If there's hellos,
then there's bound to be
goodbyes

"Why?"

At hearing the quiet whimper escape Chaerin's lips, Yoongi exploded.

"It's useless, that's why! For months I did midnight gigs at sketchy bars and got payed barely enough for the subway ride home. Then I went into those underground clubs and sat in a room with a bunch of other wannabe rappers and I performed for people who weren't even listening!"

Yoongi stopped and held his tongue, needing a minute to calm down. He was yelling. He hated yelling at Chaerin, she didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of his fury. But he couldn't seem to stop himself today. He took a deep breath and continued in what was hopefully a softer tone.

"Do you know how shitty that is? To pour your heart out and have people turn a deaf ear? I hate that feeling, but it was there after every show I did. And now I don't even have worthless midnight gigs to go to! I just sit in this apartment and revel in my own misery and self pity. But feeling sorry for myself isn't helping anyone, it's just hurting the both of us and I just can't do it anymore." The usually low, soothing hum of Yoongi's voice came out in a gruff, dark tone.

Chae cringed at his outburst. She couldn't recall a time when Yoongi had yelled at her like that. She didn't like it all. It made her feel like the villain, but she wasn't. She hadn't done anything wrong here. Chaerin's chest felt tight and it was getting harder to bring air into her lungs but she couldn't stop her own yells from slipping off her tongue.

"You think you're the only one struggling, Yoongi? No! My ride hasn't exactly been smooth sailing either. At least you get to make your music. Me? I've been turned down by every single talent agency I've applied to. I've been rejected every time I read for a part. I'm getting nowhere, but at least I'm trying—" her voice cracked.

Chaerin squeezed her eyes shut, her shoulders hunched lower and her face turned away from him, a curtain of hair swung down and blocked her from Yoongi's view. He couldn't see the tears leaking from her tired eyes. Chaerin swallowed the lump in her throat and kept speaking, praying to any god out there that Yoongi wouldn't be able to tell she was crying.

"You said it was you and me. We were going to move to Seoul and chase down our dreams together. Me and you. Well I'm still trying here, Yoongi. So don't you dare give up what you love. Don't give up on us." She could hardly choke out the words. She'd never had this much trouble telling someone the truth, especially not her best friend.

Yoongi sighed in frustration. He wanted to tell Chaerin that he'd keep trying, that this wasn't the end of the road for his music dreams. But in truth, he was tired. Tired of not having his songs heard. Tired of singing to an audience of five or six people. Tired of not being able to write a single lyric. Tired of living in this crappy apartment. Tired of feeling completely hopeless. He was tired. And he couldn't do it anymore.

Locking his gaze with hers, Yoongi made sure that Chaerin saw it when his jaw clenched and his head shook from side to side. Chaerin didn't want him to give up, but here he was. This was the end of the road for him, she had to know that.

Chaerin's face steeled. She glared at him with hard eyes. It was those eyes that crinkled cutely whenever she smiled and said "hello" to him in their childhood. It was those eyes that sparkled as she watched the stars with complete and absolute wonder. It was those same eyes that used to light up whenever his fingers hit the keys of that old, brown piano in his grandmother's sitting room. Those eyes now cut through him like daggers.

"You're giving up." It wasn't a question. The painful realization that her best friend was quitting on his dream—on their dream—hit Chaerin like a bowling ball to the gut.

"You know, I looked up to you. You were always so sure of what you wanted and you were determined to get it. The Yoongi I grew up with would never have given up his music, even if the whole world came crashing down on him," she shook her head in disbelief, her eyes locked on him. "You are not the man I thought you were, Min Yoongi."

The man in front of her raged. "I'm not the same kid I was when we were growing up, Chaerin! People change!"

"No. People don't change, they either live or they decay. And you, Yoongi, are rotting away."

His jaw clenched and his teeth ground painfully. Yoongi was fed up with Chaerin and her stupid speeches. He didn't have to stand there and listen to the cryptic insults that were being hurled his way. He was done. In his anger, Yoongi stomped out of that apartment, slamming the door behind him so hard that the pictures on the walls quivered in their frames.

Chaerin kept still as Yoongi stormed out, watching as the framed photo of them by Han River on her birthday shook and fell from its nail on the wall. Her bottom lip trembled, more tears spilling down her pale face. Taking slow, careful steps, Chaerin walked over to the fallen picture and picked it up between shaky fingers.

The glass was smashed and it left slight scratches on the glossy surface of the photo. But the two people smiling up from that frame didn't care; they were happy, they did not yet know the trouble that would come to ensnare them.

Chaerin's tears dripped onto the glossy photo and rolled across the picture, landing on the shards of glass that managed to stay within the frame. She wished they could go back to that day. Chaerin wished that she and Yoongi could freeze that moment and spend an eternity watching the sun set over the river, his arms hugging her to his chest and her head laid back on his shoulder. But life was cruel, and perfect moments like those weren't meant to last.

So Chaerin clutched that photo to her chest and she cried. She cried for her best friend, who was alone and in pain. She cried for her broken family. She cried for the dead dreams she now knew she could never reach. She cried for the shattered photo that held the shattered remnants of a once beautiful friendship.

Past her sobs, Chaerin just barely registered the piercing pain in her chest. It weighed on her shoulders and crushed her lungs until she couldn't breathe. It was so intense that the trembling of her own hands, where they clutched onto her arms as she hopelessly hugged herself, didn't even register in Chaerin's mind.

It was the same pain she'd felt when her father had died. It was the same pain she'd felt watching her mother being driven away in the back of a police car. It was the same pain she'd felt when she found her grandmother dead on the kitchen floor.

It was heartbreak.

And she couldn't just sit there and let it consume her; she had to do something. She needed to make Yoongi realize that giving up his dream wasn't going to solve anything. She had to fix this. But how? How could she fix something that was so far gone?

Tears poured down her face, not stopping even when a horrible, terrifying idea seeped into Chaerin's head. The thought of it swirled and filled her skull, consuming every bit of her attention. It was the only thing she could think of. It was foul, and sickening, and she felt her heart break again at the mere idea of it. But it was the the only solution that might actually work.

Chaerin knew in her heart that what she was about to do would either break Yoongi out of his stupor or it would turn him completely numb to the world. But what options did she have? Chaerin sure as hell didn't want to do it, but she had to do something. She had to try.

ㄴㅇㄱ

Yoongi felt like crap.

He'd been wandering the streets of Seoul for hours now and still the blazing fury in his chest had not calmed. He walked with his arms crossed over his chest, his fists balled tightly, he felt half-ready to punch a brick wall. The slapping sound of his boots on the pavement reverberated through his skull and the empty streets, sounding so much louder than it should. He hated this.

Yoongi hated feeling this horrible over a stupid fight. He hated giving up on his music. He hated knowing that Chaerin also struggled with her dreams. He hated the yelling and the painful exchange of words. And most of all he hated how Chaerin looked at him with disappointed tears in her eyes.

But Yoongi couldn't do anything about any of that. He couldn't pick up a pen and write. He couldn't make his dreams into a reality. He couldn't take back the words he'd screamed. He couldn't fix Chaerin—who he feared was now just as broken as he was.

So he just kept walking.

The street lamps flickered and buzzed annoyingly, and since Yoongi wasn't really watching where he was going, he managed to bump his shoulder into one. The sound of crinkling paper echoed through the empty streets and Yoongi looked up in annoyance to read the flier that was taped to the lamp post, the one he'd bumped into.

Big Hit Entertainment
Music & Artist for Healing.
_____________________
Seeking new talent. 
Auditions currently being held.

Yoongi scoffed as he ripped the flier off the post and glared at it. The idea of being part of some idol company was not something he had ever considered. And now that he wasn't going to pursue music any more, there was no use in even attempting to audition for any entertainment company. But for some reason, even as he rolled his eyes and kept on walking, Yoongi stuffed that flier into the pocket of his jacket.

From the corner of his eye, Yoongi caught sight of an old railway station sign. It was a decrepit old thing. The words on the sign were hidden beneath a dozen layers of chipping spray paint. That railway station sign looked how he felt, forgotten and abandoned. He sighed. The one thing Yoongi didn't want to do right now was go home to that apartment and face Chaerin. If this were another universe, Yoongi would have walked into that abandoned railway station and crashed for the night beneath the crumbling cement ceiling. Perhaps he'd even meet some new friends in that abandoned little corner of the city, to replace the one he feared he'd lost tonight. But that was not his life. He only had one friend and he had to go home and face her eventually.

Reluctantly, he turned his back on the railway sign and started towards home. The streets were dark and gloomy and littered with discarded beer cans, but Yoongi didn't care. He walked slowly, trying to prolong the journey home. He loved Chaerin, he did. But she had screamed how he'd disappointed her and basically called him a quitter. Those were not words that Yoongi appreciated, nor ones that he would so easily forget. It was the worst fight they'd ever had, and in that moment, even though he loved Chaerin, he didn't like her all that much. So when he came to a halt in front of apartment 5E, Yoongi hesitated. He didn't want to go in there. He didn't want to see Chaerin's tear stained face and hear her call him a disappointment yet again. But she was his best friend, so he had to face the music—metaphorically speaking.

Yoongi pulled open the squeaky apartment door, flicked on the living room light, and stopped in his tracks.

The room was empty.

Sure, all the furniture was still there, but Chaerin's favorite blanket was gone. Her clothes, which were constantly strewn over every surface were gone. The shoes that she always left by the front door were gone. It was all gone.

Chaerin was gone.

A glint of light on the couch caught Yoongi's eye. His head spun but his footsteps were steady as he made his way over to that awful old couch that he and Chaerin had spent so many nights on. On the cushion furthest left—the one Chaerin always sat on—lay a framed picture. The glass was smashed and the glossy photo inside the frame was scratched. A small, folded scrap of paper lay on top of the photo, amongst the pieces of broken glass. Before he even knew it, Yoongi's quivering fingers were unfolding the thin sheet of stationary. Three little words were scrawled across that torn scrap of paper.

Don't give up.