WARNING: in depth description of some depression symptoms.
*****
Jungkook hovered over him one afternoon.
"You haven't cooked in a while, hyung," he said, draping himself over Seokjin from the back of the couch.
Jin only pursed his lips and continued scrolling down Crunchy Roll on their HD smart television. "If you're hungry there's some pizza in the fridge you can heat up. Or go order something."
"That's not what I mean, hyung," Jungkook whined, "I mean your cooking. Food that you cooked. You haven't made them in a while."
"I'll cook when I'm in the mood for it."
"From what I remembered, the last time you were in the mood was three months ago."
Seokjin turned to face Jungkook, the younger's lip already pulled into a pout. He sighed fondly and stroked Jungkook's arm.
"I'll make breakfast for you guys tomorrow okay? If you miss my homemade food that much."
Jungkook's pout turned into a little smile. And he contently nodded before running off, presumably to bother Jimin. Jin returned his attention to the TV with a sigh.
It's been nearly twenty minutes, and he has yet to find anything watch-worthy.
Seokjin had been reluctant to tell Jungkook this, but the reason he had stopped cooking was because nothing feels tasty anymore.
His taste buds work just fine – he's sure of that. The problem comes when the food is served in front of him, in which any kind of appetite he had would just slip away no matter how hungry he is. He tried seasoning and flavoring his food as best as he can, and yet at the end they look nothing more than plain rice served on a plate.
Seokjin finally gave up trying to find a decent movie and stood up to head to the kitchen. Might as well do the dishes.
A gigantic pile of dirty plates and bowls towered in the sink, a quarter of those most likely from Jimin, Taehyung, and Hoseok's annual ice cream eating competition. Which was held two weeks ago.
Seokjin scrunched up his nose at the putrid smell of dirty dishes. He's usually the one on cleaning duty, but lately he's just been feeling too out of it to actually do anything useful.
His cooking utensils lay forgotten around the kitchen. Seokjin brushed his fingers on top of one frying pan that used to be his favorite. He pulled it away to see a layer of dust had settled on top.
Seokjin stared at his finger. And stared and stared and stared. Out of nowhere his eyes began stinging, and before he knew it the first tear drop rolled down his cheek.
You haven't cooked in a while.
Now he's outright sobbing, gripping the kitchen counter for dear life.
Seokjin cursed under his breath. This has been happening too much lately. There's been one too many times where he'd feel dull nothingness for days but the moment a single minor inconvenience happens he turns into a blubbering mess.
He stayed in that position for god knows how long, frozen as his tears dropped to his dusty pan.
The sudden sounds of someone coming downstairs made him immediately straighten up. He quickly wiped his eyes, turned to tap water on, and grabbed a plate to seem like he was in the middle of washing the dishes.
Without looking Seokjin could tell it was Yoongi who had just popped to the living room.
"I'm going out to the studio," he stated, though by the tone of it he didn't really care whether anyone had heard or not.
"Don't stay out too late, Yoongi," Seokjin called out, trying his best to sound casual and not sound like his throat had been ripping sobs a few seconds ago.
There wasn't any more exchange of words as Seokjin listened to Yoongi walk to the front door. The door opened then closed, and once again Seokjin is left alone.
He closed the water tap. The only sound that accompanied him is the ticking of the clock on the wall.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Yoongi had heard the tap water turn on right as he walked down the stairs. When he arrived at the living room, Seokjin had been washing the dishes at the kitchen.
"I'm going out to the studio," he stated lazily.
"Don't stay out too late, Yoongi," Seokjin called out, and Yoongi paused. He glanced at his hyung, who hadn't bothered to turn around to even look at him.
There was something in Seokjin's voice and in his posture that didn't sit quite right with Yoongi. Deep down in his gut, Yoongi could tell something was wrong. But he couldn't pin point exactly what.
He bit his lips and turned towards the doorway. Maybe it's just a feeling. Jin hyung will be fine. He gave one last concerned look at Seokjin before stepping out the dorm.
It's just a feeling, he thought as he closed the door behind him.
*****
Later that evening, after the dishes had finally been done, Seokjin opened his laptop on his bed.
The video call loaded, and his parent's face came to view on the screen. Seokjin brought himself to smile.
"Hi mom, hey dad."
It's been a while, Seokjin thought. A few weeks since he last contacted his brother and nearly two months since he spoke with his parents. As usual, they were currently overseas.
He figured talking to them might help. Make him feel better in some way, or any way. Maybe ask for advice or at the very least vent some of his feelings.
His parents of course were pleased to be able to talk with their son again. Their conversation started pleasant enough, despite the small talk of 'how are your other members doing?' and 'they're fine mom, how's Germany?'.
Finally, Seokjin decided to bring up the topic he's been meaning to talk about. He scratched the back of his neck.
"Mom, dad, there's something that's been going on lately..."
"What was that, Seokjin?"
Seokjin looked up to see the screen all glitchy and his parent's voice staticky. He leaned forward to check the wifi connection and, to his dismay, found it lagging horribly.
After a minute the connection finally fixed itself and his parent's faces came back on. His father looked annoyed.
"Well, that was an inconvenience," he commented.
"Yeah, sorry," Seokjin said sheepishly.
He saw his father shift in his seat. "It would've been much better if we were to speak face to face, not through a video call from another continent."
Seokjin mentally rolled his eyes, already knowing where this is going to lead to.
"In fact, I'd rather have you here in Germany so we can-"
"So you can teach me the ropes to running the business- dad, I know," Seokjin grumbled, then wincing immediately after. He had probably said that a little too aggressively, because then his father's face turned to a stern frown.
"This is important, Seokjin. Our corporation is a family business and sooner or later you're going to inherit it."
Seokjin pouted. "Why can't my brother do it?"
"We've gone over this, Seokjin. Everyone else in the family have already built their own businesses. You're the last son who can take on the corporation."
"Well what if I don't want to?" Seokjin snapped, crossing his arms. "I have my own life too, dad."
His dad grumbled. "Bangtan Sonyeondan is temporary and you know that. I was just about to set up your own penthouse here if you didn't-"
"Hey! I can make my own decisions!"
His dad pounded his fist somewhere off camera. "That doesn't mean you can renew your contract to another seven years without us knowing!"
"Darling," his mother cooed nervously in trying to calm her husband, who only fumed.
Seokjin bit down his lips, too angry to look at the screen. It stirs up all the fury inside him because it's always this. Every single time he talks with his parents, it's always this. He thought talking to them might help with the troubles he's had lately, but turns out it really wasn't the best idea. "I've made up my mind," he muttered. "You can't change my choice."
His mother sighed and gave him a soft but stern look. "Seokjin, honey, what your father means is that this doesn't have to be your career path. You can fly over here anytime you want, alright? At least consider it."
"Okay," Seokjin said, knowing full well that his real answer is never.
They talked a little more afterwards, though Seokjin could almost taste how distant he was from his parents. Because the rest of their conversation consisted only of more empty small talk, which led to more empty topics, which led to more small talk.
After they cut off the call, Seokjin closed his laptop feeling like absolutely nothing. He groaned and let himself fall back to his bed.
Numb.
Numb is probably the best word to describe it.
Slowly he loses feeling of everything. Days blur into one another and he finds himself being dragged on the ground by monotone routines instead of him leading his own life.
Sleep, sing, dance, repeat.
Slowly the concerts become a repetitive event where they dance, sing, say thanks to the audience and then go home, all the while hundreds of cameras follow their every move and hands reach out to touch them.
Award shows become nothing but extra time and effort put into learning the blocking and show arrangement. The awards themselves are just...another shiny trophy to add to all the other shiny trophies.
'Tasty' food is only unnecessary calorie that ruins his diet plan.
Emotions are just chemical reactions produced by the brain in specific scenarios.
Bangtan is just...
Bangtan is just a boy band.
A boy band that just happen to be popular "in the Now", but Seokjin knows for a fact they'll eventually lose their momentum and one day disband. And after they disband maybe they'll be remembered for a decade or so, but afterwards they'll be forgotten. Soon enough no one would care for them anymore, and hopefully by the time that happens they'll already be dead.
Seokjin pushes his laptop away and pulls out his phone. He scrolled Twitter, knowing fully well he's not paying attention to what's on screen.
Maybe I can see a therapist, a small thought said in his head.
But Seokjin brushed it away as soon as it popped up.
He's an idol. He has no time for therapy sessions. Besides, the media would turn absolutely berserk if they catch a single rumor of a BTS member going to therapy. It's too much of a risk; a hot risk not even Seokjin is rich enough to pay the damages for.
It's probably just a short phase, he told himself. But why does it hurt so much for so long?
Sleep, sing, dance, repeat.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
*****
When Seokjin opened his eyes, the clock stroke 10 PM. Damn, he's been laying in his bed doing nothing for over five hours, nodding in and out of sleep, just lost in thought. What a useful person he is.
The room is dark now, even his glow-in-the-dark-stickers had faded. The sugar gliders were already sound asleep, so Seokjin refrained from turning the lights on in concern it might wake them up. Yoongi is...somewhere – not in his bed yet – and Seokjin finds himself yearning for him to come back home. At least then he'd have someone to talk to.
His chest aches. In fact, it's aching a lot. Like an anvil dropped from the ceiling straight unto his ribs.
The room is dark and cold. His bed doesn't feel any warmer. It's all too empty but at the same time it's too much. That's when the first sob broke out.
Why did he suddenly cry? That's a question Seokjin himself wishes he could answer.
Perhaps sometimes emotions bottle themselves up until the glass cracks and it pours. It pours down, down, down until all around him is just the vicious sea waiting to watch him drown. Swords slashed at Seokjin's lungs and he struggled to breathe, to let in at least a little air. The empty room watches Seokjin wrack his throat dry with sobs, ugly crooked fingers clawing uselessly at the bed sheets.
Seokjin craves to scream out. He craves to punch anything at all until his knuckles bleed if it means the pain will leak away through the blood.
He doesn't know how long he stayed there, curled in a fetal position, his harsh breaths swallowed by the darkness in each heave of his chest. It might've been hours, or a few minutes. Time felt like nothing.
After god knows how long Seokjin finally drained himself out and just laid motionlessly on the bed.
Shit, he thought. They have a photo shoot tomorrow. They have a photo shoot and Seokjin had just bawled his eyes out to his pillow at night. His stylist isn't going to be happy.
Still, Seokjin doesn't have the energy to do anything about it. It's like being dead, but at the same time his body still breathes and his heart still pumps. Aside from blood and meat, the rest of him is simply purposeless. A useless ghost just floating along down the stream.
"Sleep, sing, dance, repeat," he whispered before he fell asleep.
The next morning his eyes are swollen.
It's his fault, really. He knew it'd be swollen after the first few tears dropped, but he made no effort to get up to bathroom and at least try to wash off the tears. Nope, instead he just remained a pathetic pile of blankets on his bed.
"Yah, Seokjin-ah!" his stylist noona cried out. "What happened to your eyes?!"
Seokjin let out a nervous laugh. She had noticed it the second he sat down at the makeup table. "Sorry, I slept late last night."
The stylist sighed and began putting on foundation, mumbling about how much more effort she needs to cover the swollen part and how he should get more sleep.
Seokjin's only secretly glad no one else decides to push on the matter.
Despite that, he didn't notice how Yoongi had listened from the next table over.
*****
Yoongi...
...doesn't know what to do.
He knows something is wrong with Seokjin. At first he thought it's only a feeling, but more and more he's starting to notice whatever it is that's happening to Seokjin. It's present in the way he's stopped cooking, or stopped watching his favorite TV shows. It's present in how he stopped joking around as much off camera and, once Yoongi found out why the dorm felt so silent after a while, he realized that Seokjin's stopped playing the guitar as well.
None of the other members seems to have caught on. Yoongi doesn't even know if Seokjin himself had noticed.
He's silent today, Yoongi noted as he watched Seokjin do his photo shoot from afar. Only talking when being spoken to or when absolutely necessary. Distantly he remembered a Seokjin who was not afraid to act crazy in front of his dongsaengs. A Seokjin who does not give a single care to the idol world, a Seokjin who loves to cook and eat and tell funny stories and laughs like a maniac.
That Seokjin he used to know. Where is he?
*****
Yoongi had started to consider bringing it up after that time he saw Seokjin "cleaning the dishes". But him showing up at the photo shoot with red bloated eyes that was definitely not from lack of sleep is what took the cake for him.
And as much as he hates it...
"Hyung, we need to talk."
He's standing at the foot of Seokjin's bed after coming back from the studio. For hours he had just been absently making beats, steeling and preparing himself to have a real talk with Seokjin.
The older, who very clearly had just fallen asleep, sluggishly opened his eyes. Okay, so maybe nearly the middle of the night wasn't the best time for Yoongi to confront Seokjin, but he knew that if he waited any longer than right now he'll just keep putting it off.
"It's late, Yoongi. Can't we do this tomorrow?"
"No," he answered, probably a little too quickly.
Seokjin furrowed his brows and rubbed his eyes before shifting to sit up on his bed. Seokjin's night light and Yoongi's bedside lamp are the only sources of illumination in the room, and Yoongi paused for a second to take in the other's sleepy face under the soft glow. He couldn't help but notice the weirdly cute messy bed hair, and the way his pajamas hang loosely on his collarbones, exposing those wide shoulders.
Yoongi blinked a few times. No, focus.
"Okay," Seokjin sighed tiredly. "What is it?"
"What's been going on with you lately?"
Straight to the point, Yoongi thought. No dancing around the topic. He saw Seokjin tensing up, his body subtly going to defensive mode.
"What do you mean, Yoongi? There's nothing going on with me."
"No, there is. I've been there before, hyung. I know the symptoms."
Seokjin looked up to him, wide eyed. "What symptoms?"
That made Yoongi clench his fists. He glared at Seokjin, acting all innocent and unknowing. Brown eyes – beautiful brown eyes - staring up at him and making fireworks explode inside him. Stop doing that. Stop doing that. Stop-
"Stop being an actor!" he snapped.
A heavy bruising silence veiled the room, and Yoongi almost regretted his outburst. Almost.
Seokjin stayed silent for so long Yoongi thought he had stopped existing altogether. "What do you want with me, Yoongi?" he eventually asked, emotionless and hollow.
Yoongi bit his lips, fingernails digging farther into his palm. "For you to just tell me what's wrong," he choked.
Another of that wretched moment of stillness. Yoongi wants so badly to just reach out, to grab at Seokjin and make him snap out of whatever it is that's bothering him. But he finds himself frozen in his place. Seokjin is only across the room to him but he feels so far away, almost unreachable. Not more than a disembodied voice, resonating from the darkness.
"Nothing's wrong," Seokjin's voice said. "I'm fine."
Yoongi's nose flared. His chest heaved. Up. Down. How does he respond to that?
"Fine," he said instead. Seokjin had put himself in a stubbornly thick shell that Yoongi fears he won't be able to break down quick enough. He'll have to pry Seokjin out of there, even if it's one inch at a time.
"Fine," he said again. "But we'll talk about this again, okay?"
"Okay. Good night, Yoongi."
Seokjin wasted no time to bury himself back to his bed, getting comfortable. He reached out to turn off his nightlight and in an instant his side of the bed room is engulfed in darkness, leaving Yoongi to stare at the inky black.
Seokjin didn't give Yoongi a chance to say anything else. Didn't give a chance for Yoongi to say something along the lines of "I'm worried about you, hyung," or "I want you to be okay". Yoongi debated to voice his thoughts, right there and there, but he forced himself to swallow those words. It hurt his throat, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything more than what has been said.
Seokjin is somewhere there, in the darkness. He's so far away.
Yoongi made his way to his own bed, turned off the lamp, and let himself fall into a dreamless sleep.
*****
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock keeps ticking. It's 2 AM now. Seokjin's eyes still hasn't closed since that talk with Yoongi.
Slowly, he shifted to look over the other's bed. Yoongi's side of the room had been drowned in darkness, so Seokjin trusted he's already fallen asleep.
Discreetly he reached into the space between the mattresses and pulled out the crinkled piece of paper. He quietly turned his night light on and read the letter, over and over again. Read it beginning to end under the minimal light until his eyelids sting and his eyes water. Read it again and again until the words seep into his skin.
He sighed, long and slow until he feels his lungs squeezing the last bits of air in them. He presses the paper close to his chest and on top of his heartbeat.
It's all okay. If it gets too much he'll just give up the letter and leave. He just needs to hold on a little while longer.
It's all okay. Just a little longer.
*****
In a concert, he stands on a stage. The crowd is an ocean. A sea of stars, alight with all the army bombs moving in each beat. The cheers of the ocean lights his own spirit – they come at him in waves of life.
Or at least it used to. Now he feels like drowning.
At some point he stopped listening to the music and focused only on the internal beat that had been drilled into his mind. Constantly ticking as his feet hit every beat. There is no melody. Only ticking.
*****
Seokjin avoided Yoongi the entire next day.
They barely spoke, barely touched, barely looked at the other's direction.
The other members caught on one by one. Namjoon gave Yoongi the raised eyebrow when Seokjin hadn't even stopped to say good morning. Yoongi only vaguely shook his head and turned to do something else.
"Is something wrong with those two?" Yoongi heard Jimin whisper to Hoseok from the living room's couch.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Hoseok shrug and said ,"Maybe we should tell Kook and Tae."
It frustrates him. He had told Seokjin that they'll talk about it. Had wanted to help Seokjin sort it all out. But now Seokjin is avoiding him and Yoongi is angry at himself because why can't he approach Seokjin? Confront him? Say something?
Out of nowhere there's a wall of tension between them, separating. And Yoongi wants so bad to rip it down and find Seokjin but he just- couldn't. He could only stare. And stare and stare until Seokjin catches him staring and Yoongi would instantly turn away, doing nothing to help their situation.
Fuck.
*****
The second part of their photoshoot starts around noon, after dance practice. They all piled to the van to head to the second shooting location. Seokjin sat at shotgun, cutting off any interaction.
(Which is admittedly infuriating. Seokjin is right there, an arm's reach away, yet he feels so incredibly distant. Like Yoongi would find it easier to scream across continents than to talk to Seokjin who is literally only two feet away.)
Yoongi might have been be a little too lost in his thought, though. Because when Manager Sejin – also acting as driver that day – had just started the van, he started to rummage through his bag.
"Wait- crap."
"What is it, hyung?" Hoseok asked from beside him.
Yoongi scowled as his arms reached deep between his belongings but came out empty. "I think I left my phone and headphones in my room. I need to get it."
"Yoongi-ah, we're on a time schedule here," Sejin said sternly.
"Yeah, yeah, sorry." Yoongi was already opening the car door. "Look, you guys go first. I'll catch up by uber. Tell the staff I'll have my photoshoot last."
Seokjin, who was sitting in the front, did not respond – only continuing to stare out the windshield. Yoongi bit his lips and hopped off.
"Damn, where is it?"
It's been ten minutes and Yoongi had scoured all over his side of the room. His desk, his closet, even the bathroom. Nothing under his pillows either. Don't tell him he left it in the studio earlier today.
He looked around once more, wracking his head trying to remember where he last put it. His eyes landed on Seokjin's bed, and that's when it came to him.
A few hours earlier he needed to clean his sheets and had transported all his pillows and blankets and plushies over to Seokjin's bed to make things easier. His phone must've slipped between there somewhere.
He lifted one of Jin's overly soft pastel pillows and, there they were. He picked up his phone and headphones and stuffed them in his jacket pocket.
Yoongi was about to leave, if it wasn't for his eyes spotting something peculiar.
Is that a slip of paper? he wondered as he reached out to the tiny space between the mattress. Weird place for something like that. Unless Seokjin had intentionally put it there.
Curiosity got the best of him and Yoongi opened the folded letter.
His heart stopped.
"What the hell?"