Yoongi had a rule about paper labels. If a plastic water bottle entered his workspace, the label had to come off in one unbroken strip. If the seam tore halfway around, leaving behind a gummy strip of paper fiber, he could not drink from it until he had scraped the residue clean with the edge of a thumbnail. It had nothing to do with cleanliness or studio protocol. It was simply an irritation that set his teeth on edge, like a rogue snare sample hitting two milliseconds ahead of the downbeat.
Tonight, the paper tore twice.
Yoongi sat on the carpet by the foot of his bed, peeling sticky white fuzz with methodical scratches. The dorm was silent, save for the dull churn of the refrigerator down the hall and the occasional gust rattling the balcony glass. The floor heater hummed at a low setting. It was three in the morning, which meant the city had finally stopped shouting.
The bedroom door clicked open.
Yoongi did not look up, but his thumb paused against the plastic bottle.
Jimin slipped through the gap, socks soundless against the laminate. He did not turn on the overhead light; he never did when Yoongi was in one of his brooding states. Instead, he carried a ceramic mug, steam curling from its rim in pale threads.
"Hyung," Jimin said softly.
"The water isn't boiling," Yoongi answered, voice rough from disuse. "You didn't wait for the kettle to click."
"It’s chamomile. Boiling water burns the leaves." Jimin crossed the room, his movements fluid and light. But before he sat, he reached into his hoodie pocket, his fingers lingering on a small, heavy brass key attached to a faded blue ribbon. He didn't set it down on the nightstand. Instead, he slid it deeper into his pocket, out of sight, checking Yoongi’s face to see if he had tracked the motion.
Yoongi had, but he said nothing. Jimin was withholding something, just as he had for the past three days whenever his phone buzzed during dance practice. Yoongi picked at the bottle’s sticky fringe again.
"You've been sitting on the floor for two hours," Jimin said, settling down opposite him. He crossed his legs, pulling the oversized sleeves of his sweater over his knuckles. "Namjoon said you didn't touch your dinner."
"I ate an apple."
"An apple is not dinner."
"It has calories. It functions."
"You're impossible." Jimin set the mug between them. The scent of dried flowers and warm steam rose, thin and fragrant. "Drink it. Please."
Yoongi stared at the mug, then set his butchered water bottle aside. His shoulders felt stiff, locked tight from twelve hours hunched over an MPC in the basement studio. But the stiffness in his chest had nothing to do with monitor glare or mixing headphones. It had been accumulating for weeks, like dust settling between keyboard faders.
Jimin watched him, head tilted, eyes narrowed in that sharp, assessing way he had whenever he thought Yoongi was hiding behind fatigue. Jimin’s hair was unstyled, falling into his eyes, blond strands catching the amber spill from the hallway runner.
"You didn't look at me once during blocking today," Jimin said. The tone was conversational, but the precision was deliberate.
"I was watching the monitors," Yoongi said. "The stage right camera angle is lagging. If we don't adjust the turn on beat four, the transition looks sloppy."
"Hoseok was watching the monitors. You were looking at the floorboards." Jimin leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on his covered knees. "You do that when you want to disappear. Why are you trying to disappear from me?"
The question hung in the warm air, heavy and blunt. Yoongi’s instinct was to deflect, to make a dry joke about Jimin's theatrical tendencies and head to bed. But Jimin didn't look playful. His lips were parted, his gaze steady, devoid of the teasing lilt he usually wore like stage makeup.
Therefore, Yoongi looked down at his own hands. The knuckles were pale, the skin dry from winter air.
"I'm not trying to disappear," Yoongi muttered.
"Then look up."
Yoongi didn't move. A stubborn knot tied itself in his throat. He was twenty-five years old, he had produced tracks that topped charts across three continents, and yet sitting on a ten-thousand-won rug in front of Park Jimin made him feel like an awkward boy from Daegu who had forgotten how to breathe in public.
"Yoongi-hyung." Jimin’s voice dropped an octave, losing its airy Busan softness and turning firm. "Look at me."
Yoongi forced his chin up.
Jimin wasn't smiling, but his expression was entirely tender. It was the face he made when he found a stray cat behind the company building, or when one of the younger members broke down from exhaustion. Yoongi hated that look when it was directed at him; it dismantled every defense he spent weeks assembling.
"You're being strange," Yoongi said, though his voice lacked any real bite.
"You started it," Jimin countered. "You stopped bringing your tea into the vocal room. You stopped waiting for me after run-throughs. You even changed your studio passcode."
"The old code was my birthday. It was a security risk."
"It had been your birthday for four years, hyung." Jimin reached out, his hand stopping an inch from Yoongi's knee, hovering in the small gulf between them before retreating. "You changed it the day after we came back from the Osaka shows. Why?"
The Osaka hotel room flashed behind Yoongi's eyelids: the rain against the twelfth-floor window, the quiet hum of the air conditioner, and the terrifying, breathless second when Jimin had fallen asleep with his forehead pressed against Yoongi's collarbone. Yoongi had sat rigid for two hours, terrified that even a deep breath would wake him, terrified that the frantic thumping of his own pulse would give him away.
He had spent the three weeks since then trying to build a wall out of draft arrangements and delayed responses.
"I changed it because I couldn't focus," Yoongi said quietly.
Jimin blinked. "Focus on what?"
"On anything." Yoongi swallowed, the dryness in his throat resisting the swallow. His palms were damp. He wiped them slowly on the denim over his thighs. "You make too much noise."
"I don't make any noise when you're working! I sit on the couch and put my headphones in—"
"Not that kind of noise," Yoongi cut in. His voice was barely a murmur, but the small room magnified it.
Jimin stopped. The silence returned, dense and expectant.
Yoongi looked at the carpet between them, tracing the weave of the fiber. "You take up space, Jimin-ah. Even when you're just sitting there reading lyrics off your phone. I can't write a sixteen-bar verse without thinking about how your voice is going to sound on the bridge. I can't listen to a rough mix without checking if the melody leaves room for you." He paused, his jaw tightening until his molars ached. "It's annoying. It makes me slow."
Jimin’s eyes widened slightly. His fingers uncurled from his sleeves, resting flat against his knees. "Hyung..."
"I'm bad at this," Yoongi said, the words spilling out before his pride could censor them. He felt the heat crawling up his neck, hot and prickly under his collar. "I don't have the words for it. You know I don't. You're always talking about feelings and connections, and I just... I get angry when I can't control things. And around you, I don't know where to put my hands."
A soft, startled exhale escaped Jimin’s lips. The tension in his shoulders dropped all at once, his posture loosening. A tiny, disbelieving smile curved the corner of his mouth.
"You're angry because you like me?" Jimin asked.
"I didn't say that."
"You practically shouted it."
"I was speaking in a normal register," Yoongi said, though his ears were burning now, bright red and completely betraying him. He pulled his knees toward his chest, trying to make himself smaller. "Don't laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing," Jimin said, though his eyes were crinkling at the edges, bright with an affection so open it made Yoongi’s stomach flip. Jimin leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper that felt louder than a shout. "I've been carrying this stupid key around for three days because I was going to leave a box in your studio locker, since you wouldn't talk to me."
Yoongi glanced at Jimin's pocket. "What's in the box?"
Jimin shook his head, his smile turning private, withholding the answer with a faint flick of his lashes. "You have to change your passcode back first."
"No."
"Hyung."
"It's annoying," Yoongi repeated, but the edge had completely vanished from the word.
Jimin reached across the narrow space between their crossed legs and lightly brushed his sleeve against Yoongi's. He didn't grab, and he didn't crowd. He just stayed there, close enough that the warmth of him pushed back the chill of the three-a.m. draft.
"Drink the tea," Jimin murmured, his voice gentle. "It's getting cold."
Yoongi reached out and picked up the mug. His fingers wrapped around the hot ceramic, finding the heat steadying. He took a sip. It was sweet, slightly grassy, and entirely unburnt.
When he set the cup down, the silence in the bedroom no longer felt like a defensive wall he had to maintain with sweat and toothpicks. The room seemed larger, stripped of its frantic pressure, leaving only the steady rhythm of two people breathing the same quiet air.