Coming Home (pt. 2)
Yoongi enters without knocking. Neon lights in the hallway tell him that somebody is still here fighting insomnia with the help of mechanical harmonies and steady rhythm. Maybe they're waiting for him. Jiho's message said that Runch Randa would be in studio 5. He goes down the hallway, eyes scanning over number plates on every door. In almost every studio, lights are turned off, his reflection all he can see on the surface of the glass doors. He's probably late, business meeting shouldn't occur in the dead hour of the night, but he wanted to leave Daegu as soon as possible. He needed to leave his old life behind.
That's why he persuaded Jiho to arrange this meeting. The older understood the words Yoongi didn't dare to say, he read between the lines, just like always, and laughed at the other end of the line. “It's about time you dragged your ass up here,” Jiho said before hanging up and Yoongi knew that he would never have to turn back.
He can hear music from the studio down the hallway, some unfamiliar track with a steady bass line. Yoongi likes the rhythm but not the transitions. They need polishing; they need more melodies. The beat suddenly drops, disappears in the cracks in the walls, gets lost in the floor boards.
Yoongi knocks on the doors of the studio number 5. When nobody answers, he pushes the door open. The guy sitting in front of a computer has his headphones on, his fingers are flying over the keyboard and Yoongi recognizes the familiar interface of the music software he, too, once used until he found a better one.
The guy stops working and silently curses whatever section of the song he edited too much. He reaches for the styrofoam cup, tries to take a sip from the empty cup. Yoongi can hear him laughing at his misery and getting ready to get up. He takes off his headphones. Yoongi watches in amusement as he struggles with the cables and tries to free himself; then the guy's turning around and Yoongi bites his lips to prevent the laughter bubbling in the back of his throat. His smile transforms to something oddly resembling a mocking grin.
The guy eyes him for a second before he says, “You're Jiho's friend, right?”
“Yes. And you must be Runch Randa?”
“You can call me Namjoon, unless you're a fan and all you want is my autograph or to take a selca with me,” the guy - Namjoon - says, laughing, his dimples showing, and Yoongi sighs.
“As if you're that popular.”
“Hey, I have my little fanbase -”
“Mostly made of teenage girls,” Yoongi says. He shouldn't be bickering with the guy he just met, he shouldn't be ruining his chances for success, but Namjoon is still smiling so maybe he didn't fuck everything up.
“Fans are fans,” Namjoon says. “Make yourself comfortable,” he gestures to the couch and stands up. Yoongi unzips his jacket, but doesn't take it off. He drops his bag on the floor and sits down facing Namjoon.
“Jiho said some good things about you,” Namjoon starts as he tosses the cup in the trash bin. “Were those just lies to make me stay up and wait for you?”
Yoongi frowns. He's fully aware of the fact that Jiho has big mouth. It got him into trouble before. “Depends,” Yoongi replies. “What did he say?”
“That you're the best producer to ever walk on the face of the Earth.”
Yoongi snickers. “That's not so far from the truth.”
“Really?” Namjoon asks. Yoongi can feel amusement in the tone of his voice. There's something else though; something underneath it that he can't quite name. “You have to convince me in that, umm...”
“Yoongi,” he supplies and Namjoon nods.
“Yoongi,” he repeats the name, splits the syllables, turns them inside out and tastes them on his tongue. “I don't believe every rumour I hear,” Namjoon says and Yoongi's already reaching for his bag, pulling his laptop out.
Two hours later, Namjoon's locking the front door of the studios. Yoongi's standing next to him, his hands tucked deep in his pockets. It's cold, his jacket is thin. The weather in Seoul is drastically different from the one in Daegu.
“Your songs are great,” Namjoon says as he checks the lock one last time before climbing the stairs.
“Thanks,” Yoongi replies, his breath puffs of white air, his lips quivering.
They walk in silence to the corner of the street. Dawn is approaching; the sky a shade lighter than it was when Yoongi first got here. A taxi drives down the street without stopping on the red light. Streets are empty save for the two of them.
It's about time to part ways. Namjoon listened to his songs, said he liked them. He even came up with few verses accompanying heavy beats. It turned out to be that Jiho was right after all. Namjoon owes him a favour, a big one. They'll work together, in the future, and Yoongi is okay with that.
“See ya,” Yoongi says, ready to turn around.
Namjoon says, “Do you need a place to crash?” and Yoongi raises his eyebrows.
“I mean,” and he tries to explain himself, “you just came here and hostels are probably full. No offense, but you don't seem like the person that will get a room in Hilton or some fancy hotel in downtown Gangnam.”
“I'm not a charity case, I'll manage,” Yoongi says, Namjoon shakes his head.
“I'm not Mother Theresa, I'm just offering you my couch for tonight.”
Namjoon comes home and he's taken up that corner of the couch again, face buried in the cushions and limbs splayed over the edges. His offer was out of question tonight, but there was no way Namjoon could have known that, not with the way Hoseok comes and goes.
The music pounding out of his headphones is stentorian in the soft squeeze of the silence, and the steady rise and fall of his back hardly discernible beneath the dark. His duffel bag sits half-open on the doormat. Namjoon kicks it in place beside the shoe rack and says, “I'm sorry, the place is a mess.”
Yoongi shrugs. He doesn't care; he's seen worse.
“Namjoon, you're late,” comes Hoseok's voice, muffled and flat, tired even. The TV is running on mute beside him. Dim lights coming from the screen are softening all edges but Hoseok's features. Hoseok pushes himself upright, looks at Namjoon and Yoongi. Before Namjoon can say anything, Hoseok's on his feet, smiling, just like always. His hair is a mess, sleep lines on his cheeks. His gaze stays locked on Yoongi.
“Yoongi, this is Hoseok, he -”
“He's going to bed now,” Hoseok cuts him off walking past them, bare feet against cold floor. “See you in the morning,” he says before shutting the door of a bedroom. Namjoon exhales the breath he wasn't aware he was holding in. Yoongi drops his bag next to Hoseok's, kicks off his shoes.
Namjoon turns up the volume of the TV, lets the foreign voices fill the silence between them.
“I'll get you a pillow and a blanket. And, Yoongi, I'm sorry...”
“For what? Your flatmate?”
Namjoon nods. There's nothing else he could say.
“It's okay. I'll be gone in the morning.”
Hoseok cuts the lemon in half. Acid burns his skin on places he picked on his cuticles, strong aroma of citrus fills the small kitchen and he squeezes one half in his tea. Bringing the cup to his lips, he leans on the counter and scans the kitchen.
Trash can is full of packages of instant noddles of all flavours and milk cartons. Namjoon forgot to take out the trash. The fridge was empty when he came to the apartment yesterday. He knew it'd be; that's why he stopped by the market near the metro station. He didn't buy much, some fruits and vegetables - things Namjoon usually avoids eating, things Hoseok nags him to eat.
A week has passed since he was home the last time; long enough to go to Busan and come back, short enough not to forget past. He's doing that again - coming back more often. A year has become few months, a month has been reduced to a week. Seven days to say “I'm sorry” and “I'm home”. Not enough time to move on, plenty of time to play hide and seek.
Lemon mixes with honey in chamomile tea, washing down his raw throat and Hoseok moves to the living room, turns on the TV. On mute - Namjoon's friend is still sleeping. He settles in a chair, pulls his knees up to his chest and watches some old black and white movie because it's too early for cartoons and vivid commercials. Around eight o'clock, Namjoon's friend stirs in his sleep and Hoseok tilts his head towards him.
“You awake?”
“Mhm,” comes as a muffled response. “What time is it?”
“Around eight.”
“Early.”
“Want some tea, Yoongi?” Hoseok asks and Yoongi turns around, blinks a few times before looking at Hoseok.
“How do you know my name?” he asks and Hoseok chuckles.
“Namjoon introduced us last night. Don't you remember?”
Yoongi frowns. “Not really. Sorry, man.”
“It's okay and it's Hoseok.”
For the next hour, they watch the movie. Hoseok doesn't turn the volume up, Yoongi doesn't ask him to. Traffic noise slips through the blinds, settles in the room. In the apartment above somebody is vacuuming while singing the latest trot hit off-key. Children are going down the stairs, screaming in the hallways about forgotten homework and lunch. Hoseok can hear a lady down the hallway cursing them. So, the old hag is still alive and healthy. Hoseok laughs. Memories flash behind closed eyelids, brush stroke of flamboyant red on black canvas, a reminder of one dreaded night when he was too young to be careful.
“What's so funny?” Namjoon says from the doorway while rubbing at his eyes, chasing sleep away. He's wearing an oversized washed-out grey tee, the same one he wore in high school, on performances and late night writing sessions when words refused to shut up inside his head. Wooden floor is cold under his bare feet.
“Nothing,” Hoseok says. There it is - the juvenile defiance and the certain transparency of adolescence glimmering in his eyes. It's like Hoseok will never grow old, forever stuck in the teenage search of great things and the desire to change the world - a superhero without a cape. Except Hoseok doesn't have powers, his feet are rooted to the ground and all he can do is to keep pretending things don't change and to run away. He does that, too often.
“Liar,” Namjoon says, moves to the couch where Yoongi makes him some room. He grabs the cup from the coffee table, takes a sip of Hoseok's tea and nearly spits it back in the cup.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Tea, and don't scrunch your nose like that,” Hoseok says, still smiling. There's no malice in his words when he adds, “or you'll end up with more lines on your face than the Moscow metro map.”
Namjoon makes a face and pushing the cup in Yoongi's hands, he says, “You try it and tell me that it doesn't taste like lemon-scented toxic waste.”
There, in a crowded living room of an apartment on the third floor of a building somewhere in Seoul suburbia, Yoongi gets caught in a crossfire between friends. Both of them are bickering, Namjoon too sleepy to fully process Hoseok's words, Hoseok in too good a mood to let any snarky remarks bother him. He feels out of place in this city made on glass foundations or maybe his knees are too weak to endure everything that life is throwing at him.
He should go - grab his bag, thank Namjoon for everything and search a room in one of those cheap hostels near the Central Station.
They made plans for working together; they could meet later in the studio and start recording. Personal life should remain personal; Yoongi has no desire in making friends for a lifetime. He's old enough to know that friends like that don't exist. He -
“I'll take that,” Hoseok's reaching for the cup. His fingers brush against Yoongi's - skin on skin. For a fleeting moment Yoongi looks in Hoseok's eyes, chocolate brown, warm and honest.
“Thanks,” he says and heads to the kitchen.
Namjoon's made himself comfortable on the couch, grabbed the remote control. He flips through the channels, stops for a moment on each; barely enough to get a grasp what the show is about.
“Don't mind him, Yoongi,” he says after a while. “Hoseok tends to bounce off the walls sometimes, but he never means the harsh words he says.”
Yoongi stares at the television screen. “He didn't say anything mean to me.”
“Really?” Namjoon breathes out. “Wow, that's something. So, you'll stay?”
“In Seoul? Yes,” Yoongi replies.
“No. Here.”
“You already have a flatmate.”
“Hoseok won't be here for much longer. Besides, we'll be working together. What if I need to talk to you in 3 am because I have this amazing idea for a song? It'd be rude to call in such an ungodly hour, and if you're here I could simply wake you up,” Namjoon says. Too much, too fast. He feels out of breath like his lungs are collapsing on themselves.
Hoseok will leave - that's a fact he hates facing. Hoseok will leave tomorrow morning without a goodbye. His bag is in the same place as last night. His shoes are the closest to the front door. The question is for how long. A month? A year or two or three or forever? If Namjoon were to be honest with himself, forever seems like the best option. That way he'd stop picking on scabs and the wound that only deepens every time Hoseok leaves, could finally start to heal.
“Which is less rude than calling me?” Yoongi's voice pulls him back to reality.
“Totally. So, what do you say?”
“I'll think about it.”
- - -
Yoongi's fourteen when he meets Jiho. In a back alley of their neighbourhood on the last day of school before summer break. His lips are busted, blood dripping to the dirty soil. His fingers are sticky with crimson red from the many times his wiped the blood from the corners of his lips. His school uniform is ruined. Luckily, he won't be wearing in for a few months.
There was a fight, between boys, ruled by the hate taught by adults. At times like this, Yoongi wishes that he could keep his mouth shut. Bite his tongue; swallow acidic sarcasm and provoking words. But his temper always gets the best of him and he fights, even when he's outnumbered, like now.
“Stupid son of a bitch,” one of the boys spits out.
Yoongi's ribs hurt, he's lost his breath.
“Bastard wants to defend his poor mummy. Cry, little bitch! That's the only thing you know how to do.”
The boys laugh, one of them kicks Yoongi in the stomach and he grits his teeth; taste of iron is strong in his mouth, his vision is blurred with pain and not tears. He won't cry.
“Let's go! C'mon,” Minseok says.
Yoongi can hear amusement in his voice. He feels superior ruling over a makeshift gang of boys, his dreams of being in charge coming true in a form of a hurt boy in front of him. But his victory isn't sweet. Action movies promised better fights, Crows Zero imprinted brutality in his dreams, violence in his mind. And all he got was an opponent who never begs for mercy no matter how many punches he gets. Minseok grabs his bag from the ground and turns around, the rest of the boys following him. With one last remark, curse words rolling of their tongues, they leave.
Noise from the nearby market fills his ears and Yoongi rolls on his back, closes his eyes and tries to come up with an explanation he could offer his mother. She'll fuss over him as always, put band-aids on shallow cuts while hot tears roll down her cheeks. She won't ask what happened but he'll try to come up with a believable excuse, promise her that this will be the last time. He'll lie.
“Handball game with no referee,” comes the voice somewhere behind him. “My mum always believes that.”
Yoongi opens his eyes, turns his head in the general direction of the voice. A boy is standing few feet away, one of the older boys Yoongi only ever saw in the neighbourhood, never at school. His uniform is navy blue, shirt pristine white, tie in place. A classic example of a good boy, if you ignore the smirk on his face.
“That was last week's excuse,” Yoongi says. He doesn't make an effort to get up, his limbs ache, the ground cold against his back. It rained last night; light summer rain to dissolve the humidity. “I need a new excuse.”
“Maybe I can help you. I'm good with hiding the truth,” the boy laughs.
“Lying, you mean.”
“That's harsh, man. What's your name?”
The boy moves closer, offers his hand. Yoongi grabs it and the boy pulls him up.
“Min Yoongi.”
“Oh... I know you. The old hags from my building don't seem to be able to get your family name out of their mouths.”
Yoongi tenses. Of course everybody knows. Some rumours never die. Even if they move from one part of the city to another, there will always be somebody spreading lies with a pinch of truth. Yoongi's supposed to bow his head, apologize for something he didn't do, walk around looking at the ground and not people's faces. But he can't do that.
“I guess it's even worse in your building,” the boy says and Yoongi spits on the ground. “But hey, in a few years you can move to Seoul. Nobody will know you there. Things can be really good in the capital.”
“As if...”
“What? You don't believe me, Yoongi?”
Yoongi kicks a stone with his foot. It flies in mid-air and hits the dumpster near the brick wall. “Not really. Besides, who do you think are you telling me what to do?“
“I'm Jiho,” the boy says throwing his arm around Yoongi's shoulders. “And soon I'll move up there and leave this shit place behind,” he grins as they walk out of the alley and back to the main street.
Yoongi is seventeen when Jiho packs his bags. With suitcases full of dreams and adolescent drive, he leaves Daegu. The only ones setting him off are his mother and Yoongi. She's holding Jiho's hands in hers, saying how proud she is, how he should call every week if he doesn't want her to come to Seoul and drag him back to Daegu by his ear. He smiles and promises that he'll make her proud.
Yoongi knows that Jiho will make it big; get his name out there, work hard and become a somebody. Jiho's talent is too big for Daegu; his lyrics are too brutal for peaceful neighbourhoods and people who only care for their well-being. Three years they spent together were enough for Yoongi to realize that his place will never be in academia - in a small cubicle of some worldwide corporation, white collar choking him, sucking the life out of him. Three years to fall in love with music; that reckless type of love when you ask for nothing in return.
Music mixed with his blood, bass lines a new heartbeat. Yoongi dived head first in production, in melodies, in synthetic beats and late night study sessions spent on writing music notes instead of math homework.
He turns twenty-one just as his world falls apart. He expected it to happen sooner than later, some dreams never last no matter how much effort you put into them.
His crew breaks apart, members are growing up, finally realizing that music career will only remain a sweet dream and that reality is a totally different thing, closer to an eight hour job in a factory in the outskirts of Daegu than to standing on big stages in front of the thousands of people.
The old studio they rented for few thousands won a month turns to a ghost house. Yoongi works on beats, knitting his dreams in soft melodies and deep bass as D Town decomposes. The only members left are him and Taehyung, who's sitting on the couch, playing with a basketball in his hands. At first he stays silent and just listens to Yoongi typing the lyrics of the last song they'll make together. Taehyung sighs and throws the basketball in the air. It's high enough to reach ceiling and fall back in his hands.
He says “My entrance exam is soon. I don't know how much free time I'll have once lectures start.”
“You're giving up,” Yoongi responds. A statement. Taehyung hears it as a question and bites his lower lip.
“I have other dreams besides becoming a rap star, even though that would be the best.”
“You think you can make them come true? Here? In Daegu?” Yoongi spins in his chair, turns away from the mixing pult to face Taehyung.
“Yeah, I guess. The uni isn't great, but it's not that bad either. Their music department is decent, I'll enrol there,” he shrugs. His indifference bothers Yoongi; his flat voice and weak words sting, like acid on fresh wounds, like million voices telling Yoongi that he'll end up the same. The next time he opens his mouth, Yoongi's voice is cold.
“You can have big dreams, Taehyung. I mean, really fucking big dreams. You can dream of the big houses on Hollywood Hills, the big cars like Porsche or Ferrari, the big rings made of gold and diamonds, but in the end you're here. In this fucking place with nothing but those unfulfilled dreams. Why? Because you're afraid to move away, you're afraid to fucking change, so you're telling yourself that you're great, you'll make it in that shitty music department. But Daegu is just a province. Nobody will recognize you as a real artist. Nobody from Seoul gives a shit about us, nobody will travel more than 100 miles just to hear your tracks and applaud you. You'll go nowhere. In four years, you'll get a low-paid job of a music teacher in some school, teach children to read notes and stuff your dreams in piles of homework and toss them in the garbage. In ten years, you'll have kids, tell them to dream big and follow their heart because you couldn't do it.”
Taehyung stands up, his cheeks are flushed, his hands are squeezing the ball until he snaps and throws it at Yoongi. He misses and the ball bounces of the wall and back in his arms. “What about you, Yoongi? You honestly think you'll make it big?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi smiles. “I'll leave this shit place and make it big. I won't be around here to play your best man and your kids' uncle Yoongi.”
When Taehyung leaves, Yoongi pulls his phone out of his pocket, scrolls through his contact list until he sees a familiar number.
After the third ring, Jiho picks up. Before he mumbles “Halo”, Yoongi says “Do you still want me to come?”
- - -
Hoseok paints a better life on the trains that pass through suburbia - tide of colour on a grey canvas, bold letters exposing injustice to the eye of a curious passer-by. His palms are nothing but a map of metro lines. His fingers are covered with paint, rust, and unspoken wishes of a lost generation that kills time by tagging high-speed trains - a smudge of neon yellow moving in the speed of light.
Many young artists come and go - graffiti as a cultural one-night stand, a dare. They're used to brushes, brightly lit studios, and vast galleries. Their future as a student of K-Arts is already set in stone. A letter of expulsion getting caught with the crime of graffiti is out of question, the dreams and hopes of the entire family weighing them down, high expectations anchoring them until they sink too deep to be saved. Or maybe, Hoseok is the one who needs saving.
After skipping cram school, in pressed school uniforms and backpacks hanging off narrow shoulders, they ride the bus line 27 to the last stop and pretend that they're holding the world in their hands for a few hours. Control breaks from the tips of his fingers through the nozzle of the paint bottle.
That's how it starts.
That's how they start - with a jaded wall, sleeves rolled up to elbows and a promise to come back.
And Hoseok does come back, over and over again. Long after Namjoon gave up on street art and replaced a spray paint can with a pen; long after he learned to bleed through words and not pictures. But memories remain. Like pieces of fine art conserved for future generations.
“We'll get caught,” Namjoon muses over a can of lukewarm beer. He's sitting on a low wall that was once in the foundations of the old train station and that is now waiting its turn to be demolished completely. Hoseok doesn't stop painting, but Namjoon can hear his laughter from where he's sitting. Loud and crystal clear in the silence of the night.
“I'm not joking, Hoseok. And then we'll be expelled-”
“And your ranking will hit rock bottom. Seoul's top student will face expulsion and the world will end with Kim Namjoon having bad grades,” Hoseok laughs.
“It's not funny.”
“It is,” he retorts. “You're so keen on keeping that stupid title even though you regularly skip classes.”
“A true genius doesn't need lectures,” Namjoon says as he takes another sip. The warm beer tastes awful on his tongue but he still swallows it down.
“Yeah, right. That's why Einstein's wife did all calculations for him,” Hoseok says.
Bottle of red in his hand is empty, few drops of paint drip from his fingers to the ground. He turns around looking for his duffel bag.
“Hey, how do you know that?” Namjoon asks and Hoseok opts in throwing the empty can at him.
“Average grades don't automatically make me an idiot,” he answers. He leans on the wall, plays with the empty can and observes what he's made.
It's far from perfect, the explosion of colours on the wall, an entangled mess of ideas and failures, a lot of maybe's and second guesses. It's his third graffiti on a real wall and not on the pages of his notebooks. There's insecurity in bleeding red and not enough white; shaky fingers and sloppy lines.
Hoseok snatches the drink from Namjoon and takes a sip. Namjoon's feet sway in the rhythm only he can hear, his fingers tapping the bass lines on his thighs.
“This is awful,” Hoseok says disgusted.
“What did you expect?” Namjoon asks. He sounds amused.
“Something better. If the minors are forbidden to drink it, I expected some fucking explosion of pleasure in my mouth and not this.”
At this Namjoon cracks up. Shoulder-shaking, whole-body laugh. Hoseok has no idea what Namjoon finds funny, even if he's wearing the same grin himself. He pushes the can back in Namjoon's hands and for a fleeting moment their fingers touch. Namjoon's hands are cold, Hoseok's are so warm that they leave burning sensations on Namjoon's skin. It's odd, this contrast.
Hoseok pulls away. Namjoon's fingers curl around the beer can.
“What's so funny?” Hoseok asks, eyes fixed on the sloppily drawn lines on the wall.
“The fact that you'd rather get arrested for drinking as a minor and not for vandalizing public property.”
- - -
In December, Seoul is cold, and cold, and cold. Snow has covered the streets by the time they leave the apartment and Namjoon curses winter under his breath as they wait at the bus stop. Yoongi types a message to Jiho saying that he's in Seoul and that everything went well. A reply comes minutes later when they've occupied the last empty seats in the bus.
13:25 zico is namjoon being a dick to you?
13:27 minsuga not yet. why?
13:28 zico nothing. have fun working
13:30 minsuga its something. hyung, tell me
13:33 zico its nothing, i swear. may my cat die if im lying
13:36 minsuga you dont have a cat
13:37 zico not the point
“Come on,” Namjoon says and Yoongi looks up from his phone. “It's our stop,” he stands up and heads to the doors. Without replying to the last message, Yoongi follows suit.
In daylight, Hongdae looks like any other Seoul neighbourhood. Stores selling everything from make-up to high-tech gadgets line the streets instead of trees. Everything's buried under concrete and snow; only during the night can milky lights give magical feeling to Hongdae that is seen in TV commercials.
Namjoon guides Yoongi through narrow streets, taking advantage of every shortcut he knows. It's freezing and he has no desire to stay outside any longer than it's needed.
Once they arrive at their destination, they find the studios empty. Namjoon guesses that everybody decided to spend their day lying around lazily on the couch instead of trudging through the snow. Maybe he should have done that that as well but Yoongi's tracks left a foreign feeling creeping up his spine that he couldn't shake off and he can already taste lyrics on his tongue.
“You can use studio 3,” Namjoon says and Yoongi nods. “Everything's at your disposal.”
Studio 3 has burgundy walls decorated with black and white photographs - replicas of popular street art. All furniture is black, equipment in tones of grey and white. It has no windows; the lights on the ceiling resemble the night sky.
Namjoon makes himself comfortable on the leather couch while Yoongi gets accustomed to the studio. His studio. Not the makeshift studio in the basement of a run-down building in Daegu where air is stale and walls grey; not his friend's bathroom with seemingly good acoustics.
“I'm all yours, producer Yoongi,” Namjoon says after Yoongi has sat down in a chair in front of the mixing pult. The controls feel odd under his fingers. Not foreign, simply odd.
“It's Min PD,” he responds with a hint of a smile on his lips.
- - -
In late afternoon, Hoseok comes to the studio. He struggles with the doors for few seconds balancing Chinese take-out and three cups of steaming hot coffee in his hands. It's still snowing, a few flakes melt on his eyelashes when he steps in the hallway and warmth envelopes him. He's not sure which studio Namjoon is in. Years have passed since the last time he was here, but he remembers Namjoon liking the odd numbers and so he decides to try his luck.
Studio 1 is locked. Through the glass doors of the studio 7 on the opposite wall he can see contours of the recording equipment in faint light.
He's lucky with studio 3 and when he pushes the door open, he startles Yoongi.
"Sorry, my bad," Hoseok sheepishly apologizes as he enters and slams the door shut behind him.
In the recording booth, Namjoon finishes his verse and takes off the headphones. Hoseok can hear the music as bass matches his heartbeat and higher tones pierce the stagnant air before Yoongi turns it off.
"Am I interrupting?" Hoseok asks when Namjoon returns to the studio. Namjoon's lips are pulled upwards, a smile.
"No, we were finishing up," he responds. "Why are you here though?"
"Did I miss the "Hoseok not allowed" sign somewhere?" Hoseok laughs, white teeth and heart shaped lips. His bangs are falling in his eyes; the snowflakes caught in the hood of his jacket have melted. Warmth is creeping up through his numb fingertips.
"No, it's just," he halts, scratches the back of his neck, "you never come here."
"I brought Chinese?" Hoseok lifts the white plastic bag in his hand. "And coffee. No sugar and extra cream for you, and a regular one for Yoongi since I didn't know how he likes it?" His smile falters, insecurity slips between syllables and turns his words to questions. Namjoon has no answers to unsaid questions still lingering at the tip of Hoseok's tongue.
Yoongi stands up, crosses the distance between him and Hoseok, takes the coffee container from him. He says, "Thanks, I really needed it, any would do."
"Yours is the one with-"
"- the green sticker?"
Hoseok nods.
The first sip Yoongi takes is hot and bitter; it burns his tongue before he swallows it. The coffee is strong; its scent fills the air when he lifts the lid to add some sugar to it. Luckily, Hoseok brought it with him from the coffee shop.
Namjoon clears the coffee table in front of the couch; throws last summer's magazines in the trash bin. Hoseok grabs a cushion and sits on the floor. He sheds off his jacket and asks, "How's coffee? I really didn't know what you like, Yoongi, so..."
"It's good. Thanks."
"You're welcome," he says diverting his attention to Namjoon.
It's awkward, the small talk. Politeness distorts his voice, reminds him of all formalities, dress codes, do's and dont's, of school and strict teachers, even worse parents. But the silence is deafening, heavy, pulling him down through floor board cracks.
"What were you recording?" Hoseok asks.
Namjoon looks up from his noodles, chewing slowly before answering. "Yoongi-hyung's track. It'll set HipHopPlaya on fire once we release it. We'll wipe the floor with those new rappers who think they're the next big thing, especially that B-something guy. I'll bury all of them, deep deep under."
"Yoongi-hyung?" Hoseok chuckles and Namjoon realizes that not a word of everything he said has been heard. "You're older than us?"
Yoongi points his chopsticks at Namjoon and says, "I'm older than him."
Hoseok doesn't stick around for much longer once they go back to recording. Yoongi is focused on the track; on every change of rhythm no matter how small. Namjoon's engrossed in his lyrics. his voice fills the studio, it rises and falls, cracks at right syllables, swallows some others.
When clock strikes 6 pm, Hoseok gets up, and puts on his jacket. He collects all garbage in the plastic bag leaving Namjoon's unfinished coffee and a napkin behind.
On the napkin, there's a monochrome drawing, done in leftover coffee, of Namjoon behind the mic and Yoongi monitoring him in deep brown. The lines are remarkably sloppy but set with the natural ease.
Sometimes Hoseok forgets and leaves things behind.
- - -
They were 13 when they met. Namjoon was something close to a local celebrity back then. Young and ambitious, top of his class. Every mother wanted a son like him, every father scolded his son for not being like him - in the top 1% of the nation's smartest kids. His parents sent him to Seoul for studies when he received the scholarship for a prestigious private school. Their dreams were coming true, their son would become a somebody. The place he moved in - a two bedroom apartment - was only few blocks away from where his aunt lived with her family and Namjoon was never lonely.
Hoseok was failing math back then. It was outrageous that the son of the principle of Seoul University and Korea's most beloved TV host had grades barely tipping on average.
The truth of the matter was that his mother only smiled on TV screens and magazine covers and that his father only cared for GPA of his students and the recognition his university was bound to get. It was pure luck that Namjoon was assigned as his tutor and not that girl who was a huge fan of his mother's show.
The first time Namjoon had come to Hoseok's house was the day Korea was playing Japan on TV. The small boy who opened the door had the Korean flag painted on his cheeks and a cheering slogan in his hands and before Namjoon had the chance to utter a single word, the boy screamed "hyung, your friend is here". He ran back inside leaving Namjoon at the doorstep. He waited for few moments before Hoseok appeared.
"Sorry about Jimin, the game just started," he said with a smile.
As he waited for Namjoon to take off his shoes, Hoseok said "Thank you for coming, but I don't think we'll be doing math today. You're welcome to stay and watch the game with us, though."
And Namjoon stayed. Maybe to get to know the boy whose name he kept on hearing since he came to the school, and maybe because all his friends were miles away.
They were fifteen when they kissed, in a back alley near the train station with the graffiti drying on the wall behind them. The summer night was humid, air heavy in their lungs. Sound of freight trains arriving in the station echoed in the night. Hoseok's wifebeater was covered with drops of paint; his cheeks had a trace of green and yellow on them, and mischief glistening in his eyes. Namjoon sat on the wall, talking on and on about trivial things until Hoseok decided it was enough.
It happened during Namjoon's obsession with Bukowski's poetry and everything that broken words carried. As imperfect as they were, they resounded in his mind over and over again.
“Find what you love and let it kill you,” the old man said. “Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.”
And Namjoon believed him. It was easier letting what you love kill you than finding your dreams under the starless sky.
And during this time, these turbulent years when identity slipped through thin fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass, Hoseok fell in love with typography and street art because it was unwritten rule that every spoiled child of successful parents needed to be a rebel, fight the system and do absolutely everything that was against the rules. Graffiti was a perfect way to pretend to be free in a concrete cage.
Their first kiss was not sweet, not filled with naive romanticism straight out of Meg Cabot's books. It was nothing like the teenage movies said it would be. Their noses bumped, their palms were sweaty. Namjoon's lips were chopped and dry, Hoseok's teeth sharp on his bottom lip.
Hoseok burst out laughing in the middle of the kiss.
"Shut up! You're ruining the moment," Namjoon hissed and Hoseok laughed even louder.
"What moment?" he asked.
"This!"
"Mosquitoes drinking all my blood?" Hoseok joked but Namjoon didn't find it funny.
"Shut up, Jung Hoseok."
"Never, Kim Namjoon," Hoseok shook his head but didn't protest when Namjoon pulled him closer and shut him up with a kiss.
Their sweet sixteen was just around the corner when they were caught making out.
The elevator in the building where Namjoon lived was out of function and all hallways were dimly lit. They stumbled up the stairs; Namjoon guiding Hoseok in the dark. Before they reached the apartment, Hoseok pulled him closer and kissed him under the faint lights. His hands were hot against Namjoon's skin, his lips tasted like the cake they ate on Donghyuk's birthday earlier that evening; sweet with a hint of chocolate. He pushed Namjoon against the wall before he managed to unlock the apartment door; kissed him with no traces of remorse or guilt. Namjoon gave in. He always gave in when it came to Hoseok.
Hoseok smiled into the kiss, nibbled on Namjoon's bottom lip. Namjoon tried to free himself; tried to reach his apartment. With Hoseok's body pressed against his own, he stumbled in the dark, nearly losing his balance and Hoseok couldn't help but laughing. His laughter echoed in the silence, bounced off the walls and before they could escape, the nearest door opened and an old lady came outside. No excuses they offered could convince her that what they were doing wasn't something she'd consider “amoral”.
One night, one slip, was enough for rumours to start spreading. From one mouth to another they travelled through suburbs until they reached Hoseok's mother.
"It's amazing how open-minded and accepting you are," said the make-up artist as she applied sky blue eye shadow to Mrs. Jung's eyelids. Her show was about to start in less than 5 minutes, the last check-ups were in progress. Her mind was clouded with a million questions she needed to ask today's guest.
"Thank you," she replied out of courtesy.
"If my son were gay, I don't know how I'd accept it," the make-up artist continued, her high voice louder than all noise surrounding them.
Hoseok's mother swatted away the brush and opened her eyes. "Excuse me?"
"Well, I've heard that your son is gay and I think that you're very brave-"
"Get out," she snapped and the make-up artist vanished from her sight.
One week later, Hoseok came back to a silent apartment.
It was weird, without Jimin welcoming him at the entrance, without that high-pitched voice and bubbly laughter Hoseok adored. He kicked off his sneakers; dropped his school bag next to the shoe rack. Nobody but Jimin was usually home at this hour and soft murmur of voices coming from the living room surprised Hoseok.
His father was sitting in the armchair in a pressed dark blue suit and a pristine white shirt, the thin rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. His eyes followed his wife as she paced around, mumbling something under her breath. Wrinkles formed around her eyes every time she frowned, revealing her real age. Gone was the bubbly TV host everybody adored.
She heard when the front door opened and knew that Hoseok was finally home. A wicked smile graced her features as she moved closer to the hallway. When he entered the living room, she slapped him.
"How dare you?" she hissed, venom in her words, despise in her eyes, "How dare you embarrass us like this?"
"Yoona, please, ..." his father tried to speak but he was cut off.
"Don't you 'Yoona' me. You're a disgrace to our family, Hoseok," she screamed.
"Mother, I don't understand," Hoseok said. His cheek was burning; his body felt odd. He saw rage, anger but not disappointment in his mother's eyes. To be disappointed in somebody, you have to love them. She never did that. She loved him on the covers of family magazines and in interviews about her life, while the cameras were still turned on.
"You don't understand?" she asked. "Why don't you ask your sweet little boyfriend?" she barked out. "Did you think that we wouldn't find out, Hoseok? Did you think that we're blind?"
"Mother, I can explain," he said desperately, taking a step closer to her, lifting his hands. His mother grabbed the vase from the coffee table, but before she could throw it, her husband stood up and grabbed her hands.
"That's enough. Go to your room, Hoseok," he ordered and Hoseok obliged.
Even with the door of his room shut, he could still hear his mother's screams telling him to disappear. And so he did.
When Hoseok appeared on Namjoon's doorstep that evening with red eyes and tears rolling down his cheeks, Namjoon didn't ask questions; he just pulled Hoseok in his embrace and closed the door.
Jung Yoona's scandal never happened.
The make-up artist was given a large sum of money to keep her mouth shut, the rumours died at the tip of idle housewives' tongue. Her older son still attended the elite private school, all his expenses were covered with the money from a bank account specially created for the purpose of Hoseok never having to meet his mother again. He was living with his friends, trying to get accustomed to the life he'd lead as a university student, was the answer she gave to every news reporter that had asked her about her son.
( pt. 3)
That's why he persuaded Jiho to arrange this meeting. The older understood the words Yoongi didn't dare to say, he read between the lines, just like always, and laughed at the other end of the line. “It's about time you dragged your ass up here,” Jiho said before hanging up and Yoongi knew that he would never have to turn back.
He can hear music from the studio down the hallway, some unfamiliar track with a steady bass line. Yoongi likes the rhythm but not the transitions. They need polishing; they need more melodies. The beat suddenly drops, disappears in the cracks in the walls, gets lost in the floor boards.
Yoongi knocks on the doors of the studio number 5. When nobody answers, he pushes the door open. The guy sitting in front of a computer has his headphones on, his fingers are flying over the keyboard and Yoongi recognizes the familiar interface of the music software he, too, once used until he found a better one.
The guy stops working and silently curses whatever section of the song he edited too much. He reaches for the styrofoam cup, tries to take a sip from the empty cup. Yoongi can hear him laughing at his misery and getting ready to get up. He takes off his headphones. Yoongi watches in amusement as he struggles with the cables and tries to free himself; then the guy's turning around and Yoongi bites his lips to prevent the laughter bubbling in the back of his throat. His smile transforms to something oddly resembling a mocking grin.
The guy eyes him for a second before he says, “You're Jiho's friend, right?”
“Yes. And you must be Runch Randa?”
“You can call me Namjoon, unless you're a fan and all you want is my autograph or to take a selca with me,” the guy - Namjoon - says, laughing, his dimples showing, and Yoongi sighs.
“As if you're that popular.”
“Hey, I have my little fanbase -”
“Mostly made of teenage girls,” Yoongi says. He shouldn't be bickering with the guy he just met, he shouldn't be ruining his chances for success, but Namjoon is still smiling so maybe he didn't fuck everything up.
“Fans are fans,” Namjoon says. “Make yourself comfortable,” he gestures to the couch and stands up. Yoongi unzips his jacket, but doesn't take it off. He drops his bag on the floor and sits down facing Namjoon.
“Jiho said some good things about you,” Namjoon starts as he tosses the cup in the trash bin. “Were those just lies to make me stay up and wait for you?”
Yoongi frowns. He's fully aware of the fact that Jiho has big mouth. It got him into trouble before. “Depends,” Yoongi replies. “What did he say?”
“That you're the best producer to ever walk on the face of the Earth.”
Yoongi snickers. “That's not so far from the truth.”
“Really?” Namjoon asks. Yoongi can feel amusement in the tone of his voice. There's something else though; something underneath it that he can't quite name. “You have to convince me in that, umm...”
“Yoongi,” he supplies and Namjoon nods.
“Yoongi,” he repeats the name, splits the syllables, turns them inside out and tastes them on his tongue. “I don't believe every rumour I hear,” Namjoon says and Yoongi's already reaching for his bag, pulling his laptop out.
Two hours later, Namjoon's locking the front door of the studios. Yoongi's standing next to him, his hands tucked deep in his pockets. It's cold, his jacket is thin. The weather in Seoul is drastically different from the one in Daegu.
“Your songs are great,” Namjoon says as he checks the lock one last time before climbing the stairs.
“Thanks,” Yoongi replies, his breath puffs of white air, his lips quivering.
They walk in silence to the corner of the street. Dawn is approaching; the sky a shade lighter than it was when Yoongi first got here. A taxi drives down the street without stopping on the red light. Streets are empty save for the two of them.
It's about time to part ways. Namjoon listened to his songs, said he liked them. He even came up with few verses accompanying heavy beats. It turned out to be that Jiho was right after all. Namjoon owes him a favour, a big one. They'll work together, in the future, and Yoongi is okay with that.
“See ya,” Yoongi says, ready to turn around.
Namjoon says, “Do you need a place to crash?” and Yoongi raises his eyebrows.
“I mean,” and he tries to explain himself, “you just came here and hostels are probably full. No offense, but you don't seem like the person that will get a room in Hilton or some fancy hotel in downtown Gangnam.”
“I'm not a charity case, I'll manage,” Yoongi says, Namjoon shakes his head.
“I'm not Mother Theresa, I'm just offering you my couch for tonight.”
Namjoon comes home and he's taken up that corner of the couch again, face buried in the cushions and limbs splayed over the edges. His offer was out of question tonight, but there was no way Namjoon could have known that, not with the way Hoseok comes and goes.
The music pounding out of his headphones is stentorian in the soft squeeze of the silence, and the steady rise and fall of his back hardly discernible beneath the dark. His duffel bag sits half-open on the doormat. Namjoon kicks it in place beside the shoe rack and says, “I'm sorry, the place is a mess.”
Yoongi shrugs. He doesn't care; he's seen worse.
“Namjoon, you're late,” comes Hoseok's voice, muffled and flat, tired even. The TV is running on mute beside him. Dim lights coming from the screen are softening all edges but Hoseok's features. Hoseok pushes himself upright, looks at Namjoon and Yoongi. Before Namjoon can say anything, Hoseok's on his feet, smiling, just like always. His hair is a mess, sleep lines on his cheeks. His gaze stays locked on Yoongi.
“Yoongi, this is Hoseok, he -”
“He's going to bed now,” Hoseok cuts him off walking past them, bare feet against cold floor. “See you in the morning,” he says before shutting the door of a bedroom. Namjoon exhales the breath he wasn't aware he was holding in. Yoongi drops his bag next to Hoseok's, kicks off his shoes.
Namjoon turns up the volume of the TV, lets the foreign voices fill the silence between them.
“I'll get you a pillow and a blanket. And, Yoongi, I'm sorry...”
“For what? Your flatmate?”
Namjoon nods. There's nothing else he could say.
“It's okay. I'll be gone in the morning.”
Hoseok cuts the lemon in half. Acid burns his skin on places he picked on his cuticles, strong aroma of citrus fills the small kitchen and he squeezes one half in his tea. Bringing the cup to his lips, he leans on the counter and scans the kitchen.
Trash can is full of packages of instant noddles of all flavours and milk cartons. Namjoon forgot to take out the trash. The fridge was empty when he came to the apartment yesterday. He knew it'd be; that's why he stopped by the market near the metro station. He didn't buy much, some fruits and vegetables - things Namjoon usually avoids eating, things Hoseok nags him to eat.
A week has passed since he was home the last time; long enough to go to Busan and come back, short enough not to forget past. He's doing that again - coming back more often. A year has become few months, a month has been reduced to a week. Seven days to say “I'm sorry” and “I'm home”. Not enough time to move on, plenty of time to play hide and seek.
Lemon mixes with honey in chamomile tea, washing down his raw throat and Hoseok moves to the living room, turns on the TV. On mute - Namjoon's friend is still sleeping. He settles in a chair, pulls his knees up to his chest and watches some old black and white movie because it's too early for cartoons and vivid commercials. Around eight o'clock, Namjoon's friend stirs in his sleep and Hoseok tilts his head towards him.
“You awake?”
“Mhm,” comes as a muffled response. “What time is it?”
“Around eight.”
“Early.”
“Want some tea, Yoongi?” Hoseok asks and Yoongi turns around, blinks a few times before looking at Hoseok.
“How do you know my name?” he asks and Hoseok chuckles.
“Namjoon introduced us last night. Don't you remember?”
Yoongi frowns. “Not really. Sorry, man.”
“It's okay and it's Hoseok.”
For the next hour, they watch the movie. Hoseok doesn't turn the volume up, Yoongi doesn't ask him to. Traffic noise slips through the blinds, settles in the room. In the apartment above somebody is vacuuming while singing the latest trot hit off-key. Children are going down the stairs, screaming in the hallways about forgotten homework and lunch. Hoseok can hear a lady down the hallway cursing them. So, the old hag is still alive and healthy. Hoseok laughs. Memories flash behind closed eyelids, brush stroke of flamboyant red on black canvas, a reminder of one dreaded night when he was too young to be careful.
“What's so funny?” Namjoon says from the doorway while rubbing at his eyes, chasing sleep away. He's wearing an oversized washed-out grey tee, the same one he wore in high school, on performances and late night writing sessions when words refused to shut up inside his head. Wooden floor is cold under his bare feet.
“Nothing,” Hoseok says. There it is - the juvenile defiance and the certain transparency of adolescence glimmering in his eyes. It's like Hoseok will never grow old, forever stuck in the teenage search of great things and the desire to change the world - a superhero without a cape. Except Hoseok doesn't have powers, his feet are rooted to the ground and all he can do is to keep pretending things don't change and to run away. He does that, too often.
“Liar,” Namjoon says, moves to the couch where Yoongi makes him some room. He grabs the cup from the coffee table, takes a sip of Hoseok's tea and nearly spits it back in the cup.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Tea, and don't scrunch your nose like that,” Hoseok says, still smiling. There's no malice in his words when he adds, “or you'll end up with more lines on your face than the Moscow metro map.”
Namjoon makes a face and pushing the cup in Yoongi's hands, he says, “You try it and tell me that it doesn't taste like lemon-scented toxic waste.”
There, in a crowded living room of an apartment on the third floor of a building somewhere in Seoul suburbia, Yoongi gets caught in a crossfire between friends. Both of them are bickering, Namjoon too sleepy to fully process Hoseok's words, Hoseok in too good a mood to let any snarky remarks bother him. He feels out of place in this city made on glass foundations or maybe his knees are too weak to endure everything that life is throwing at him.
He should go - grab his bag, thank Namjoon for everything and search a room in one of those cheap hostels near the Central Station.
They made plans for working together; they could meet later in the studio and start recording. Personal life should remain personal; Yoongi has no desire in making friends for a lifetime. He's old enough to know that friends like that don't exist. He -
“I'll take that,” Hoseok's reaching for the cup. His fingers brush against Yoongi's - skin on skin. For a fleeting moment Yoongi looks in Hoseok's eyes, chocolate brown, warm and honest.
“Thanks,” he says and heads to the kitchen.
Namjoon's made himself comfortable on the couch, grabbed the remote control. He flips through the channels, stops for a moment on each; barely enough to get a grasp what the show is about.
“Don't mind him, Yoongi,” he says after a while. “Hoseok tends to bounce off the walls sometimes, but he never means the harsh words he says.”
Yoongi stares at the television screen. “He didn't say anything mean to me.”
“Really?” Namjoon breathes out. “Wow, that's something. So, you'll stay?”
“In Seoul? Yes,” Yoongi replies.
“No. Here.”
“You already have a flatmate.”
“Hoseok won't be here for much longer. Besides, we'll be working together. What if I need to talk to you in 3 am because I have this amazing idea for a song? It'd be rude to call in such an ungodly hour, and if you're here I could simply wake you up,” Namjoon says. Too much, too fast. He feels out of breath like his lungs are collapsing on themselves.
Hoseok will leave - that's a fact he hates facing. Hoseok will leave tomorrow morning without a goodbye. His bag is in the same place as last night. His shoes are the closest to the front door. The question is for how long. A month? A year or two or three or forever? If Namjoon were to be honest with himself, forever seems like the best option. That way he'd stop picking on scabs and the wound that only deepens every time Hoseok leaves, could finally start to heal.
“Which is less rude than calling me?” Yoongi's voice pulls him back to reality.
“Totally. So, what do you say?”
“I'll think about it.”
- - -
Yoongi's fourteen when he meets Jiho. In a back alley of their neighbourhood on the last day of school before summer break. His lips are busted, blood dripping to the dirty soil. His fingers are sticky with crimson red from the many times his wiped the blood from the corners of his lips. His school uniform is ruined. Luckily, he won't be wearing in for a few months.
There was a fight, between boys, ruled by the hate taught by adults. At times like this, Yoongi wishes that he could keep his mouth shut. Bite his tongue; swallow acidic sarcasm and provoking words. But his temper always gets the best of him and he fights, even when he's outnumbered, like now.
“Stupid son of a bitch,” one of the boys spits out.
Yoongi's ribs hurt, he's lost his breath.
“Bastard wants to defend his poor mummy. Cry, little bitch! That's the only thing you know how to do.”
The boys laugh, one of them kicks Yoongi in the stomach and he grits his teeth; taste of iron is strong in his mouth, his vision is blurred with pain and not tears. He won't cry.
“Let's go! C'mon,” Minseok says.
Yoongi can hear amusement in his voice. He feels superior ruling over a makeshift gang of boys, his dreams of being in charge coming true in a form of a hurt boy in front of him. But his victory isn't sweet. Action movies promised better fights, Crows Zero imprinted brutality in his dreams, violence in his mind. And all he got was an opponent who never begs for mercy no matter how many punches he gets. Minseok grabs his bag from the ground and turns around, the rest of the boys following him. With one last remark, curse words rolling of their tongues, they leave.
Noise from the nearby market fills his ears and Yoongi rolls on his back, closes his eyes and tries to come up with an explanation he could offer his mother. She'll fuss over him as always, put band-aids on shallow cuts while hot tears roll down her cheeks. She won't ask what happened but he'll try to come up with a believable excuse, promise her that this will be the last time. He'll lie.
“Handball game with no referee,” comes the voice somewhere behind him. “My mum always believes that.”
Yoongi opens his eyes, turns his head in the general direction of the voice. A boy is standing few feet away, one of the older boys Yoongi only ever saw in the neighbourhood, never at school. His uniform is navy blue, shirt pristine white, tie in place. A classic example of a good boy, if you ignore the smirk on his face.
“That was last week's excuse,” Yoongi says. He doesn't make an effort to get up, his limbs ache, the ground cold against his back. It rained last night; light summer rain to dissolve the humidity. “I need a new excuse.”
“Maybe I can help you. I'm good with hiding the truth,” the boy laughs.
“Lying, you mean.”
“That's harsh, man. What's your name?”
The boy moves closer, offers his hand. Yoongi grabs it and the boy pulls him up.
“Min Yoongi.”
“Oh... I know you. The old hags from my building don't seem to be able to get your family name out of their mouths.”
Yoongi tenses. Of course everybody knows. Some rumours never die. Even if they move from one part of the city to another, there will always be somebody spreading lies with a pinch of truth. Yoongi's supposed to bow his head, apologize for something he didn't do, walk around looking at the ground and not people's faces. But he can't do that.
“I guess it's even worse in your building,” the boy says and Yoongi spits on the ground. “But hey, in a few years you can move to Seoul. Nobody will know you there. Things can be really good in the capital.”
“As if...”
“What? You don't believe me, Yoongi?”
Yoongi kicks a stone with his foot. It flies in mid-air and hits the dumpster near the brick wall. “Not really. Besides, who do you think are you telling me what to do?“
“I'm Jiho,” the boy says throwing his arm around Yoongi's shoulders. “And soon I'll move up there and leave this shit place behind,” he grins as they walk out of the alley and back to the main street.
Yoongi is seventeen when Jiho packs his bags. With suitcases full of dreams and adolescent drive, he leaves Daegu. The only ones setting him off are his mother and Yoongi. She's holding Jiho's hands in hers, saying how proud she is, how he should call every week if he doesn't want her to come to Seoul and drag him back to Daegu by his ear. He smiles and promises that he'll make her proud.
Yoongi knows that Jiho will make it big; get his name out there, work hard and become a somebody. Jiho's talent is too big for Daegu; his lyrics are too brutal for peaceful neighbourhoods and people who only care for their well-being. Three years they spent together were enough for Yoongi to realize that his place will never be in academia - in a small cubicle of some worldwide corporation, white collar choking him, sucking the life out of him. Three years to fall in love with music; that reckless type of love when you ask for nothing in return.
Music mixed with his blood, bass lines a new heartbeat. Yoongi dived head first in production, in melodies, in synthetic beats and late night study sessions spent on writing music notes instead of math homework.
He turns twenty-one just as his world falls apart. He expected it to happen sooner than later, some dreams never last no matter how much effort you put into them.
His crew breaks apart, members are growing up, finally realizing that music career will only remain a sweet dream and that reality is a totally different thing, closer to an eight hour job in a factory in the outskirts of Daegu than to standing on big stages in front of the thousands of people.
The old studio they rented for few thousands won a month turns to a ghost house. Yoongi works on beats, knitting his dreams in soft melodies and deep bass as D Town decomposes. The only members left are him and Taehyung, who's sitting on the couch, playing with a basketball in his hands. At first he stays silent and just listens to Yoongi typing the lyrics of the last song they'll make together. Taehyung sighs and throws the basketball in the air. It's high enough to reach ceiling and fall back in his hands.
He says “My entrance exam is soon. I don't know how much free time I'll have once lectures start.”
“You're giving up,” Yoongi responds. A statement. Taehyung hears it as a question and bites his lower lip.
“I have other dreams besides becoming a rap star, even though that would be the best.”
“You think you can make them come true? Here? In Daegu?” Yoongi spins in his chair, turns away from the mixing pult to face Taehyung.
“Yeah, I guess. The uni isn't great, but it's not that bad either. Their music department is decent, I'll enrol there,” he shrugs. His indifference bothers Yoongi; his flat voice and weak words sting, like acid on fresh wounds, like million voices telling Yoongi that he'll end up the same. The next time he opens his mouth, Yoongi's voice is cold.
“You can have big dreams, Taehyung. I mean, really fucking big dreams. You can dream of the big houses on Hollywood Hills, the big cars like Porsche or Ferrari, the big rings made of gold and diamonds, but in the end you're here. In this fucking place with nothing but those unfulfilled dreams. Why? Because you're afraid to move away, you're afraid to fucking change, so you're telling yourself that you're great, you'll make it in that shitty music department. But Daegu is just a province. Nobody will recognize you as a real artist. Nobody from Seoul gives a shit about us, nobody will travel more than 100 miles just to hear your tracks and applaud you. You'll go nowhere. In four years, you'll get a low-paid job of a music teacher in some school, teach children to read notes and stuff your dreams in piles of homework and toss them in the garbage. In ten years, you'll have kids, tell them to dream big and follow their heart because you couldn't do it.”
Taehyung stands up, his cheeks are flushed, his hands are squeezing the ball until he snaps and throws it at Yoongi. He misses and the ball bounces of the wall and back in his arms. “What about you, Yoongi? You honestly think you'll make it big?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi smiles. “I'll leave this shit place and make it big. I won't be around here to play your best man and your kids' uncle Yoongi.”
When Taehyung leaves, Yoongi pulls his phone out of his pocket, scrolls through his contact list until he sees a familiar number.
After the third ring, Jiho picks up. Before he mumbles “Halo”, Yoongi says “Do you still want me to come?”
- - -
Hoseok paints a better life on the trains that pass through suburbia - tide of colour on a grey canvas, bold letters exposing injustice to the eye of a curious passer-by. His palms are nothing but a map of metro lines. His fingers are covered with paint, rust, and unspoken wishes of a lost generation that kills time by tagging high-speed trains - a smudge of neon yellow moving in the speed of light.
Many young artists come and go - graffiti as a cultural one-night stand, a dare. They're used to brushes, brightly lit studios, and vast galleries. Their future as a student of K-Arts is already set in stone. A letter of expulsion getting caught with the crime of graffiti is out of question, the dreams and hopes of the entire family weighing them down, high expectations anchoring them until they sink too deep to be saved. Or maybe, Hoseok is the one who needs saving.
After skipping cram school, in pressed school uniforms and backpacks hanging off narrow shoulders, they ride the bus line 27 to the last stop and pretend that they're holding the world in their hands for a few hours. Control breaks from the tips of his fingers through the nozzle of the paint bottle.
That's how it starts.
That's how they start - with a jaded wall, sleeves rolled up to elbows and a promise to come back.
And Hoseok does come back, over and over again. Long after Namjoon gave up on street art and replaced a spray paint can with a pen; long after he learned to bleed through words and not pictures. But memories remain. Like pieces of fine art conserved for future generations.
“We'll get caught,” Namjoon muses over a can of lukewarm beer. He's sitting on a low wall that was once in the foundations of the old train station and that is now waiting its turn to be demolished completely. Hoseok doesn't stop painting, but Namjoon can hear his laughter from where he's sitting. Loud and crystal clear in the silence of the night.
“I'm not joking, Hoseok. And then we'll be expelled-”
“And your ranking will hit rock bottom. Seoul's top student will face expulsion and the world will end with Kim Namjoon having bad grades,” Hoseok laughs.
“It's not funny.”
“It is,” he retorts. “You're so keen on keeping that stupid title even though you regularly skip classes.”
“A true genius doesn't need lectures,” Namjoon says as he takes another sip. The warm beer tastes awful on his tongue but he still swallows it down.
“Yeah, right. That's why Einstein's wife did all calculations for him,” Hoseok says.
Bottle of red in his hand is empty, few drops of paint drip from his fingers to the ground. He turns around looking for his duffel bag.
“Hey, how do you know that?” Namjoon asks and Hoseok opts in throwing the empty can at him.
“Average grades don't automatically make me an idiot,” he answers. He leans on the wall, plays with the empty can and observes what he's made.
It's far from perfect, the explosion of colours on the wall, an entangled mess of ideas and failures, a lot of maybe's and second guesses. It's his third graffiti on a real wall and not on the pages of his notebooks. There's insecurity in bleeding red and not enough white; shaky fingers and sloppy lines.
Hoseok snatches the drink from Namjoon and takes a sip. Namjoon's feet sway in the rhythm only he can hear, his fingers tapping the bass lines on his thighs.
“This is awful,” Hoseok says disgusted.
“What did you expect?” Namjoon asks. He sounds amused.
“Something better. If the minors are forbidden to drink it, I expected some fucking explosion of pleasure in my mouth and not this.”
At this Namjoon cracks up. Shoulder-shaking, whole-body laugh. Hoseok has no idea what Namjoon finds funny, even if he's wearing the same grin himself. He pushes the can back in Namjoon's hands and for a fleeting moment their fingers touch. Namjoon's hands are cold, Hoseok's are so warm that they leave burning sensations on Namjoon's skin. It's odd, this contrast.
Hoseok pulls away. Namjoon's fingers curl around the beer can.
“What's so funny?” Hoseok asks, eyes fixed on the sloppily drawn lines on the wall.
“The fact that you'd rather get arrested for drinking as a minor and not for vandalizing public property.”
- - -
In December, Seoul is cold, and cold, and cold. Snow has covered the streets by the time they leave the apartment and Namjoon curses winter under his breath as they wait at the bus stop. Yoongi types a message to Jiho saying that he's in Seoul and that everything went well. A reply comes minutes later when they've occupied the last empty seats in the bus.
13:25 zico is namjoon being a dick to you?
13:27 minsuga not yet. why?
13:28 zico nothing. have fun working
13:30 minsuga its something. hyung, tell me
13:33 zico its nothing, i swear. may my cat die if im lying
13:36 minsuga you dont have a cat
13:37 zico not the point
“Come on,” Namjoon says and Yoongi looks up from his phone. “It's our stop,” he stands up and heads to the doors. Without replying to the last message, Yoongi follows suit.
In daylight, Hongdae looks like any other Seoul neighbourhood. Stores selling everything from make-up to high-tech gadgets line the streets instead of trees. Everything's buried under concrete and snow; only during the night can milky lights give magical feeling to Hongdae that is seen in TV commercials.
Namjoon guides Yoongi through narrow streets, taking advantage of every shortcut he knows. It's freezing and he has no desire to stay outside any longer than it's needed.
Once they arrive at their destination, they find the studios empty. Namjoon guesses that everybody decided to spend their day lying around lazily on the couch instead of trudging through the snow. Maybe he should have done that that as well but Yoongi's tracks left a foreign feeling creeping up his spine that he couldn't shake off and he can already taste lyrics on his tongue.
“You can use studio 3,” Namjoon says and Yoongi nods. “Everything's at your disposal.”
Studio 3 has burgundy walls decorated with black and white photographs - replicas of popular street art. All furniture is black, equipment in tones of grey and white. It has no windows; the lights on the ceiling resemble the night sky.
Namjoon makes himself comfortable on the leather couch while Yoongi gets accustomed to the studio. His studio. Not the makeshift studio in the basement of a run-down building in Daegu where air is stale and walls grey; not his friend's bathroom with seemingly good acoustics.
“I'm all yours, producer Yoongi,” Namjoon says after Yoongi has sat down in a chair in front of the mixing pult. The controls feel odd under his fingers. Not foreign, simply odd.
“It's Min PD,” he responds with a hint of a smile on his lips.
- - -
In late afternoon, Hoseok comes to the studio. He struggles with the doors for few seconds balancing Chinese take-out and three cups of steaming hot coffee in his hands. It's still snowing, a few flakes melt on his eyelashes when he steps in the hallway and warmth envelopes him. He's not sure which studio Namjoon is in. Years have passed since the last time he was here, but he remembers Namjoon liking the odd numbers and so he decides to try his luck.
Studio 1 is locked. Through the glass doors of the studio 7 on the opposite wall he can see contours of the recording equipment in faint light.
He's lucky with studio 3 and when he pushes the door open, he startles Yoongi.
"Sorry, my bad," Hoseok sheepishly apologizes as he enters and slams the door shut behind him.
In the recording booth, Namjoon finishes his verse and takes off the headphones. Hoseok can hear the music as bass matches his heartbeat and higher tones pierce the stagnant air before Yoongi turns it off.
"Am I interrupting?" Hoseok asks when Namjoon returns to the studio. Namjoon's lips are pulled upwards, a smile.
"No, we were finishing up," he responds. "Why are you here though?"
"Did I miss the "Hoseok not allowed" sign somewhere?" Hoseok laughs, white teeth and heart shaped lips. His bangs are falling in his eyes; the snowflakes caught in the hood of his jacket have melted. Warmth is creeping up through his numb fingertips.
"No, it's just," he halts, scratches the back of his neck, "you never come here."
"I brought Chinese?" Hoseok lifts the white plastic bag in his hand. "And coffee. No sugar and extra cream for you, and a regular one for Yoongi since I didn't know how he likes it?" His smile falters, insecurity slips between syllables and turns his words to questions. Namjoon has no answers to unsaid questions still lingering at the tip of Hoseok's tongue.
Yoongi stands up, crosses the distance between him and Hoseok, takes the coffee container from him. He says, "Thanks, I really needed it, any would do."
"Yours is the one with-"
"- the green sticker?"
Hoseok nods.
The first sip Yoongi takes is hot and bitter; it burns his tongue before he swallows it. The coffee is strong; its scent fills the air when he lifts the lid to add some sugar to it. Luckily, Hoseok brought it with him from the coffee shop.
Namjoon clears the coffee table in front of the couch; throws last summer's magazines in the trash bin. Hoseok grabs a cushion and sits on the floor. He sheds off his jacket and asks, "How's coffee? I really didn't know what you like, Yoongi, so..."
"It's good. Thanks."
"You're welcome," he says diverting his attention to Namjoon.
It's awkward, the small talk. Politeness distorts his voice, reminds him of all formalities, dress codes, do's and dont's, of school and strict teachers, even worse parents. But the silence is deafening, heavy, pulling him down through floor board cracks.
"What were you recording?" Hoseok asks.
Namjoon looks up from his noodles, chewing slowly before answering. "Yoongi-hyung's track. It'll set HipHopPlaya on fire once we release it. We'll wipe the floor with those new rappers who think they're the next big thing, especially that B-something guy. I'll bury all of them, deep deep under."
"Yoongi-hyung?" Hoseok chuckles and Namjoon realizes that not a word of everything he said has been heard. "You're older than us?"
Yoongi points his chopsticks at Namjoon and says, "I'm older than him."
Hoseok doesn't stick around for much longer once they go back to recording. Yoongi is focused on the track; on every change of rhythm no matter how small. Namjoon's engrossed in his lyrics. his voice fills the studio, it rises and falls, cracks at right syllables, swallows some others.
When clock strikes 6 pm, Hoseok gets up, and puts on his jacket. He collects all garbage in the plastic bag leaving Namjoon's unfinished coffee and a napkin behind.
On the napkin, there's a monochrome drawing, done in leftover coffee, of Namjoon behind the mic and Yoongi monitoring him in deep brown. The lines are remarkably sloppy but set with the natural ease.
Sometimes Hoseok forgets and leaves things behind.
- - -
They were 13 when they met. Namjoon was something close to a local celebrity back then. Young and ambitious, top of his class. Every mother wanted a son like him, every father scolded his son for not being like him - in the top 1% of the nation's smartest kids. His parents sent him to Seoul for studies when he received the scholarship for a prestigious private school. Their dreams were coming true, their son would become a somebody. The place he moved in - a two bedroom apartment - was only few blocks away from where his aunt lived with her family and Namjoon was never lonely.
Hoseok was failing math back then. It was outrageous that the son of the principle of Seoul University and Korea's most beloved TV host had grades barely tipping on average.
The truth of the matter was that his mother only smiled on TV screens and magazine covers and that his father only cared for GPA of his students and the recognition his university was bound to get. It was pure luck that Namjoon was assigned as his tutor and not that girl who was a huge fan of his mother's show.
The first time Namjoon had come to Hoseok's house was the day Korea was playing Japan on TV. The small boy who opened the door had the Korean flag painted on his cheeks and a cheering slogan in his hands and before Namjoon had the chance to utter a single word, the boy screamed "hyung, your friend is here". He ran back inside leaving Namjoon at the doorstep. He waited for few moments before Hoseok appeared.
"Sorry about Jimin, the game just started," he said with a smile.
As he waited for Namjoon to take off his shoes, Hoseok said "Thank you for coming, but I don't think we'll be doing math today. You're welcome to stay and watch the game with us, though."
And Namjoon stayed. Maybe to get to know the boy whose name he kept on hearing since he came to the school, and maybe because all his friends were miles away.
They were fifteen when they kissed, in a back alley near the train station with the graffiti drying on the wall behind them. The summer night was humid, air heavy in their lungs. Sound of freight trains arriving in the station echoed in the night. Hoseok's wifebeater was covered with drops of paint; his cheeks had a trace of green and yellow on them, and mischief glistening in his eyes. Namjoon sat on the wall, talking on and on about trivial things until Hoseok decided it was enough.
It happened during Namjoon's obsession with Bukowski's poetry and everything that broken words carried. As imperfect as they were, they resounded in his mind over and over again.
“Find what you love and let it kill you,” the old man said. “Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.”
And Namjoon believed him. It was easier letting what you love kill you than finding your dreams under the starless sky.
And during this time, these turbulent years when identity slipped through thin fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass, Hoseok fell in love with typography and street art because it was unwritten rule that every spoiled child of successful parents needed to be a rebel, fight the system and do absolutely everything that was against the rules. Graffiti was a perfect way to pretend to be free in a concrete cage.
Their first kiss was not sweet, not filled with naive romanticism straight out of Meg Cabot's books. It was nothing like the teenage movies said it would be. Their noses bumped, their palms were sweaty. Namjoon's lips were chopped and dry, Hoseok's teeth sharp on his bottom lip.
Hoseok burst out laughing in the middle of the kiss.
"Shut up! You're ruining the moment," Namjoon hissed and Hoseok laughed even louder.
"What moment?" he asked.
"This!"
"Mosquitoes drinking all my blood?" Hoseok joked but Namjoon didn't find it funny.
"Shut up, Jung Hoseok."
"Never, Kim Namjoon," Hoseok shook his head but didn't protest when Namjoon pulled him closer and shut him up with a kiss.
Their sweet sixteen was just around the corner when they were caught making out.
The elevator in the building where Namjoon lived was out of function and all hallways were dimly lit. They stumbled up the stairs; Namjoon guiding Hoseok in the dark. Before they reached the apartment, Hoseok pulled him closer and kissed him under the faint lights. His hands were hot against Namjoon's skin, his lips tasted like the cake they ate on Donghyuk's birthday earlier that evening; sweet with a hint of chocolate. He pushed Namjoon against the wall before he managed to unlock the apartment door; kissed him with no traces of remorse or guilt. Namjoon gave in. He always gave in when it came to Hoseok.
Hoseok smiled into the kiss, nibbled on Namjoon's bottom lip. Namjoon tried to free himself; tried to reach his apartment. With Hoseok's body pressed against his own, he stumbled in the dark, nearly losing his balance and Hoseok couldn't help but laughing. His laughter echoed in the silence, bounced off the walls and before they could escape, the nearest door opened and an old lady came outside. No excuses they offered could convince her that what they were doing wasn't something she'd consider “amoral”.
One night, one slip, was enough for rumours to start spreading. From one mouth to another they travelled through suburbs until they reached Hoseok's mother.
"It's amazing how open-minded and accepting you are," said the make-up artist as she applied sky blue eye shadow to Mrs. Jung's eyelids. Her show was about to start in less than 5 minutes, the last check-ups were in progress. Her mind was clouded with a million questions she needed to ask today's guest.
"Thank you," she replied out of courtesy.
"If my son were gay, I don't know how I'd accept it," the make-up artist continued, her high voice louder than all noise surrounding them.
Hoseok's mother swatted away the brush and opened her eyes. "Excuse me?"
"Well, I've heard that your son is gay and I think that you're very brave-"
"Get out," she snapped and the make-up artist vanished from her sight.
One week later, Hoseok came back to a silent apartment.
It was weird, without Jimin welcoming him at the entrance, without that high-pitched voice and bubbly laughter Hoseok adored. He kicked off his sneakers; dropped his school bag next to the shoe rack. Nobody but Jimin was usually home at this hour and soft murmur of voices coming from the living room surprised Hoseok.
His father was sitting in the armchair in a pressed dark blue suit and a pristine white shirt, the thin rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. His eyes followed his wife as she paced around, mumbling something under her breath. Wrinkles formed around her eyes every time she frowned, revealing her real age. Gone was the bubbly TV host everybody adored.
She heard when the front door opened and knew that Hoseok was finally home. A wicked smile graced her features as she moved closer to the hallway. When he entered the living room, she slapped him.
"How dare you?" she hissed, venom in her words, despise in her eyes, "How dare you embarrass us like this?"
"Yoona, please, ..." his father tried to speak but he was cut off.
"Don't you 'Yoona' me. You're a disgrace to our family, Hoseok," she screamed.
"Mother, I don't understand," Hoseok said. His cheek was burning; his body felt odd. He saw rage, anger but not disappointment in his mother's eyes. To be disappointed in somebody, you have to love them. She never did that. She loved him on the covers of family magazines and in interviews about her life, while the cameras were still turned on.
"You don't understand?" she asked. "Why don't you ask your sweet little boyfriend?" she barked out. "Did you think that we wouldn't find out, Hoseok? Did you think that we're blind?"
"Mother, I can explain," he said desperately, taking a step closer to her, lifting his hands. His mother grabbed the vase from the coffee table, but before she could throw it, her husband stood up and grabbed her hands.
"That's enough. Go to your room, Hoseok," he ordered and Hoseok obliged.
Even with the door of his room shut, he could still hear his mother's screams telling him to disappear. And so he did.
When Hoseok appeared on Namjoon's doorstep that evening with red eyes and tears rolling down his cheeks, Namjoon didn't ask questions; he just pulled Hoseok in his embrace and closed the door.
Jung Yoona's scandal never happened.
The make-up artist was given a large sum of money to keep her mouth shut, the rumours died at the tip of idle housewives' tongue. Her older son still attended the elite private school, all his expenses were covered with the money from a bank account specially created for the purpose of Hoseok never having to meet his mother again. He was living with his friends, trying to get accustomed to the life he'd lead as a university student, was the answer she gave to every news reporter that had asked her about her son.
( pt. 3)