///

A BOY HUNG FROM an ocean in the sky when taehyung realized he'd run out of blue paint.

he was sitting on the cold wood floor of his studio, his cramped fingers quivering around the red handle of a wide paint brush. his knees ached from kneeling so long before his canvas, once blank and artless and now an entire realm of simple blue, crashing waves into foaming clouds and bleeding cerulean into aching teal. a boy with a face draped in rotting seaweed screamed into the unhinged ground and reached for earth but the ocean sloshed against the seams of the fleeing skyline and all was disjointed, the boy lost to his own infernal creation. still, something was left unfinished in the boy's sunken eyes, and that something was undeniably blue, true blue as anything and everything else. as the creases of his blue palms to his blue cheeks to his blue lashes crusted in paint.

to the hours he'd lost at the bottom of his empty blue paint bucket. taehyung blinked forcefully. he let his wet brush clatter against the sides of the can, realized belatedly that all his muscles were strung through with wire tight tension. he released himself and the hard floorboards rushed to meet his weary back.

"blue paint." he whispered to the ceiling. he felt uncomfortably distraught.

it was three o' clock in the afternoon and he hardly felt human. he'd woken up in a puddle of melted nightmares with a scream dying at the back of his throat and immediately stumbled into his tiny studio, his pajamas dripping off his shivering shoulders, his mouth stale from last night's ramen. now his eyes were gummy and strung through with old sleep, and his body begged for sustenance. his hands ached from where they'd clamped around his painting utensils. he stretched them out absent-mindedly.

the painting was unfinished and he hadn't bathed or dressed or done much of anything except paint this nameless boy drowning in the ocean in the sky. and the boy's white irises glared back at him now that there was nothing to coat them with, nothing to give them meaning, nothing to bring him to life. he slept flat within the mess of taehyung's creativity vomit.

he couldn't leave it this way, he needed blue paint.

"shit." he rasped. his voice was rough from disuse.

people generally frightened him, and there was no three o' clock rush hour, but the thought of an eye or two resting upon the back of his head or the nape of his neck had him shuddering. his speech could only be slurred and tired now that he'd allowed it to rest so long into the day, and so any attempts at communication with another sentient being could only end in a late day panic attack stifled against linoleum bathroom tile, and he wasn't in the mood to unknot his lungs today. he couldn't wait or else his vision would escape him, and he'd already stolen two of jungkook's white paint buckets, but it seemed that he'd have to steal a little more from him because jimin's house was the only place he didn't feel like a flayed animal on display at a shady and probably illegal petting zoo.

plan thus decided upon, he peeled himself from his crooked floorboards and forced himself to bathe off his grime and return to human flesh. he stood under the shower head, dousing himself in cold water until his brain shivered itself awake and stumbled into his bedroom soaking wet and naked, as he'd forgotten to take his towel with him. he picked up a pair of discarded, paint stained overalls from the floor and gave it a long sniff. it smelled fine, if not slightly chemical. he put it on over a red and blue striped polo and then returned to the bathroom to squeeze his hair out over the white sink. even after it's wash, it was greasy and tangled at the roots. rather than deal with it, he wrangled the slippery ink coils into a half hearted pony tail and tied it at the back of his head with some neon yellow ribbon still splotchy with brown coffee stains. he looked up. his reflection stared back at him from the surface of his dirty bathroom mirror.

he looked like a little ghost boy. hollow cheeks and white lips. his eyes framed by bruise colored bags. he looked too haggard for a twenty three year old. but...well, it didn't matter, did it?

he switched off all the lights and pulled on a pair of bright red converse before leaving his apartment.

the sky looked like a big black bruise. swollen and straining its belly against its own weight, tugging towards the earth. the clouds roiled and stirred with a eerie sort of greed, as though attempting to consume themselves, and a tiny spark of panic went off in taehyung's chest. rain would soon be coming and he could feel it like a quiet pressure against the nape of his exposed neck, could taste it in the shivering air. he would need to be quick.

he hurried down the creaky staircase and retrieved his baby blue bike from the rack beside his apartment building. it gave a small squeak as he guided it onto the sidewalk and swung a leg over its padded seat.

"blue paint." he reminded himself beneath his breath. his thoughts felt slippery, and he grasped to hold them still as he peddled down the pavement. he wasn't good with navigation. too many streets, too many names, too many unpredictable turns. but he knew the way to jimin's apartment like the back of his hand. it was lucky it was only a ten minute bike ride from his own place, lucky that jimin had decided to stay close to him, even once he moved out of their shared flat.

he took a sharp right turn down a narrower street and the sky opened up a bit with a low purr. it began to sprinkle and taehyung winced as a droplet of rain splashed against the curve of his cheekbone. his stomach flipped itself over like a pancake, and he released one handle momentarily to rub at his belly.

"blue paint, blue paint, blue paint." breathe taehyungie. he exhaled through his nose and kept peddling, lifting up his butt slightly to give himself more speed.

he made it to jimin's complex before the sky broke to pieces and rather than taking the janky elevator that always screeched in agony whenever it began to ascend, taehyung dashed up the stairwells to the third floor. he felt flushed and sweaty beneath the collar once he spilled through the heavy double doors and into the hallway, but he'd worked off some of his excess energy, stomped out a sliver of his anxiety. he ducked past an old foreign woman in an oversized floral nightgown and half ran to the end of the hall, where jimin's black door stood. he knocked the rhythm of hedwig's theme so jimin would know it was him. however, jin was the one to greet him.

"taehyung-ah," he hummed, surprised. he leaned against the doorframe with a pleased smile. "we weren't expecting you."

taehyung shrugged. "sorry, hyung. i should've called."

jin flapped a hand dismissively. "don't be silly babes, you're always welcome here. come, let hyung give you a kiss."

jin didn't give him a chance to hesitate. he latched onto the back of his neck and yanked him into a tight, squeezing hug, his splayed palm on his nape, taehyung's head pressed awkwardly against his big shoulder. taehyung's ears rosined, because shit, even after all this time, he still got flustered when hugged by attractive men. jin smelled sweet, like pomegranates and cream. he must have just taken a shower. his skin was a little dewey underneath the hard press of taehyung's nose, and the collar of his too big sweater was damp, as though pushed too quickly against his wet chest. he was very warm and very strong, and despite himself, taehyung sunk into the circle of his arms like a soggy noodle over the brim of a pot. he felt jin press a light kiss to the top of his head. when he pulled away, taehyung felt the sting of unwarranted disappointment bite into his heart.

"so what's up? here, don't loiter outside like a reject, come in. and take off your shoes, no tracking mud into the house. oh my taehyungie, look how thin you are, have you been eating? hyung will make you something. are you staying for dinner? i can make some bibimbap if you want, got all the ingredients, and—"

"hyung," taehyung interrupted. he nudged the door shut with the heel of his now bare foot and offered his fussy hyung a timid smile. it felt too heavy on the corners of his chapped mouth, but he pinned it there for jin's sake. "hyung, i'm fine. i can't stay long, i just came to ask jungkookie for some paint."

"jungkookie?" jin asked. he blinked forcefully. taehyung watched as his hand came up to the back of his neck and rubbed a circle into the top bump of his spine. "jungkookie's not here right now. he's got a group project, so they went to the library to discuss or whatever. it's just me and jiminie today."

"oh," taehyung muttered. "well, can i talk to jiminie then?"

jin narrowed his eyes. "oh, oh i see how it is. you want everybody but seokjin hyung huh?"

"you know that's not it hyung," taehyung forced a rough laugh. "i adore you."

"as you should," jin sighed. still, though his furrowed brow clung to the reminisces of faux irritation he slung an arm around taehyung's shoulders and drew him close. "fine, i'll take you to jiminie, but you owe me high tea, like we used to do. you don't come around so often my taehyungie. where have you been baby? where's your little head at?"

taehyung's heart pinched. he stared at his bony brown toes, scrunched against the wood paneling. they were so ugly.

"i wish i knew."

jin said nothing to that.

he led him to the living room. it was cluttered, but not in an overwhelming way. less like the clutter which spilled from taehyung's tangled stomach and onto the floor of his bedroom and more like a purposeful clutter, a thin layer of livelihood sprinkled over everything. all their furniture was thrifted, so the sofas were mismatched and frayed, of washed out powder blues and raggedy royal purples and pale greens so faded they verged on tainted whites.  the floor was covered in miscellaneous things. old stuffies, potted houseplants, broken antiques jungkook was in the middle of tinkering with. a string of pearls dangled from the ceiling, draped around loops of soft yellow fairy lights, and they'd hung up a new analog clock. must have been real old, since the wood was splintered and chipped and its round white face was more of browned cream. it ticked tocked ticked tocked with each passing second. something in taehyung's chest loosened just a bit.

"my love," jin called out, pulling taehyung from the doorframe and further into the room. there was a teensy smile nestled in the seam of his lips like a barely kept secret. "taehyungie's here."

jimin was curled up on the sofa. he'd dyed his hair again. once a deep, striking shade of dark azure, now his floofy curls were candy floss pink and wound up in springy coils. he looked like a fairy tale, and he was wearing the big banana yellow sweater taehyung had given him for his birthday last year, except it must have begun unspooling in the wash because it was stretched over the knobs of his knees and dripping down his shoulders. he was playing animal crossing on the flat screen, his chubby fingers jammed into the buttons of his pastel nintendo switch controller and his mouth pursed up like a wrinkled cherry blossom as he wrestled with his catch of the day. but he immediately let the fish slip from his hook upon jin's announcement.

"taehyungie?"

taehyung opened up his arms just in time, only seconds before jimin flung himself across the room and into tae's collarbone. he felt jimin's strawberry lip gloss smudge the dip clavicle before his mouth made it to the underside of his jaw, smacking a line of fluttering butterfly kisses across the worn seam of his skin while his hands pushed into his mushy spine. his fingertips dug into the gaps between his ribs with purpose, as if he knew that taehyung had last night bundled up between his lungs and was trying to yank it out of its knotted ball one pesky tendril at a time. jin stood by, laughing heartily, and jimin was giggling too, huffing into taehyung's flesh while he swayed them from one side to the other. taehyung's heart went a little melty and he tasted his old love at the back of his throat. he held onto jimin's quivering shoulders and tucked his mouth against the crown of his head. his hair smelled like his lavender shampoo.

"taetae, how are you?" jimin breathed into his neck. taehyung fit his palms against the dips in jimin's hips. "it feels like it's been forever dumbass, where have you been?"

"oh you know," taehyung chuckled with his mouth open and some of jimin's pink cotton hair caught on his teeth. it didn't taste like candy. "here and...here and there. stuck in my head a bit, the usual."

jimin tugged away rather abruptly. taehyung swayed forward and almost knocked his forehead against the center of jimin's skull.

"oh lovie," jimin sighed. he looked so very pretty, taehyung wouldn't ever really get over it. his fluffy cheeks were glowing. "those mean thoughts of yours been troubling you?"

he pinched his brow, twisted his soft shiny mouth into a mini scowl. taehyung shook his head. he wanted to nudge at the corner of his lips with the tip of his thumb, knock away that frown, but he felt jin's quiet eyes on the lift of his cheek and his wrist twitched.

"i'm okay jiminie," he told him. he planted a quick kiss on the end of jimin's nose. "i'll be okay. always am. i'm like a starfish, y'know? i can grow all my limbs back."

jimin's honey eyes softened. his hand slid up taehyung's back and pressed around the nape of his neck. there was a tenderness in the small smile he wore. "yes, my little starfish. how could i forget. still, i told you to come to me. come to me, won't you?" another strawberry kiss, this time to taehyung's tired brow. "i'm only a phone call away."

"i know, i know, i'll come to you next time."

jimin bobbed his head. "good."

"i need paint," taehyung blurted out unceremoniously. jimin hummed and tae's eyes fell to the disassembled gold music box lying on their carpet. "i came to ask jungkook for paint—blue paint—i ran out and i need to—i need to ask him for blue paint because i ran out and i really need to finish my painting. do you have any—have you got—do you know where it is?"

jimin took a swift step backwards and taehyung's fingers unhooked from his love handles.

"blue paint," he repeated slowly. "oh. no i'm afraid...i don't think we have any. jungkook mentioned running out a few days ago, but he's been pretty busy with his tinkering so we haven't restocked yet. i'm sorry tae, do you—i can check again, if you want?"

taehyung swallowed hard. for some reason, he felt as though though the wood panels beneath him had suddenly shifted, but when he looked down, he was still standing on the living room's carpet. he scratched the back of his ear.

"yes that's—" he began, but his next word swelled up at the back of his throat so he couldn't force it out. he looked up and jimin was staring at him with his mouth creased at the corners and his brows pulled down, so tae knew that jimin knew, and then jin looped his long arm around jimin's shoulders and tucked him against the side of his chest like he was trying to smush him as close to his heart as possible and he sort of forgot what he was trying to say in the first place.

"taetae—?"

"no, it's okay," tae said. his words were blurry. "i'm okay—it's okay, i'm just gonna go—go to the art store, for blue paint. it's fine. just um. tell jungkook i said hi."

simultaneously too much and too little. he turned to leave and felt jin's fingers prod at his shoulder blade. "but taehyungie, it's going to rain," he fretted, and taehyung clamped his teeth around his bottom lip. "maybe you should stay here for the night."

"yeah taetae, i don't want you trying to bike in this weather—"

"i'll be fine," tae reiterated. "i'll be so quick—like the flash—i'll be just fine. i'll come visit soon, okay? okay?"

taehyung ran off before they could give him an answer.

he grabbed his bike from the front, hopped on just as the sky screeched with a crack and another smattering of raindrops dribbled through the cloud's broken seams. he felt his ribs quiver, felt his heart dislodge for a moment before snapping back in place between his throbbing blood vessels, and he grasped for breath whilst the world was shrouded in looming darkness.

"blue paint." he said. the wind was sharp against his cheeks and it smelled wet. thunder rolled like a ravaging wave through the black clouds and he swerved uncomfortably on the sleek road. his shoulders twinged, and he realized he'd been tangling them up beneath his ears while his feet flew off his ankles and into his bike peddles. he tried to calm down. he tried to quell the sudden anger at the pit of his stomach, tried to bite off the pulsing heat in his fingertips with the cool press of his bicycle handles, and his damned thoughts were so watery, he was cupping them uselessly in his mind's grip. panic swelled in his chest like an overripe fruit. fuck it was going to rain, it was going to rain, it was going to rain.

another raindrop shattered against his eyelid.

"blue paint, blue paint, blue paint, blue paint, bluepaint blue blue blue blue blue blue—" his tongue was a knot between his teeth.

by the time he made it to the art store, tucked cozy and small between a cosmetics shop and a convenience store, the skin of his back was prickly with goosebumps and damp with cold sweat. he propped his bike against the front of the building and shoved his palms beneath his elbows before ducking through the sliding glass doors. the fluorescent yellow light bulbs cut at his eyelids. there weren't many people inside, just the usual cashier woman, purple haired, pierced, and tattooed all over, and a few art students from the university down the road, their school logo displayed in big, bold lettering on their baseball caps and oversized sweatshirts. they didn't pay taehyung much mind, conversing beneath their breaths while running their fingers over the heads of paint brushes, but taehyung felt as though they were digging their eyes inside his nape, breathing his name into the creases of their hands, laughing.

his nails found their way to the rough chip in his palm, just barely scabbed over. he picked at it until the familiar sting reverberated through his nerve endings and he felt he could hold an inhale between his lungs. "blue paint, blue paint, blue paint, blue paint, blue paint..." his thoughts were floating away from him. his words felt tired and loose on his lips, like old, flavorless gum. he shook his head. don't panic, don't panic, don't PANIC taehyung, focus!

he found his way to the paint aisle. the blue paint tin almost slipped through his clammy palms, so he tucked it against his bony hip and half fell into the front of the room. the cashier woman's eyes looked too sharp and nervous for her face, something like worry in the light of her pupils, but her lips didn't follow their example by asking questions. she checked him out and pushed his paint tin back into his trembling grip. he cradled it in the hollow of his elbow and almost slammed his face into the glass door on the way out.

it was raining in earnest now. the tiny covering above his head was crying out for help while the torrential downpour slapped it stupid. the streets had become black rivers, and the sky was a falling calamity eating itself from the inside out. tiny little knives cut at taehyung's orifices, and it took him a moment before he realized that he wasn't being impaled from the inside his body. he was crying.

he put his blue paint tin in the white basket at the front of his bike. it would get wet. he supposed he'd have to dry it with a towel when he got home—a tear slid down his nose like hot butter. taehyung swung his leg over the padded seat of his bicycle, guided it out from underneath the covering and back into the flooded streets. the rain came down and smashed his spine in. he wanted to scream.

stupid taehyung.

"home, home, home." he reminded himself. his voice was shaking like the shivering trees in the wind. he began to peddle shakily down the slippery street. his legs felt like they were buzzing. some absurd voice in his brain told him to check his knee for notifications. he almost laughed out loud. then a crack of lightning split the earth in half and he started to sob.

he heard the squeal of tires screech, watch out! but when he looked around, all the cars on the street were slow moving and quiet. his heart was beating through his whole body TAEHYUNG! his blood was falling out.

"almost home, almost home, al—most home almost almost homehomealmosthome—"

screech, watch out! TAEHYUNG!

he hit something hard and abrupt, and his wheels skidded with a high pitched SQUEAL and his bike lurched and he was flying off and up and someone was crying out—

TAE—

he hit the wet asphalt.

stupid taehung he couldn't b r e a t h e—

"woah..." a blob of blue said. taehyung yanked on his rib cage. the blue blob screamed over the spitting winds.

disassemble me, there's something wrong inside, taehyung wanted to shout at him. a wet gasp yanked itself out by the throat instead. his lungs were trying to eat each other.

"i'm...going to..." the blue bob shuddered out through radio static, and tae barely felt the vicious press of cold palms against the soaked skin of his cheeks. he dry heaved and felt bile claw at his tongue. a scream was birthed still born on the roof of his mouth.

"calm..." the blue bob spoke against the side of his face, warm and fluttering. the sky slapped him until his bones were mushy.

i'm going to die.

something was pulled over his head. pitch darkness.

taehyung could feel his own breath on his lips now, could feel the hot blood pulsating behind his leaking eyes. the thing over him was black and warm. the blue blob was speaking, though taehyung couldn't really hear. or see. his heartbeat was in his nose.

then he was going up. he didn't know how, except that something was on his hip, something was digging into the crest of his hip but he couldn't feel it really, and he was sagging into that thing because he was wet mush. the thing—oh, a hand, stupid taehyung—was pushing him forward even though the rain was slamming into the crown of his head like a persistent sledgehammer and tae was worried his brains were going to splatter against the sides of his skull like in cheap horror movies. things began to blur. his skin slept and sensation died on his flesh, time becoming nothing, compacted into this one moment. someone spoke into the top of his head, breathing beneath his aching heaves, beneath the splatting and slamming and splitting of the earth. he felt the bite of metal on his side and then, all sound was muffled. there was softness beneath him, the sharp scent of pine stuffed up his nostrils and cradled at the back of his raw throat, and a warmth mouthed around his heavy, wet clothes. a door slammed shut. taehyung's fast exhale met thick fabric and brushed back against his quivering mouth like a frantic kiss.

a boy's face appeared in the opening of black fabric.

"s' okay." the boy rumbled. taehyung stared. the boy might have said something else.

someone shouted something from the front—front?—or maybe whispered it. the boy's face disappeared, and his rumble voice said something back. taehyung stuffed his cold fingers against the seam of his mouth, touched his blunt nails to his tongue and tried to stuff his next inhale back inside, but it slipped down his chin with a dribble of saliva.

then they started moving.

they were in a car. taehyung was in a car.

fuck. FUCK. his limbs suddenly went numb.

"hey...okay?" said the rumbling boy, but taehyung was going to die, so he started to sob all over again, and his lungs started growing teeth and tried to chew themselves to bits and pieces. the rain was beating on the windows, howling into the glass. a piece of the sky was going to break off and come down on them, a piece of sky was going to break off and slam down on the car's roof so hard the whole thing went concave, and then taehyung would be a mangled boy inside a mangled body mangled boys inside mangled bodies everything too little and too much and spilled all over the wet asphalt.

"hey, hey...where do you live? hey...calm...where do...live?" static radio boy tried to talk through the white noise, blue blob sticking from beneath the fabric, and taehyung was spitting his exhales instead of breathing them, hacking up his voice like a too big hair ball.

"almost home, almost home, almost home!" he spat from his ugly, swollen tongue, and the rumble boy hummed into his covered head.

stupid taehyung STUPID TAEHYUNG!

"almost home, almost home..." taehyung begged until the sky came down and knocked him unconscious.

///

he woke up in someone else's bed.

he could feel everything now. the brush of linen against his bare skin, cutting into the lift of his cheek. the dry crackle of his crooked rib cage shifting around his bursting heart.

the drag of his dead fingers dripping off the sides of the bouncy mattress, skimming the hard, chipped wood of the bed post. his eyelids felt like breaking paper mache and they dripped cold water through the gaps of his soppy lashes when he pried them open and squinted against the dim, gray lighting. as consciousness gripped his pounding temples, he became acutely aware of the tangy twinge of lemon detergent stinging at his cold nose, the taste of a stranger's slumber on his tongue. the satin pillowcase underneath his bobble head smelled distinctly of minty shampoo.

he pushed his tongue between his puffy lips, and the heat of it was almost scalding against his chilled skin. a rumble of thunder kissed the windowsill. taehyung's knuckles ached.

he remembered the rainstorm, the slippery feel of his bike handles wobbling out of his grip, the stop-start-stop-start of his tires against the edge of the flooding sidewalk, the scratch of his breath against his flayed throat as he choked out his mind with his memory. the rain was still coming. he could hear its splatting and dribbling, could hear the frantic wails of the sky as its lightning disembodied it.

his limbs were pinned down by the weight of his dripping clothes, soaked through with rainwater, dragging down his thin shoulders and shuddering hips and pulling towards the floor at gravity's stern insistence. his ankles were dangling off the end of the bed, clacking against the side of the bed. he was leaking everywhere like a popped water balloon. his eyes were a mess of congealed tears and crusted panic. he blinked until the walls came into focus.

he propped his elbow beneath his quaking stomach and lifted himself into a sitting position as slowly as possible, but the blood still rushed to his head and splatter painted phosphenes against the backs of his eyes. his loose curls sopped against the back of his neck, spilling cold water down the back of his shirt. he must have lost his ribbon.

he looked around. he was in a powder blue room, lying in the middle of somebody else's four poster bed atop a thick floral comforter. the walls were almost bare, lacking any distinctive features which could have tipped taehyung off as to where he'd ended up. there were a few obscure paintings, many of which seemed to portray nothing but indistinguishable shadows and shrouded, lonely furniture and blurry human figures turned away from the painter's view. there was a night stand and a dresser, both made out of dark, mahogany wood, decorated with rusty gold knobs and handles. the big window pane fixed into the right wall was framed by these fluttering, transparent cornflower curtains that made a soft hissing sound when they brushed up against the plaster.

thunder sounded again, shuddering against the sill until it shook a little. taehyung squeezed his stomach between his arms and tried not to vomit out a mangled whine. his heart nearly slipped down to his ankles when the door suddenly swung open with a screeching creak and a blue blob head poked from the widening gap. quivering silence fell still when a red mouth curled around a hum. there was a boy attached to the blue blob head. he was staring at taehyung from beneath a cascading curtain of thick, dyed hair gone a little black towards the roots. his eyes were shadowed by his bent lashes, so dark that taehyung felt for a moment that he was falling into them, bound by his own reflection in the irises of a stranger. his thick brows lifted when the blue blob boy realized taehyung's eyelids had been peeled apart and he was sitting up on the mattress with his breath shivering out of his lungs. he was a leaking puddle spilling over this boy's comforter. the boy pressed an odd, rumbly sound from his puckered mouth and stepped fully into the bedroom.

"you're awake." he said. the hairs at the back of taehyung's neck pulled away from his cold flesh.

he's so small, he thought.

"sorry, i didn't take you out of your wet clothes," the man half whispered. "i wasn't comfortable undressing you without your permission...you—"

"what's—what's happening?" taehyung choked out. the man's eyes pinched at the corners, and he pressed a surprisingly broad palm to the back of his head like he was bashful, though his expression was unwavering and quiet.

"you had a panic attack," he rumbled. there was a small, low rasp that tugged on the ends of his words, dragged from his tongue like he'd just woken up. he shifted to the right, and his bony hip popped as he pressed his weight into one, thin leg. "i didn't want to leave you out in the rain in that state, and your phone broke when you hit the ground so i couldn't use it to call your friends or family. i had one of my friends drive us here. sorry, i know this is probably disconcerting for you. you're free to use my shower and change into my dry clothes. my pants might be a tight fit, but my shirts and sweaters are oversized anyway. you can use my phone to call someone if you need to..."

"what's your name?" taehyung spit out, and his words smushed together. the man took a moment to untangle his meaning. his stare was unnervingly steady.

"min yoongi." he said.

min yoongi. taehyung swallowed against the wet hair ball caught in his throat.

"i'll go get you some dry clothes." yoongi told him, so quiet, taehyung had to press forward to hear. then he slipped back through his doorway and pittered down the hall.

taehyung folded his hand against his trembling lips.

"min yoongi." he whispered into his finger tips. the name was soft in his mouth. his throat molded around it.

the rainwater in the gutter outside gurgled like a brook.

///

yoongi soon returned with a pair of black sweatpants and an extra extra large deep blue sweatshirt. taehyung took a shower so hot he felt like his bones were melting inside of him, and when he stepped out, his feet burned bright red and stung against the cold bathroom tile. the sweatpants were too small, just as yoongi warned they might be, and they stretched around his shins. the sewn hems of the pant legs mouthed down to his bony ankles but never quite made it, so he let them ride up to the hollows behind his knees.

the sweatshirt was warm, made from cotton, and big enough to slip down the slope of his collarbone whenever he shrugged his shoulders. he squeezed out his hair and let it flop like icky black seaweed against the back of his quivering neck. it clung to him like a crying child. his reflection scowled at him in the mirror, and he tried not to think about the fact that he looked like a mangled boy who'd drowned in the gutter. he wasn't a ghost. he pinched his cheeks between his nails until pink bled through his flesh. his eyes were too big. like black holes. he frowned.

there's something wrong inside...

he shook his head. he was sick of himself. he slipped from behind the bathroom door and into yoongi's long corridor, following the dim pathway to a set of dark wood stairs and held onto the old antique railing as he descended. yoongi's home was so quiet. all felt still within these walls, so still that when the stairs screeched beneath his swollen feet, he felt like the loudest person in the entire world. his heartbeat sat behind his nose, dreadful and dizzy and fast. he stepped onto the ground floor and heard the slightest of hums, a barely there grumble just reminiscent of a melody. he followed it.

he found yoongi in the kitchen. it was a small, simple space. everything seemed to have been plucked from a vintage dollhouse, or an old countryside cottage. the cabinets and counters were a deep, rich hickory, and decorated with artfully carved floral patterns and dim gold knobs. the surfaces were decorated with vibrant green houseplants and blossoming marigolds. the soft yellow plaster held old paintings and faded photographs and small, knitted knickknacks attached to tiny hangers by dangling string.

yoongi was standing by the stove with his arm strung around his thin waist and his eyes half closed. he was standing very still, his mouth relaxed into a rounded frown, his forehead smooth in the absence of thought. taehyung might have thought he'd fallen asleep whilst standing had he not been humming to himself beneath his breath.

he was so tiny, but taehyung felt tinier standing in the doorway of his kitchen.

yoongi heard taehyung's toes push up against his floorboards and blinked his sleepy eyes open just as another crackle of thunder sounded from outside. taehyung strangled his flinch and yoongi's stare found some place above his brow.

"are you feeling better?" yoongi asked. taehyung's mouth prickled with pins and needles.

"yes. better."

the kettle hissed. yoongi turned his back to him and pulled the tea pot from the stove top, switching the oven off.

"i'm making honey milk tea," yoongi informed him gently. he reached for a black tea bag and the collar of his button up pajama shirt slipped down the slope of his wiry shoulder. taehyung's cheeks warmed and he turned his eyes away. "you can take a seat at the kitchen table. i'll bring you a cup."

"thank you, yoongi, really i—but you really don't have to—" taehyung tried to insist, but yoongi just shook his head and began pouring milk into both their mugs.

"i'd like to. please, sit. make yourself comfortable."

unsure of anything else, taehyung did as he was told and took a seat at the chipped cherry wood table. from his vantage point, he could see yoongi moving about, dribbling honey into their tea, stirring each accordingly. all the while humming some unrecognizable tune to himself and the sky kept cursing taehyung's name. he wanted to cover his ears. he wanted to call jimin.

jimin had told him not to go. he'd told him not to leave, told him to just stay there, just stay there with him. but he thought of jin with his fingers hooked around jimin's rib and he thought of jungkook with his smile pressed into the hollow of jin's knee, and he thought of their laughter fluttering from their mouths and into each other's stomachs, and he wanted to crawl out of his bones and die. he thought of his kiss on the tip of his own finger and the paint stuck beneath his nails and he was sick of himself. he should have stayed.

stupid. the world had almost eaten him.

"here." yoongi said, sitting a steaming mug on the table in front of him. taehyung jerked so hard that his kneecap almost flew off. yoongi shot him an odd look from beneath his hair. bile bit the sides of his throat.

"thanks..." he whispered. he sounded ragged. yoongi sat down across from him and pretended he didn't see taehyung's eyes unspool. he fit his spindly white fingers around the handle of his own mug and lifted the pale green rim to his lips. they were soft and pink and when they sealed around the edge of his cup, taehyung's stomach squeezed like he'd swallowed something he wasn't supposed to. he followed yoongi's lead and took a sip of his tea. it was so hot, it burned on the way down, and watery heat kissed the backs of his eyes, but it was such a pleasant warmth that he couldn't bring himself to recoil. he drank greedily until the honey felt like it was gluing his teeth together and his face felt feverish.

"glad you like it." yoongi purred, and taehyung looked up just in time to catch the light twitch his mouth gave. he managed a weak smile.

"it's delicious," he mumbled. he squished his knees together beneath the table. "um...i don't want to like...uh, bother you or anything, but i usually ride a—a bike and i was wondering if—"

"don't worry, it's in the front hall," yoongi was quick to assuage, and the tension between taehyung's shoulder blades loosened just a fraction. "i grabbed it before we took off. saved the paint tin in your basket too. miraculously, it didn't burst open when you fell. just got a little banged up."

"whew," taehyung sighed, pretending to wipe the sweat off his brow. "that's good. after all the trouble i went through to get that paint, it would have been like, an ultimate "fuck you" from the universe if it had just spilled...so uh...thanks...i guess?"

"mm," yoongi raised a brow. "you've been thanking me an awful lot."

a vaguely panicked laugh burst from taehyung's mouth. "oh, have i?" he forced a chuckle and scratched at the prickly sensation crawling beneath the skin of his neck. "i just...sorry, if i'm being weird, it's just that i'm thankful. to you. y'know, for like, not stealing my money and organs when i was out of commission...and also for taking care of me? making sure i was...okay? i just—you really didn't have to do all this."

taehyung wanted to die. a speckle of light caught on the edge of yoongi's pupil and he leaned forward in his seat with a light bow to the corner of his mouth.

"what would i need your organs for?" he asked.

taehyung spluttered. "oh, you know—black market exchanges, deals with the mafia, that kinda stuff."

"do i look like the kind of guy who'd sell your organs to the mafia?"

"well, no—" definitely not, he's sitting in front of you in a fucking baby blue pajama set drinking honey milk tea with his pinkie out like a five year old, taehyung you idiot— "just...you can never be too careful and um, what i meant was that a lot of people would've taken that as an opportunity to mug me, but you didn't, and that was really nice of you...i guess..."

"you guess," yoongi snorted. he stared at the table like it had told him a funny joke, with his eyelids pressed half closed. he pondered a meaningless sound beneath his breath and it rolled into the space between them, sleepy and gentle. "well, you're welcome. although i don't think you should thank me just for being a decent human being."

taehyung took a quick sip of his tea. yoongi's eyes followed the slow bob of his adam's apple.

"what's your name?"

taehyung startled a bit. "oh? me—no, of course its me—you can, you can call me, um—"

"i'm sorry if that's too forward," yoongi breathed. he shook his head, pinched his fore finger and thumb around the tip of his nose and squeezed his eyes tight for a second or two. when he opened them, they were angled downward, into his tea mug, and he looked more tired than before. "i'm a stranger. i get it if you don't want to tell me personal info about yourself."

taehyung blinked. yoongi's mouth stretched too far to the right, like he was trying to unfold a smile. it was uncomfortable to watch.

"i'm taehyung," he offered, mostly because yoongi's mouth was not a piece of laundry. "you can call me tae."

yoongi hummed. "tae."

he spoke his name like it was a revelation.

///

yoongi told him to stay the night. said the rain wouldn't be letting up any time soon, and if he was comfortable with residing a while longer in the space of a stranger, he should take the guest bed. taehyung was tired. he felt like wet laundry too permeated to dry and left to collect mold and mildew in a dusty corner long forgotten. the sky frightened him and all the world was draped in blackness. a mere glimpse out of yoongi's window had him gagging into his palm, so he told yoongi he didn't mind and swished back down the corridor, following yoongi's fluttering fairy feet to the doorway. yoongi was sort of terrifying.

taehyung turned translucent in front of him, like a bioluminescent sea creature unused to choking oxygen into his lungs. yoongi stared into his chest cavity like he could see all his organs swimming around in there. he dragged a lavender diffuser in from his own bedroom because taehyung's blood vessels were blown too wide and close to bursting through his nostrils. he plugged two cracked night lights into the outlet by the curtains. he apologized as the fractured blue light cascaded across the floorboards, pressing his eyes into the wall instead of into taehyung's squishy face.

taehyung didn't understand the little sorries that spilled from yoongi's pink frown, but he tucked them away anyway because yoongi only seemed to grow sadder when taehyung refuted them. taehyung stood by the dresser while he stripped the bed's damp sheets and replaced them with new ones. fatigue pulled on his bony shoulder blades, and he scrunched up into himself in an effort to prevent his body from crashing into the creaky floors. taehyung felt like throwing up from guilt. he didn't know why yoongi was looking after him. he didn't know why he was there.

he kept waiting for yoongi to snap. he kept waiting for his face to split open like ceramic shattering under blunt force. he kept waiting for him to start yelling. but, of course, yoongi wasn't really a teacup. he didn't crack or snap or shatter, he just brushed his fingers against his bangs and hummed into empty space.

"do you need anything else?" he asked, blatantly not looking at him. he whispered the question like the air might get mad at him for the disturbance.

taehyung shook his head. yoongi offered him that weird not-smile again. taehyung wanted to tell him to stop, but he didn't. he stood there while yoongi rumbled awkwardly and scratched his nails against his side.

"i'll be in the room down the hall. wake me up if you need me." he mumbled. his black lashes swept his pale skin, and he patted himself awake with the face of his palm before waddling towards the door. he brushed past taehyung on his way out, and taehyung's skin itched from his warmth. his stomach quaked uncomfortably.

the door shivered shut behind him and taehyung was alone. the rain banged its howling fists against the window glass and taehyung wanted to skitter beneath the bed post. instead, he climbed on top of the mattress and folded himself between the linen. it was so soft. taehyung was sinking into the pillow. he wished jimin was there to hold him and kiss his cheek and hum him to sleep. but jimin was somewhere across the city, safe and sound between warm bodies. taehyung only had himself. he wrapped himself up in his arms and tried to sleep.

///

it must have hurt, being the sky.

jimin knelt, knee deep in the earth.

"taehyung-ah, why do you kill everything you touch?"

he sounded so small when he spoke. jimin liked to consume taehyung's brittle bone, make him whole and make him human. a baby's chest splintered through the center by death's scythe, a heart more beaten than beating, more still than pulsing. a baby's chest grown into a milk rib cage. a tiny, pink hand between those ribs. love, dribbling from rose tea knuckles and a smile gnashing against the corners of a paper machè heart. like clockwork, taehyung was a machine. like a child's art project, he was haphazard. like happiness, he was forsaken. jimin's mouth was hot and bloody. his face wept beneath the rain.

"taehyung-ah, i'm afraid." he said, so small. he raised his palms. they were cut clean at their creases, veins popping from dewey skin. crimson gathering in the hollows of wrists. jimin's eyes burned through his skull. he dug his knees through the dirt.

"taehyung-ah, i can't breathe." the sky was blackness. the sky was made of eyes. was made of bloody hands and bruises. was made of witnesses. jimin gasped for the sky and rain drooled through the gaps of his teeth. his blood slathered the streets, the trees moaned, drunk on his cries, ravaged by the screeching winds, all teeth and tongue in the eye of the storm.

"taehyung-ah i CAN'T BREATHE!"

jimin quaked with the earth. he trembled from his slick lips to his rattling ankles. his lungs shoved up against his throat, and he gagged for air that would deny him. oxygen devoured itself, mouth panting, gaping, and left none for them. none for taehyung, with his stomach splattering against his fingers. none for jimin, choking on his big human heart. the sky was angry. it growled and slobbered and screamed. it slapped their backs until their spines caved in on themselves. it spat on their eyelids, yanked out fistfuls of their hair. taehyung searched for his ribbon, but the sky wrapped frigid lips around his throat and dug into his jugular. jimin screamed, and it screamed, and he screamed back.

"HELPHELPHELPHELPHELP!"

the squelching gutter gagged into the spluttering asphalt. taehyung pushed at the rain's tiny claws. his throat split right open and something gurgled out.

"HELPHELPHELPHELPHELP!"

the sky ached. wailed. it was made of eyes, and those eyes suckled on taehyung's too soft head until his thoughts burst like a bad appendix. it was made of wrath, pain-wrath, agonized wrath. so deadly were the betrayed, so angry were the abandoned. taehyung was cursed to his dirty black blood. the sky wanted to beat him senseless. the sky wanted him dead. the sky was starved. the sky was hungry. the sky wanted to eat him. the sky was going to eat him, and jimin was still screaming, screaming, SCREAMING "TAEHHUNGIE!"

taehyung was falling apart.

"ALL WRONG ALL WRONG ALL WRONG!" the winds shrieked and laughed as they pulled his hair from his head. "ALL WRONG ALL WRONG!" they giggled while they plucked his fingernails from his hands. "ALL WRONG, YOU'RE ALL FUCKING WRONG!" they yelled when they ripped his legs from his hips and he lie on the asphalt, bleeding his dirty black blood into the earth while jimin chokedchokedchoked—

the sky yanked him up by his ugly brown toes. the sky gnawed on his cheeks, its cold, swollen belly straining towards the ground, straining for his flesh. the sky, made up of eyes, made up of pain, made up of witnesses, swallowed up his eyes.

"you kill everything you touch."

jimin's head punched the road. he popped open like a piñata. he screamed.

"TAEHYUNGIE—

HELP—

TAEHYUNG TAE TAEHYUNG TAEHYUNGIE TAEHYUNG TAE TAEHYUNG TAEHYUNG TAEHYUNG TAE TAEHYUNG TAE TAEHYUNG

WATCH OUT—

///

he woke clinging to the cracks of the sky, someone screaming—screaming? HELP—or it might have been him, he grabbed his throat and his thumb pushed into his throbbing pulse and yes, it was him, but less of a scream and more of a sob, heaving and bloody sob, he was going to hack up his stupid churning stomach, the winds were throwing him into the sky's swollen belly, offering him up like raw meat, except when he scrambled for purchase in the earth's sticky, brown hipbones, he felt something else instead, something like an animal or something like a human or something like a—

"taehyung—"

he gasped.

oh, he understood. a boy mouth laid upon his ear. a boy heart thrust out of his chest because he was a person. he was breathing but not like humans breathe. he was breathing through his rib cage, breathing like he was racing something.

"taehyung, listen to me—" gasp gasp TAEHYUNG SCREECH—

he was sob breathing, not breathing, splitting from his flesh like a fucking monster—

"taehyung, you're safe, safe," safe. safe, safe, safe, safe, SAFE the static whispered. taehyung gripped the sides of—bed?—the sides of a bed. a bed post? post, it was hard beneath his grappling fingers, skittering beneath his clammy nail beds.

the boy was speaking through static and he sounded like breaking china. taehyung peeled his eyelids open—when had they shut?—and his lips ached with, "yoongi—" oh it's yoongi.

yoongi was touching him, not touching him, no, never mind, was not touching him. taehyung blinked and his face became a gurgling waterfall. his cheeks grew hot with tears. yoongi's hand was hovering just above him, just inches above his skin. yoongi was scared to touch him because he was splitting open. he was too little and too much and everything and nothing was pouring out of his mouth, pouring out of his eyes, pouring out. yoongi was shivering like breaking china but his eyes were firm as stone. he was speaking in his rumble radio voice. taehyung was breathing like a monster, trying to race, trying to win something.

"taehyung, you're having a panic attack," yoongi told him. "you had a nightmare, and it wasn't real. none of it was real, this is real. you are here, you are safe."

yoongi's hand was above his stomach, scared to just touch touch touch me! taehyung wanted his hand. he wanted wanted wanted—

"in for four," yoongi said and he'd been speaking but taehyung wasn't listening because he never fucking listened TAEHYUNG WATCH OUT he was so goddamn stupid and yoongi thought he was stupid and he was just a—"taehyung-ah, you're alright. hey, look at me. you have such pretty eyes. look at me, stay with me...you're safe. no one's going to hurt you here, i promise."

his eyes were nothing. but yoongi was drinking them up like hot cocoa. his face looked blurred and heavy. his lips were so pink. why wouldn't he touch him?

"can you breathe in for me?" yoongi asked, maybe smiling, but his head was a strange, colorful blob so taehyung couldn't really tell. he nodded though because yoongi's voice was soft and he'd saved him from the sky's fanged stomach.

"in for four," he directed, and taehyung tried to do as he said. but then he coughed cause his lungs were masochistic pieces of shit and they liked hurting. he sobbed silently and he must have looked disgusting. yoongi didn't gag. yoongi didn't stare at him like a flayed animal at an illegal petting zoo. "let's try again. in for four."

taehyung tried. he held it for two. then he started heaving and he thought he might be sick.

"it's okay, it's okay. i'm not mad, see? you're okay. let's try again. can you try again for hyung?"

taehyung nodded until his inflated head popped off his neck. he tried. it was gross. he was pumped full of mucus and water, felt like maybe he'd swallowed up the asphalt when he'd slipped from his bike and now his body was popping out of his teeth. he looked at his hands and they dripped with blood, but then he turned them to the blue nightlight and his palms became brown again. he was cold all over, shivering from his baby hairs to his toe nails, soaked in tears and sweat. yoongi was warm but still wouldn't touch him, even after his lungs stopped being petty bitches and did what they were supposed to.

he sat on the side of the mattress with his fingers poised above taehyung's ribs, hovering in the empty air. between them, his heat simmered, the ghost of skin upon skin, the tantalizing promise of warmth. the distance between them gaped and groaned like a child, and taehyung wanted to give in. he wanted...he wanted jimin. he wanted—he wanted someone to hold him. he wanted to hold someone. he wanted to be a person on a person on a person with lips and fingers and toes and hips and breath and little giggles and nose bumps and "sorry," and "you're comfy," and "you're so warm," and yoongi felt warm, but yoongi was afraid of his skin. taehyung was giving himself hypothermia.

"i'll make you some more honey milk tea." yoongi rumbled in a half whisper. taehyung hummed. his voice was mutilated. yoongi didn't seem as though he expected him to speak. he stood up and rustled towards the door. taehyung heard him hesitate for a moment before his padding feet shuffled down the corridor and creaked against the staircase.

he was gone for a while. or maybe he was gone for a second. taehyung didn't know. he didn't remember. he held the bed post and gasped against the ceiling's weight, listening through the blood in his ears for the house to hum and yoongi to emerge from the blackness beyond the doorframe. he was sick and feverish, clingy like a red faced little kid. he pulled off his sweat soaked pajama pants and star fished over the damp sheets. his hair was everywhere, on his cheeks, in his mouth, clinging to his eyelids. the rain had calmed. the sky was appeased, and taehyung had survived its wrath. he wanted to feel relieved, but instead, he felt so ill, he thought he might throw up. he stuffed his fingers against the corners of his mouth and cried.

why do you kill everything you touch?

yoongi came back.

"you're not wearing pants." he said.

"they were sticky." taehyung slurred.

yoongi didn't offer a reply. he took his seat on the bed and beckoned for taehyung to sit up, so he did. the world spun for a second. his hair slopped forward and yoongi gave a soft, amused huff.

"struggling?" he teased softly. taehyung could only nod. he was so dumb. yoongi pressed a hair band into his palm. taehyung's hands were shaking and it kept slipping between his fingertips, but he managed to yank all his hair back into a raggedy ponytail.

yoongi offered up the freshly brewed tea and taehyung knocked it back like a shot until his tastebuds fell off. his throat tasted of sad salt and honey.

yoongi left again and returned again with new pajama pants for taehyung to wear.

"i'm sorry i stole my legs from jack skeleton." he mumbled. his toes were bony and thin, pushing against the crumpled linen. he knees wobbled together. he yanked the pants up to his waist but his weird ankles still peeked out from the hems.

"they don't look like skeleton legs to me. they look like your legs." yoongi said simply. he tucked a padded blanket around taehyung's hips and his eyes were singing lullabies.

"they're fucking skinny, like twigs. they're gross to look at. sorry you had to look at them."

"taehyung, i think you should go to sleep now."

taehyung gnawed on his lip. he was talking too much. he was word vomiting and making yoongi feel like he was going to vomit from how much he hated his legs. taehyung wanted to vomit talking about his legs.

"yeah...yeah, sorry."

yoongi pulled the covers up to his chin. taehyung didn't look at him, even as the bump of his knuckle brushed just above the lump in his throat. his wrists quivered and he tucked them beneath the small of his back. yoongi breathed slowly.

"i'm..." he muttered through the corner of his lips. taehyung's gaze darted towards him and away all at once. he was leaning above taehyung like his father used to do when he tucked him in at night, except now taehyung was large and long and yoongi was tiny. tiny even though he seemed bigger than any of them, big enough to squeeze the moon between his teeth. big enough to be the moon.

"i'm sorry." he said, soft like the moon. he was worn down with weariness, his face like a tortured oil painting, his hands like broken porcelain. he looked like the blurred figures perched inside the vacant chests of sad furniture, looked like the portrait on the wall.

taehyung frowned. "what for?"

"i'm sorry," yoongi insisted. his little rib cage rattled hard enough for taehyung to catch the hitch in his next exhale. "i'm sorry you're hurt."

taehyung jerked. tae—

"i'm not hurt."

"but—"

"i'm not."

yoongi looked at him like he was the saddest creature in the world.

"...no. of course not."

taehyung was shaking again. he was angry. maybe. he might have been angry. his nails were digging into his flesh, little blades slicing open the folds of his raw palms. the scabbed chip in his skin came up with a sickening peel and hot blood fumbled to fill the split void. yoongi stepped away from him like he could just tell, yanking his pink mouth up and down at the same time.

the shadows were suddenly cowering beneath yoongi's soles. he stomped on their throats on his way to the door.

"goodnight taehyung." he said with finality. the moon dropped from the sky and crashed through the creaky wood floor of yoongi's guest bedroom. a blackhole opened up between taehyung's knees and tried to suck him through stomach first.

i've said something wrong.

stupidstupidstupid.

taehyung floundered for something, for anything, but he was nothing now. yoongi wasn't looking at him, was pointedly, purposefully, not looking at him. was looking into the corridor instead with one leg pressed outside the doorway. something unsaid was sitting on the nape of his neck. it was glaring at him.

"yoongi..." was all he could manage.

that seemed to be enough though. enough for him. he inhaled.

"your—your legs aren't gross," he said. "they're nice. i think your legs are nice."

taehyung made an odd noise. it was embarrassing. yoongi was embarrassed. taehyung was embarrassed because he was embarrassed, because he was lying on yoongi's bed pulling blood from his palm, because yoongi was small and pretty and big enough to eat the moon. because his legs were ugly and sickly and gross. because yoongi thought they were nice. yoongi was so embarrassed though, more embarrassed than taehyung.

"go to sleep tae." he whisper-whined. he ran from the room and the door thumped shut behind him.

taehyung blushed himself to death.

///

the morning after the storm was sickly.

yoongi woke him at seven thirty to start getting ready because he had a train to catch at eight fifteen. the sun was hardly a little sliver in the dingy sky and the world strained with an aching silence that weighed too heavily on taehyung's ears. the birds were lethargic and cranky, stabbing their beaks into each other's stomachs and scrambling to fit each other's heads between their feathered wings, screeching talons raking yoongi's window sill.

people slept late with the approach of the weekend, and so yoongi's glass feet shuffling and waddling over his floorboards were the only indicator of life on this comatose planet. taehyung took a lavender salt bath in the guest bathroom, hoped the water would clear his gooey eyes and make things seem a little more sensical. but last night, he'd dreamt he was being eaten by the sky. last night, he turned into a bioluminescent sea creature and hacked his blood vessels into yoongi's eyes. last night, yoongi was the moon and a teacup and a blue blob and a boy. there was no sense to be found here.

he pinched his soggy knees until they were pink and soaked his oil slick hair through until it smelled of sodium and pruny fingers. he dressed himself in his old clothes, his striped polo and his overalls, now dry, courtesy of yoongi's hospitality. the paint stains remained, permanent scars on light wash denim. he plaited his hair back with the boring black ties and ribbons he found in the junk drawer and slapped his paled cheeks until they burned some gradient of color. when he emerged, the paled sun was gagging over the horizon and the clouds were dribbling mustard yellow down the window panes. yoongi was waiting at the kitchen table with a crinkled newspaper in his hands.

he wasn't a morning person, that much was clear. he hadn't bothered to change out of his pajama pants. he'd only slipped on a big, thread-worn sweatshirt and an old knitted beanie. he looked less like an analogy in the daylight, more like the sort of boy taehyung would see on the six thirty train. deathly white and glassy eyed and with his lips ripped half way to bleeding. everything about him looked heavy. his skin too much for his bones, his bones too much for his frame. brittle, fatigued, and small. a sleep deprived atlas after a millennia of divine punishment. here's atlas now! feel old yet?

he was still eerily beautiful though. the universe was cruel that way.

taehyung took a seat at the table. yoongi peeled his spindly fingers away from the front page headline to gesture at the ceramic plate in front of him.

"cheese omelets and cinnamon milk." he rasped, and he sounded like maybe his voice was still sleeping.

taehyung never had an appetite in the mornings, and yoongi wasn't even looking at him, but he shoveled food into his mouth like an animal anyway, because it would have been rude to decline.

yoongi read the paper—people still did that apparently—and taehyung gulped down his breakfast like someone was going to steal it from him, and they resolutely did not talk about last night.

yoongi kept an eye on the time. his analog clock made a soft, resonating dingdingding! when the next hour hit, and then yoongi cleared away his dishes for him and told him to put on his shoes and grab his bike from the hall. taehyung laced up his sneakers and waited for yoongi to do the same. yoongi's shoulder brushed his as they squeezed out the door, his head slipping down the slope of his shoulder, and he was warm as spring, warm as his tea and his cinnamon milk too. he jumped away as soon as the contact registered, frightened taehyung would stickle onto him like a tick. and maybe taehyung wanted to crawl beneath his warm, soft, moon skin, or sit inside his porcelain collarbone, but not in the way yoongi thought. might have thought. might be thinking?

they left, and taehyung felt as though he were leaving something behind. he already missed the lavender diffuser. he missed the quiet and the creaking and the swaying knickknacks on the ceiling. he had half the mind to turn back right then, but yoongi said, "i hope your people aren't too worried about you." and taehyung remembered he couldn't do that because it just wasn't socially acceptable or polite or anything that made any bit of sense.

"i...they'll—they'll probably be fine." he blubbered back and his lips were sleep swollen and slow.

yoongi sniffled and offered up a curt nod. he was a man of few words.

it smelled of moldy summer outside. everything was still wet, and the morning flies seemed to like the thick mildew in the air because they kept swimming through it to take ill fated chomps at his nose, darting through the gaps in his fingers when he swatted them away only to dive in for more a few seconds later. the cars drove by and splashed stale rainwater over the toes of taehyung's sneakers.

"actually, i don't exactly have people." taehyung amended, simply to disrupt the bemoaning silence between them. yoongi's confused forehead crinkle told him he'd just picked up a dropped subject.

"you said you hoped my people weren't too worried about me," he trampled on himself trying to clarify. his mouth was a broken speed motor. he was talking too fast. "i—i...i don't really...have...people," he was talking too slow now, stupid taehyung. "i mean, i have, uh, friends. three friends to be exact, and they're my very good friends, although two of them only became my friends because they're dating my platonic soulmate, and so we became friends out of obligation, but now we're friends because we wanna be, and i like them a lot, like a lot, a lot, but not in that way, not like i wanna steal them from jiminie, it's just..."

"taehyung." yoongi reminded him softly. he was drinking him in with his eyes again. they looked like deep oak in the faint yellow sun.

"yes, yes, right," taehyung regained his metaphorical footing. "what i mean to say is, i don't have...people. in the traditional sense. but i have friends who are like, uh...love bonded. to me."

yoongi stared at him. his face was doing a...a thing. faces were hard. his lips were soft and rounded at the corners. his brows looked stretchy like putty, like they were uncertain. they hovered apart from one another, flicked up towards his hairline at their inside edges.

"love bonded..." he repeated slowly. he said it just like taehyung had, rolling taehyung's words around his own mouth. "that's...that sounds really nice. what does it mean?"

"i..." taehyung hummed. he was terrible at explaining. he threaded his fingers through the empty space between them. he floundered for a tangible string, a telephone line from one heart to another. "well, it's just like...it's a bond formed between people who don't share blood...a bond that transcends sensations of—of romance, and denies definitions used in relation to familial ties, it's just...it's just a bond, a relationship, a kinship that sparks between people and just exists. you know, um, outside of...of rules or guidelines."

"huh." yoongi sighed. taehyung knew his expression now. it was so warm. someone had carved something out of his heart and splattered it across his face instead. he touched the pad of his thumb to his lip, as though searching for the lingering heat of a kiss. his eyes were shrouded by his heavy lids. taehyung watched him and flushed.

"you're interesting, taehyung." he finally said. he planted his feet into a crease in the sidewalk. taehyung frowned.

"why aren't you walking anymore?"

"we're here."

"oh."

yoongi pointed past his shoulder.

"your bus is right there."

now that taehyung was paying attention, he could hear it slogging down the drowned asphalt, sloshing at the soaked sides of the street with its jumbo tires. his frown deepened so severely, he felt his lips pull taut and sting. he'd left something behind at yoongi's dollhouse, he was sure.

he already missed the lavender diffuser and the quiet and the creakiness and the knickknacks hanging from the ceiling. yoongi was staring into his cheek with the oddest little half smirk and taehyung missed that too. he glared down at his knuckles, wrapped around the padded handles of his bike. at the blue paint tin for his simply blue painting.

"are you sad to go?" yoongi said as the bus grumbled to a cranky stop. taehyung inhaled and his stomach flipped over. like a pancake, just like a silly little pancake.

"i'll miss you." he replied. yoongi snorted.

"you hardly know me."

"but i'll miss you."

the bus doors flung open. yoongi stared at him like he was the saddest, weirdest creature in the world.

"you should go." he told him urgently. he curled his spindly white fingers into his baggy sweatshirt and tugged until the collar yanked down his chest.

taehyung nodded. grabbed the seat of his bike and guided it over to the steep steps. the ginger bread boned bus driver helped him lift it up and into the aisle, even though taehyung heard his hip bone crackle inside him and his weathered hands shook a little from the effort.

"come on aboard." the driver half groaned, settling back into his chair. yoongi's gaze prickled against taehyung's spine.

taehyung climbed on at the driver's heeding, but turned to face the entrance. he braced his hands against the metal poles beside the sliding doors and stuck his head between them so they couldn't slip shut before he wanted them to.

"what are you doing?" yoongi blurted out. he was glowing through his cheeks, bubbling an effervescent shade of pink. he was honey rose tea spilling over the brim of a teacup. he was ethereal. "i already gave you money for the ride—"

"i'll miss you," taehyung interrupted. his tongue was feverish. his desperation ached with delirium. yoongi's eyes were so big now, big enough to fall into. taehyung was unspooling in front of him, his heartbeat in his nose, his veins throbbing with something like desire but not quite so scandalous, not quite so sharp, throbbing with something soft enough to hurt. he left something at yoongi's house. left something with this stranger not-stranger, blue blob teacup radio moon man. "i'll miss you, yoongi."

yoongi's pulled at his smile.

"it's," he huffed at himself. shook his head. "it's um...it's hyung. i'm your...i'm pretty sure i'm your hyung."

"all aboard!" the driver shouted.

taehyung beamed until his face split open.

"hyung!" he giggled like a five year old. he licked the honorific off his teeth like melted sugar. yoongi was embarrassed again. taehyung didn't care. "bye, hyung! bye!"

the glass doors slid shut with a definite clink.

"please, if you would take a seat?" the poor driver and his gingerbread bones, he sounded so brittle and tired and sort of sad.

but yoongi was standing on the sidewalk hugging himself, still staring at taehyung. still looking into him. still not running away.

bye, taehyung. he mouthed through the barrier. he waved. taehyung waved back, and then finally, to the relief of the sweet, old bus driver, he grabbed his bike and found a suitable seat at the back of the bus.

he was mostly alone. it must have been one of the first stops. there were only three other people onboard, and they all seemed just as strange as he was, as though they too could have spent the night unknotting their lungs in a stranger's home. there was a young girl with hair as red as a fire hydrants supergluing metal spikes to her platform shoes, an old man whispering indiscernible secrets into the face of his rusted pocket watch, and then a woman in a victorian era wedding gown drinking strawberry mint champagne from a bottle poorly hidden inside the folds of her messenger bag. he felt quite safe among them. the bus began to move, shuddering over a wet pothole, and everything became nothing but an abstract idea against the window pane.

taehyung laughed into his chipped palm, felt his breath hit the seam of his lips. thought of the boy in the ocean in the sky with his vacant eyes, left alone all night. thought of the blue paint meant to give him life. thought of yoongi.

"yoongi hyung." he said to himself.

he spoke yoongi's name like it was a revelation.

//

hello my lovelies! you made it to the end of chapter one! i know it was a long one!

so. how did you like it? are you intrigued? do you have questions, comments, thought provoking conspiracies? i'd like to know it all! i've been very excited to publish this chapter and it took a long time writing it, so i apologize for the wait. this fanfic is going to be in a strange writing style, a style i've never really explored before. i hope i executed it well. i have a lot of plans for this fanfic and a lot of ideas. i hope you all are just as excited for its future as i am and i sincerely hope you enjoyed it! please, leave your comments and questions, add this fanfic to your reading list, vote, or drop a follow of you feel like it! if not, that's cool too!

if you came from one of my older stories like pretty, runaway, oh miss belieber, or don't wanna be your boy, first, i want to thank you all for sticking with me and reading my new works! it makes me so happy and i love you guys more than you will ever know! i hope you noticed a change in my writing style and hopefully improvements! and if you're a new reader, welcome, and thank you so so so much for deciding to read this!

just a little heads up, i attend a performing arts high school, which means during the school year, i am very busy. as a result of that, updates may be irregular, but i'll do my best not to keep you waiting too long. i plan for this fanfic to have 12 chapters, though that may or may not change. not all of those chapters will be as lengthy as this one. if you guys have any questions about me or my works, you can message me through wattpad! i love talking to you guys and hearing your opinions!

and i want to give a special thanks to my editor and brother _picturesque. if you like drarry, you should definitely check out his fanfic flower crowns, and if you like my hero academia, you should read his one shots, or just drop a follow so you can read everything else he posts!

i want you guys to know that i care about you. this may seem weird or insincere because i only know you through here. we are separated by a screen, so how could i care about you? nevertheless, i do, and every time i read one of your comments or speak to you guys, i feel so happy. i love getting to know even a portion of you! i think you're all so amazing and strong and brilliant, and i know it's been so hard these past two years. maybe it was hard even before that. but you never deserved that pain. you never deserved to go through this, you never deserved to feel miserable or terrified or numb.

you are so strong for making it to today. i wish you didn't have to be strong, but i want you to know that you are, and no one else can measure that strength or tell you it's not enough. it is enough. it's more than enough and so are you. you are powerful. you are worthy. you are loved. you are allowed to cry, scream, shut down, disassociate, stop trying, all of it, you are allowed all of it. you are allowed to feel pain. you are allowed to struggle. you come first, no matter what anyone else says. your mental health and bodily health come first. fuck everything else. do what you need to do for you because you have been too strong for so long and no one knows your pain but you. no one can invalidate it. it is yours, it sucks, and you do what you need to do to feel better.

so please, take care of yourselves, be kind to yourselves, and treat yourselves because you're special and you're worth it.

i'm sending you all virtual hugs! eat and stay hydrated! love you!

bye bye!

//