 

He kisses you so endearingly that you’re surprised you haven’t done it before with him because the way he does so feels like second nature. He breathes you in until he feels like he can exhale, catching his breath as he settles his head to the crook of your neck.

“I was waiting for that too,” you snort, speaking at the same time as him.

“What I said that night-…”

“I remember,” you interrupt. “You’re not the scum of the earth, Yoongi, and I’m not the greatest person in the world either.”

“Whatever makes you sleep at night,” he rolls his eyes even if he knows a fool would see that you aren’t anything short of great. “I’m sorry for making you wait,” he apologizes, eyes flickering to yours. “But you don’t have to wait around for me anymore, okay?”

It’s a great mound of consolation that he’d be willing to trek over and over again if it means making up for everything he’s done.

“I can’t love you the way that you love me because nobody can compare to you,” he whispers, crossing his heart in promise. “But believe me, please, I’ll make up for all of the lost time and I’ll love you the best that I could.”

It’s a progress, a working one at that, wherein you’d meet Yoongi in the middle of.

“I can’t confess my love for you every two weeks-…”

“Oh shut up,” you roll your eyes, playfully attempting to break off his hug to which he doesn’t let you.

“Because that’s too spread out. I’ll do it everyday,” Yoongi finishes, the grin on his face pleasantly annoying.

“You’re the worst,” you weakly offer, letting yourself into the moment of vulnerability by abandoning your defenses.

“You’re sounding like me,” he laughs, pressing just one more kiss to your forehead.

You’re the universe’s reward to Yoongi for everything he’s ever done, the resounding desire in his whole being to just be the best he could ever be for you reverberating throughout his home and yours.