Request by Hobiiiiiii!
"I'm sorry, we're what?!"
The poor staff member in charge of telling Hoseok what the next Run! BTS episode would be cowered behind his clipboard. It wasn't that Hoseok was scary, per say, seeing as he was short and doe-eyed, he was just eccentric and quite special.
"It's a haunted corn maze ..." the staff member finished, bowing and scurrying off.
Hoseok frowned and slumped onto the ground. Every time they shot a Run! episode, he was always getting scared. He didn't want any of his hyungs to have any more blackmail material on him, that was too embarrassing. They already had enough as it is, and he didn't need to see the group chat to know what was going to happen if he got scared again.
He woke up the next evening (because a haunted corn maze had to take place at night, according to Jungkook), after a fitful nap, in which he kept getting scared of the shadows from his Kaws figurines even though they had distinctive shapes and he could easily tell what it was. Maybe he was a little scared. He knew Jimin knew he was scared, as Jimin told him that afternoon that he had started to scream bloody murder around three o'clock.
"Don't worry, Seokie." Jin said, trying to reassure him at dinner. The eldest set a plate of tater tots in front of him, something to try and calm the maknae down. Hoseok only frowned as he stabbed a tot with his fork in an attempt to be fancy so he wouldn't be grouped with his two youngest hyungs. Taehyung and Jungkook were seated to his right, having a competition to see who could fit more tots in their mouths. It seemed like Taehyung was winning at the moment, but only out of pure stupidity. "I'm a little nervous too since I'm paired with Kook and I know he'll stop at nothing to make sure my soul leaves my body multiple times this episode."
The sound of a knock on the front door made Hoseok look up from his half-empty plate of tater tots. Jin, Taehyung, and Jungkook didn't look bothered, so Hoseok turned back to his plate.
"Hoseok ..." a voice from the other side of the door whispered, wavering a little. Hoseok let out a yelp and hid under his chair as the door opened, frowning and grumbling when he saw that it was only Jimin.
"Jimin-hyung," Hoseok whined, "stop trying to scare me!"
Jimin looked at him. "I'm not trying to scare you. I was gonna ask you to grab my sunscreen. I forgot it in our room." Then, he continued with, "Maybe you're a little too on edge."
The maknae frowned. "I'm fine, hyung. You at the door is a perfectly normal reason to panic since you're so scary."
Jimin's cheeks puffed out cutely as he hit the top of Hoseok's head. "Take that back, fetus!"
"Van is here." Yoongi announced, yawning as he walked past the kitchen, where Taehyung and Jungkook had started arguing with Jin only fueling the fire. Namjoon was (for good reason) not in any of the conversations, most likely watering the plants in his room or apologizing to their neighbors again for the noise.
The six inside the dorms headed outside to where the company's van was parked. Namjoon headed over to them as they were getting in. "Good news, Choi-ssi isn't going to complain to someone about us again! She said it's a waste of time and she's moving down a few houses!"
The staff member driving the van deadpanned. He wasn't paid enough for this.
Hoseok climbed into the middle seat between Yoongi and Jungkook. Both of them were warm to be sitting between, and he was content. He rested his head on Jungkook's shoulder, and his hyung wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
"How far is the ride?" Jin complained from the middle row of the van. "I have to go to the bathroom."
"Hyung," Namjoon started, "we're going to a corn maze. There's no bathroom."
"Well shit."
Taehyung started laughing. He knew Seokjin would never be able to hold his bladder long enough in the maze. To him, just the thought was funny.
"Yah! This isn't funny." Seokjin scolded, ears turning red. That of course caused another round of teasing from the members.
"There might be one in the barn." Jimin suggested after calming down a little. "Unless it's locked."
"You better hope we make it out of the maze quickly." Jungkook said to Jin with a laugh. "It might not be that easy though."
Hoseok closed his eyes for a moment. He was paired with Yoongi and he knew his hyung would protect him to the best of his abilities, but there was only so much Yoongi could do.
"We're here." the staff member announced, thankful to get out of the van and not have to sit with seven babies anymore. He quickly dropped them off and drove home–another staff member could drive the members back to the dorms.
The maze would have certainly been beautiful, had Hoseok not known what awaited him. He squeezed Yoongi's hand, maybe in an attempt to reassure himself that he wouldn't get scared.
Yeah, he was delusional.
He pretended to listen to the Run! director as he read out the instructions. He knew what they were doing, it was kind of self-explanatory–they just had to make it out of the maze and the first team to make it out would get a coupon for a chicken restaurant near their dorms. The chicken did sound pretty good.
He found out in addition to being paired with Yoongi, Namjoon would be joining their gally gaggle of gays. How fun. He loved their leader, but he was just soooo clumsy that he envisioned this episode going very wrong. He hoped Namjoon wouldn't trip over a shoelace or something and get caught in the hedges again, because that would be quite unfortunate and last time, it was only him and Namjoon and there wasn't any Yoongi to help him, which made him vow to never group with Namjoon in anything physical.
"Start!"
The teams of Namjoon, Yoongi and Hoseok, Taehyung and Jimin, and Seokjin and Jungkook set off into the maze, quickly dividing to run with their teams. Already, Namjoon had tripped over his own foot and tumbled into Hoseok, who tried to steady himself by holding onto Yoongi.
This was going to be fun.
***
"I haven't seen anything scary yet." Yoongi commented as they walked down the path of the maze. There was no doubt that Taehyung and Jimin had most likely already gotten lost, and Jin and Jungkook were an unpredictable duo, so who knew what would happen.
Hoseok squinted as he saw something flash through the corn. Maybe it was Jungkook and his red shirt. Or maybe Jimin with his newly dyed red hair. That must be it.
He saw a balloon slowly float up to the sky. Immediately, Hoseok felt a chill down his spine. "H-hyung?" He murmured, pulling on Namjoon's sleeve a little bit.
Namjoon looked down to meet Hoseok's eyes. "Seok-ah? What's wrong?"
This had caught Yoongi's attention now, and he looked over to the leader and the maknae. "What are you two doing?" He and Namjoon turned to where Hoseok was looking.
It hit Hoseok then. "It's from the movie Kookie-hyung made us watch! Uhhh the one ... with the clown in the sewers! He bit the kid's arm off."
Through the corn, a smiling red and white face peeked out. Hoseok screamed and ran straight, running deeper into the maze, Yoongi and Namjoon hot on his tail, running from the clown and also trying to catch the youngest, who was easily the fastest out of the three of them. It was hard to catch the maknae when he was in flight mode.
Naturally as he was running, Hoseok was chased by more actors in the maze, nearly sending him to the ground in tears, but he kept running. The chainsaw man was definitely scary, but the person wearing a sheet over their head to look like a ghost was obviously scarier. He ran further into the maze, only stopping once to tie his shoelace.
"Hoseok! Slow down!"
"They know your name! Keep running!" his brain supplied. He screamed as he ran, kicking off his shoes and throwing them behind him.
"It's your Yoongi-hyung and Namjoon-hyung, you idiot!"
Hoseok skidded to a stop and quickly looked behind him. It in fact was Yoongi and Namjoon, both panting and sweaty. "Oh, hey hyungs!"
"We've been chasing you for the past mile!" Yoongi said, his hands on his knees as he panted. "And nothing chased you anyways! They just popped out and that was it!"
Namjoon didn't look much better than Yoongi, but he straightened up and looked to the sky like he was having a protagonist moment. "We have to find our way out. We need that fried chicken coupon."
Hoseok nodded. After all of this, he deserved a damn bucket of fried chicken.
"I wonder how far everyone else has gotten." Yoongi said, a thoughtful look on his face. "Hopefully we're ahead of them."
They heard a scream in the distance, sounding very similar to Seokjin's, so they naturally ignored it.
A laugh sounded from behind them, so Hoseok took his cue to take bis hyungs' hands and start running. He didn't dare look behind him, knowing he would be terrified by what he saw.
"D-do you know which direction you're going?" Namjoon shouted, stumbling a little on the path they were on. Hoseok couldn't even blame the leader for stumbling–the path was pretty rocky.
"No!" Hoseok shouted back, continuing to run down the path. He felt Namjoon's hand in his and wait–where did Yoongi go? He immediately skid to a stop, making Namjoon crash into him and the two go sprawling on the ground. "We lost Yoongi-hyung!"
Namjoon's eyes widened. "For how long?"
"Uhhh ..."
The leader sighed. "Do we go back for him?"
Hoseok immediately shook his head, then remembered who made him dinner last night. "I guess we kinda have to." He huffed and held Namjoon's hand again. "You lead this time."
Namjoon led Hoseok back the way they had come, Hoseok squeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to see the things that chased them and scared him. Having Namjoon next to him was definitely comforting, and it was a lot better than being alone in the maze.
***
They spent about a half hour searching the maze, but there was no sign of Yoongi. They had walked in so many circles at this point, even the staff had gotten tired of scaring them (which made it a lot easier for Hoseok to be there).
"I give up." Hoseok whined. "Let's just leave Yoongi-hyung here till the winter. There's enough corn, he won't starve." A beat. "My legs are kinda tired, Hyung. Can you carry me?"
Namjoon nodded silently, then squatted down so Hoseok could climb onto his back. Immediately, Hoseok's legs relaxed, now that he didn't have to walk. Plus, Namjoon was warm, almost like a personal heater. Hoseok relaxed in his touch.
The two walked to where they hoped was the exit to the maze. They saw the other members standing in a group together. Jimin waved them over. "Congratulations!"
"Yeah, stop rubbing it in that we lost Yoongi-hyung." Hoseok grumbled, sliding off of Namjoon's back once they got to the others. He pouted. "Can't believe he's still in there."
"Seok-ah, I'm right here." a man said, looking suspiciously like his Yoongi-hyung. He rubbed his eyes, but Yoongi's ghost was still there.
It was a hallucination. There was no other plausible explanation for this. He must've developed an allergy to the corn and his allergies were so bad, he was hallucinating. That must be it. Obviously.
"Namjoonie-hyung," Hoseok said with a whine, "I feel so upset that we left Yoongi-hyung in there that I think I'm seeing him as a hallucination."
"Seok-ah, I'm really here." the Yoongi hallucination said with a hand on his hip.
"That's what someone who isn't here would say." Hoseok grumbled with a pout at the hallucination.
Jimin put a hand on Hoseok's shoulder. "Sunshine, he's really there."
"... So is this a shared hallucination then?"
The (maybe) Yoongi hallucination facepalmed. "Seok-ah, I went ahead of you two and was the first one out so we won and we have the fried chicken coupon now. Do I have to explain it any simpler?"
Hoseok's eyes widened. "It really is you, Yoongi-hyung!" He immediately wrapped his arms around the eldest rapper and made happy noises as he bounced.
"I'm almost excited to drop you off at school tomorrow." Yoongi mumbled, in disbelief that Hoseok thought he was a hallucination. (Though he did let himself be hugged by Hoseok because the maknae gave the best hugs. He knew he'd be the one packing Hoseok's lunch tomorrow, and he wouldn't deny that he was going to pack him extra meat.)
"I thought I lost you!" Hoseok cried, burying his face into Yoongi's shoulder. "I don't want hyung to be left behind!"
"There, there ..." Yoongi awkwardly patted Hoseok on the shoulder as Jin and Jimin were stifling from behind his hand.
"Yoongi-hyung, I'll never leave you in a maze ever again!" Hoseok promised, looking Yoongi dead in the eye, sending a chill down his spine (though he refused to show that he was scared of a seventeen year old who still got scared of his own shadow sometimes).
"Can we leave please?" Yoongi asked, desperately looking to the director.
"CUT!"
Yoongi sighed in relief, then handed Hoseok off to Jin and hurried to the van.
(They did stop at a chicken restaurant that night, and Hoseok distributed the chicken (mostly) equally, giving Yoongi an extra piece as compensation for losing him)