Chapter Text
Yoongi was exhausted.
He perched on the couch, knees drawn to his chest as he scrolled on his phone. His roommate Seokjin was somewhere in the kitchen, likely cooking up some new experiment for dinner. Both of them had a scant two hours before they left for their respective night shifts, time Yoongi should have been using to catch up on homework(like that stupid forty-page reading for professor Bang’s class, or the essay due in two weeks). Instead, he peered down at his phone like it could somehow wake him up, a feat not even the three cups of coffee buzzing in his system had achieved.
Wasn’t blue light supposed to keep you awake? How the fuck was he more tired than he’d felt five minutes before?
Fuck, this was bad. How would he last eight hours like this? He missed his farm job from the summer, missed the hours spent on a quad during the decent hours of the day with nothing but sky and a podcast to accompany him. Fuck customer service, he didn’t have the energy to deal with people anymore. How the hell did people make a career out of it? God, he should have just picked a music degree and dealt with the consequences.
He switched to Tiktok in the hopes that the drone of repetitive audios would tune out the part of him that had begun to screech and cry for sleep, but instead the noise grated on his nerves, so he turned the volume all the way down and scrolled without really looking at the videos. God, he was so tired. He—
“Oh, Yoongichi. You’re into that? I didn’t realize.”
Yoongi startled. When had he zoned out? He blinked down at the screen, then up at Seokjin. “What?”
Seokjin chuckled. “BDSM. You’ve flipped through a few videos I’ve seen while I was sitting here.”
Oh god, how long had he been sitting there with Yoongi zoned out of his mind? What had he thought Yoongi was watching? Yoongi bit his lip, then sighed. “…what?”
Seokjin huffed and ruffled his hair. “It’s okay if you like it,” he said, much gentler this time. “I was just curious. I’m part of that community, that’s why.”
“Oh.” Yoongi blinked again, long and slow. “Okay.” His thoughts felt like syrup. Shit, how many hours had he slept? It hadn’t felt like much at all, and he kept waking up for no reason.
“That’s not the reason I came over, though,” Seokjin said. “I have food. Come eat.”
Yoongi nodded and glanced down at his phone. BDSM… well, the for-you page was called that for a reason. He saved the video and leaned back on the couch. It wouldn’t be the first time he learned something new, anyway. Seokjin was an out-and-proud asexual, braver than Yoongi in that regard, and… wasn’t BDSM a sex thing? He’d have to keep his searches private so he didn’t start getting porn ads again.
Oh, Seokjin had said to come eat. Maybe Yoongi should do that.
Yoongi shoved his achy body off the couch and shuffled to the kitchen. Seokjin had just set the last of his dishes on the table, and the placemats were already set like they were some kind of family, and not just two college roommates who got along so splendidly they could be called true friends.
Then again, that easy, caring energy was what had drawn Yoongi to Seokjin in the first place. It wasn’t often he found people who didn’t take his… ambivalence as an opportunity to do and say things they would never have said to any other person.
The food was too sweet, but Yoongi kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t his job to critique Seokjin’s food, and besides… it didn’t matter. It was food. The taste was just a luxury, an afterthought. The point was energy… what had he been thinking about?
Oh. Seokjin and BDSM.
“Hyung?”
“Hm?” Seokjin looked up.
Yoongi felt the little spark of curiosity disappear into the ocean that was his never-ending social anxiety. What if Seokjin thought he was stupid? What if it was something everyone knew? What if Seokjin had heard the question so many times he was tired of answering it? Better not to ask, he could look at google later and get the answer just as easily. Seokjin was probably just as tired as he was. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. God, when had Seokjin’s eyes become so knowing?
“Nevermind,” Yoongi said, and looked down at his food.
Seokjin reached over and ran a hand through Yoongi’s hair. “Are you feeling okay? The bags under your eyes are deeper than usual.”
Yoongi shrugged. “I’m okay.” Easier to pretend it was just lack of sleep than the last disastrous phone call with his parents, the looming eight-hour shift he didn’t have the energy for, the degree he didn’t want, the lingering feeling something was missing. It was too much to get into, so Yoongi shrugged again and let Seokjin pet his hair and fuss over him.
“You were talking in your sleep again,” Seokjin hummed. “Something about airplanes.”
Yoongi snorted. “Airplanes?”
“Yep. I think you were flying one.”
“Sounds cool,” Yoongi huffed, and let Seokjin drag him into a discussion about airplanes and the last plane ride he’d taken. It was really a one-sided rant, but Yoongi didn’t mind. It was nice to let someone take control and decide what they would talk about or whether they would keep talking at all. His mind drifted a few times, but Seokjin didn’t seem to notice, so he let it. It was fine, right? He would just apologize if he missed something important. Seokjin was used to him missing important things. Seokjin was used to him not saying much of anything. Seokjin was used to him not having an opinion.
Would it be better if he had an opinion? If there were some part of him that could be truly valuable to another person?
No, Yoongi didn’t want to think about that. There was no use fussing over what couldn’t be changed.
Yoongi was fine the way he was.
He was fine.
He couldn’t shake the thought of Seokjin being a part of the community, though, and as he left for his shift Seokjin’s words fluttered in the back of his mind.
“It’s okay if you like it.”
Did Yoongi like it? What had he clicked to put that on his page?
He left the video alone in his folder. To watch it would be to confirm whether or not he liked it, and he couldn’t afford to like it, not now.
Better to let life pass this way than fuss over wanting something else.
**
Eight hours limped their way through his mind, stocking one item after another, wandering from one location to another, answering one question after another. He sat through his break and stared at the wall, lost in a space between reality and his mind, before the familiar ringtone of his alarm warned him it was time to return. When he finally left the store and half-fell into the passenger seat of Seokjin’s car, he wanted nothing more than to sleep and think of nothing else.
“Finished all your homework for the day?” Seokjin asked. “You were planning to finish that assignment over your break, right?”
All the air left Yoongi’s lungs. The assignment. All the materials still lay in his backpack at his feet, untouched. God, he was so stupid. After all that trouble to make sure he could take everything with him-
“No,” Yoongi sighed.
“Ah,” Seokjin didn't seem to know what to say for a moment. Then, after a quick glance at Yoongi’s face, he asked, “Do you want me to go over it with you tomorrow? My professor canceled our class for that day, I only have a makeup assignment.”
Yoongi shrugged. “Whatever you want. It’s your time off.”
“Yoongi,” Seokjin began, then broke off. “Let’s revisit that tomorrow.”
Yoongi nodded. Was it… bad? Not to have an opinion either way?
His parents thought so.
God, Yoongi was such a disappointment. Why couldn’t he feel anything either way? If he could just have some sort of strong emotion, maybe-- maybe he wouldn’t feel so broken. Outwardly, he remained calm, too tired to bounce his leg or do anything that would have told on his building anxiety. Inwardly, he spiraled.
Not that spiraling was a foreign thing. He could usually tug himself out of it. But it was cold, and late, and both of them were too tired to move their faces in ways that would reassure the other, so the panic mounted uninterrupted until Yoongi stumbled into the bedroom and face planted on his bed.
He should call his parents. Or set an alarm to call his parents. They would want to talk, he’d hung up on them after the last disaster, but… no, he was too tired. He sank through the thoughts, the building anxiety, and the restlessness, into something that wasn’t quite sleep but wasn’t quite anything else, and then he was gone.
**
Yoongi dreamed he sat on a bed, talking to a faceless stranger, rope twisted and looped over his arms. Not tied, no, but getting there, about to be. He woke with adrenaline racing in his veins and the memory of his conversation with Seokjin on his mind, and he almost couldn’t pull together the strength to get out of bed.
Was this what it would be like for the rest of his life? Dragging himself from one thing to another, desperate for some sort of meaning or pleasure or comfort? Chasing money for no reason? Yoongi thought again of the music scholarship he hadn’t applied to, too afraid of what his parents would say. It didn’t matter, right? It was long past the deadline, and his parents would be angry anyways. It didn’t matter. He'd chosen this. He just had to get up and work on this assignment.
Yoongi stayed in bed.
Bed was where all the best and worst things happened. Sleep and spirals. Rest and regret. Quiet and… oh, he was falling asleep again. He couldn’t do that. If he fell asleep again something bad would happen. He wasn’t sure what, just knew that it would. Maybe he would sleep through class, or… oh, he was so tired… Why couldn't he let someone else rustle him out of bed again, like when he was a child? Why couldn't someone else be in charge?
No. He couldn’t lose.
Yoongi threw himself sideways, tumbled off the bed, and scraped his knees on the rough dorm-room carpet. There, with his blankets tangled around him, he knelt and scrubbed at his face until some resemblance of wakefulness dragged him to his feet. Seokjin sat up as he stumbled out of the room, face a mask of concern, but Yoongi didn’t have the energy to explain that nothing was wrong. It was just how he had to get out of bed most mornings. Like so many of the other things that Seokjin gave him worried looks for.
Sometimes he wished Seokjin would stop looking at him, so he couldn’t see his worried face.
Yoongi washed his face, fussed with his hair, and wandered into the living room. Everything for his project still sat in his backpack, and as he pulled it out and set it on the table Seokjin wandered out to meet him, a worried frown on his face.
“Why don’t you eat something first?”
“Mm.” Yoongi shrugged. “Not that hungry.”
“I’ll fix something small then.”
“If you want to.” Only if he wanted to. It didn’t matter either way to Yoongi, so it shouldn’t matter to Seokjin. If it mattered to Seokjin, that was dangerous. Seokjin might try too hard, and then it would be like last time, when Yoongi couldn’t give anything back and Seokjin was too burnt out to breathe.
They both needed to be careful, at times like this.
“What’s the project about, again?” Seokjin asked.
“I’m supposed to research a minority and present on it.”
“Ah. Did you pick one?”
Yoongi shook his head. “That was going to be last night’s break.”
Seokjin nodded and sat down. “You’ve weighed options?”
Yoongi shrugged. “It doesn’t matter either way.”
Seokjin furrowed his brow. “You say that a lot.”
“Yeah,” Yoongi forced a smile. “Sorry.”
Seokjin took a breath, opening his mouth like he was about to say something, then shook his head. “Do you have a list of potentials?”
Yoongi nodded and sat down across from him. “Foreigners, homosexuals—”
“Don’t get too formal about that,” Seokjin snickered.
Yoongi smiled despite himself. “—and artists of all kinds.”
“You’re two for three there,” Seokjin noted.
Yoongi nodded. “Should I go for the one I’m not, then?”
“Might make research a little harder, but it does keep that target off your back.” Seokjin scooted his chair in, then pushed it out. “Granola bar?”
Yoongi shrugged.
“Yes or no?”
Oh god. “Yes?” Yoongi said, not looking up from his materials.
“I’m getting you one of the energy bars, too. We’re both dead on our feet, but you look extra dead today.”
“Thanks,” Yoongi muttered.
“Don’t mention it.” Seokjin pulled open a cupboard and started to rummage through it. “While we’re off-topic, though, did you ever end up looking up more on that video? You seemed interested.”
“I zoned out,” Yoongi said. “Didn’t know what video it was.”
“Ah.” Seokjin nodded, his back still to Yoongi. “Well, let me know if you ever have any questions.”
“Okay,” Yoongi said, if only because Seokjin wasn’t looking at him. He opened his mouth, the question from the night before on the tip of his tongue, then reconsidered. Wasn’t this personal? Maybe Seokjin was only inviting him to ask because he felt obligated. Maybe… maybe it was better to wait for a little while, and see if Seokjin brought it up again.
Seokjin turned back and set a handful of granola bars and energy bars on the table between them. “For both of us. We’ll need proper energy today.”
Yoongi nodded and picked one up. As he peeled back the plastic and took a bite, he considered the information he’d spread before him.
“Foreigners talk a lot about problems they have,” he said. “It would be a good resource. Lots of eye-witness accounts.”
“What about sources your professor will trust?”
“I can cite actual laws and documents.” Yoongi was already tempted to go back to the moment when he’d woken up and been too tangled in his blankets to escape. He wanted to go back to when he had an excuse, a reason for why his mind moved slow as syrup when it came to this. Did it really matter which topic he picked? It was just a generals class. Surely the professor wasn’t expecting that much.
“Yoongichi?”
Yoongi looked up.
Seokjin watched him from across the table, concern evident in every line of his face and body. “You know you can talk to me, right? You don’t have to fake having the energy for this. It’s not due for another week, right? We can quickly pick a topic and go do something else for a bit.”
Yoongi flinched. The words, though well-intentioned, stung. “I…” shit, what did he answer in this situation? “It doesn’t matter. I’m just tired.” Oh god that wasn’t good enough. He’d used that excuse too many times, Seokjin would see right through him—
“Yoongi,” Seokjin said, and the lack of a nickname hurt like a punch to the gut. “Something’s wrong. I can tell. You’ve supported me through so much. Can’t I at least help you with this one thing, even if it’s not that big a deal to you?”
Yoongi opened his mouth, then shut it. The words caught on his tongue. “I—” he took a breath, then gave up. “I’ll do it on foreigners. I think I need to go back to bed.”
“Okay,” Seokjin said, brow still furrowed in worry. But no judgment, never judgment, somehow Seokjin was too kind for that.
Maybe it was because he was into BDSM, Yoongi’s mind whispered. Maybe he knew weirder things about other people and didn’t see it as that big a deal.
Yoongi pushed his chair back, stumbled back to the bedroom, and face planted into bed. Immediately he pulled the blanket over his eyes, seeking the dark, the hideaway from reality. He almost wished Seokjin would follow, hold him tight so he couldn’t do anything. But Seokjin didn’t come, and Yoongi drifted off without thinking about setting an alarm, without doing anything to make sure he would wake up on time again.
Maybe another part of him was giving up. Maybe another part of him was realizing he couldn't do this much longer.
He didn’t know.
All he knew was the dark comforted him, the weight of the blankets held him together and he felt safe there. Alone. Where no one could make him do anything he didn’t want to do, where he didn’t have to worry about expressing opinions when he had none, when nothing pushed him.
He was so tired of being pushed.
When Yoongi drifted out of sleep, the afternoon light through his bedroom told him he’d slept through one of his classes, maybe both. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He rolled onto his stomach and reached out of his little blanket cave, snatched his phone off the charger, and curled up where no one could see him, opening the private search.
BDSM. Having a dom was a big part of that, right? Didn't doms make all the decisions for their subs? Maybe that was why Seokjin liked it. Was he a sub? Yoongi curled up tighter and tapped on the search bar, taking a deep breath.
Time to do some research.