the boy with the dragon tattoo - yoonmin

chapter fourteen

Namjoon watches yoongi from his place on the dining table. Watches the way the older shuffles around the kitchen making himself that dark Americano coffee he loved so much. Watcher the way he had to stand on his tiptoes to get to a top shelf and how he leant against the counter behind him carelessly, like he hadn't been found by Namjoon not an hour prior on the bathroom floor with wide, staring eyes and shaking words. Like he was totally fine and normal and dandy, and hadn't just told Namjoon that he didn't trust himself and to stay with him in such a vulnerable way Namjoon had never heard the elder express.

A part of Namjoon wants to brush it all aside, pretend it never happened for yoongis sake, and maybe his own too, but another, louder part kept repeating the question, what if I hadn't been there, over and over again until Namjoon could almost hear nothing else. It had been a fluke that he'd awoken at five that morning, a total coincidence that he'd wanted to piss so badly he'd been awoken by his bladder to wander to the bathroom and find his hyung on the floor like that. So, what if he'd not been there? Namjoon didn't want to think the worst, but knowing yoongis history of anxiety and depression, he couldn't help it.

Bathroom floors were a bad place to find anyone, in any context.

He watches yoongi smile at jin as the two speak, his eyes crinkling up and gummy smile threatening to appear, and Namjoon thinks maybe he might just be being dramatic. But he can't help it.

For fucks sake, yoongi had said all those things and then he'd fallen asleep against the bathtub and Namjoon had stood to wake up jin to ask him for help — because fuck even though he was the leader he had been left clueless on what to do — to then find yoongi awake and out of the bathroom by the time he and returned with him. Luckily jin had just woken up and hadn't questioned anything, just joining yoongi in the kitchen and leaving Namjoon contemplating on the dining table. Should he tell jin? Should he tell hoseok?

Yoongi looked okay.
Perhaps it had been nothing but a bad moment, that Namjoon hadn't meant to see.

But something about Yoongis eyes didn't look right. Something about his almost hunched over shoulders and pale skin and under eye bags didn't sit right with Namjoon, or the forced smiles and laughs and darting eyes — all looked wrong. Yoongi wasn't like that. Yoongi looked scared. But the thing was, even with Yoongis anxiety the elder never looked scared like that.

Namjoon must be imagining it.

Fuck. That was the only word yoongi could think of at this entire, stupid situation. Of course at a time when he was left to worry about very real and valid things to worry about, something stupid like this had to happen. But he couldn't even blame it on anyone but himself, because he had been the one too anxiety ridden and fearful to be able to filter what ever the fuck came from his stupid mouth. So now he had something else to worry about to pile on top of everything else — namjoon. Namjoons stares and looks and quick side glances that really weren't that quick because the other was quite oblivious when it came to stuff like that, and the way those worried eyes were following yoongi around like — fuck — he was scared to look away.

Yoongi was exhausted. But hopefully Namjoon would let it go. He normally did. He'd been extra attentive, extra careful with his questions and critiques and be a little more watchful than normal for a couple days. Then he'd slowly go back to normal after sussing out whether or not yoongi needed to have an actual talking to. So if yoongi didn't make the other anymore concerned than he needed to be then he didn't need to worry.

Yoongi just has to act normal. Normal.

He looks up from staring at the swirling darkness of his black coffee to see Jimin suddenly appear in his line of sight, slumping out from the hallway and padding towards the kitchen. Yoongis hoodie was back over his torso, and the sleeve fell over both of his hands adorably as he rubbed them through his hair.