(Hoseok POV)
A crash awakened me.
I jolted from my sleep, senses alert in the dark. I rubbed my eyes, reaching over to check the time on my phone.
4:43 AM
I had been sleeping on Yoongi's couch, and the sound seemed to be coming from his bedroom. For a second, I decided to go back to sleep, not wanting to intrude his privacy. After all, it wasn't my own apartment. Who knew what the older did in his own time?
"Whatever."
Pulling the blanket over myself again, I placed a hand under my cheek, slowly morphing back into a dreamless sleep.
Crash
Louder this time.
I grew cold, suddenly feeling cautious. It sounded like glass shattering.
Maybe he likes to shatter glass for fun?
The thought seemed skeptical, begging to be told it wasn't true.
I shuffled out of the blanket. My feet quickly found themselves in slippers, softly stumbling. My hands steadied themselves on the hallway's walls, leading to his bedroom. My throat felt dry, I couldn't raise my voice.
I stood in front of his closed bedroom door.
"Yoongi?" I whispered.
No reply.
I cleared my throat, hand raising to knock. "Are you okay?"
The silence was beginning to raise hairs on my arms.
I knocked once, twice, three times. But the door still did not open.
What if he slipped and fell unconscious?
I barged in.
"Yoon--"
I paused.
It was practically empty.
I rubbed my eyes again. Maybe the darkness was playing tricks on me.
But it wasn't; there really was no furniture anymore. The bed was gone, the books, the albums, even the paintings were gone.
And so was Yoongi.
So where did the sound come from? What about the sound of glass sh--
I heard a rustle.
My blood ran ice cold.
Slowly turning around, I heard the noise coming from the closet.
"Yoongi? A-are you in there?" My voice was barely noticeable even by my own ears.
I crossed the room shakily, noticing the spews of shattered glass pieces glistening in the moonlight. The curtains were gone too. But the moon wasn't.
My hand curled around the closet door's knob, biting my lip, I threw it open.
And there he was.
Sitting at the floor of the closet, lit cigarette clutched in his pale hand.
I bent down on my knees, hands still sweaty and cold. "Yoongi!" I tried to jolt him awake, and he slowly opened his eyes, meeting my frantic ones.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" I tried to raise my voice, trying to seem angry. But even I know that wasn't working very well. I was beyond scared and worried seeming him like this.
"Why are yo--"
"Close the door."
"What? Yoongi, li--"
"Close it!"
I was stunned. His voice was angry, but his eyes weren't. They were tired.
So I nodded, stepping into the closet and closing the door behind me. Yoongi's knees were clutched near his chest lazily, head leaning back, blowing swirls of smoke from his cigarette. I squeezed my eyes shut, smoke watering my eyes in the barely breathable closet.
"Open them."
I did.
My vision slowly adjusted in the dark, until I realized it wasn't all that dark. The light from the tip of his cigarette glowed softly.
Yoongi's knees slightly touched mine, and I hugged mines close to my chest. He leaned toward my face.
And blew a swirl of smoke.
I swatted my hands, coughing and eyes watering.
"What the fuck?" I coughed again, chest heaving. Squeezing my eyes shut, I gulped for increments of extra oxygen. I never really could handle smoke.
I felt his hand snake around me back and I kept my eyes squeezed shut.
The sound of a switch. He pulled his hand away.
The absence of his touch, his warm hand, I exhaled and slowly opened my eyes.
It really wasn't dark anymore.
There were stars everywhere.
"Woah." I emitted a sound of wonder.
I looked behind me, seeing where the sound of a switch being turned on came from.
It was a stars projector. The kind where when you turn it on, it displays reflections of tiny, bright lights around the dark area.
Stars lined the walls and ceiling, brightening up the pool of clothes and two humans. It was like floating in the night sky, sitting amongst heaven's stars.
"Pretty, right?"
I nodded, staring in awe at the ceiling and walls of the closet. Despite it being small and smokey, it still looked beautiful. I leaned my head against the back wall, fabrics of hanged clothing touching me, fabrics of cologne intoxicating me.
"These stars. They're held by their own gravity."
I looked over at Yoongi, finally studying his features in the illuminated closet. Our shoulders touching, our knees touching, our fingers millimetres apart, our lips breaths apart. It really was a tight closet.
Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, his eyelashes illuminating shadows like spider legs beneath his lids. His lips were poised in front of a cigarette, lazily sipping occasionally. He was inhaling the smoke of the cigarette too, not just exhaling it. It surrounded him like a cloud. It kissed his lips. It watered his eyes.
But was it the smoke that did?
"What happened to the furniture, Yoongi? It was here before I went to bed. Why're you sitting in this closet?"
"I wanted to see the stars."
"Then look outside your window. You don't even have curtains on them anymore."
Yoongi looked over at me and he smiled. It was menacing. It looked like the flash of a fading lighter, too close to the edge.
"The sky's too grey, Hoseok."
My heart dipped. It plunged. This wasn't him.
"Stars are lucky to be held by their own gravity. Our gravity's fucking dangerous, you know. It's the reason why glass shatters, tears fall, hearts break." Yoongi twirled the cigarette and tapped it, ashes falling against his jeans. "It's why we fall in love rather than rise."
He smiled, that on-the-edge one, "it's why happiness falls."
He leaned his face toward mine and his eyes glowed. The artificial stars on the ceilings and walls of the tight closet suddenly did not look comparable to the ones in his.
I pulled away, nose wrinkling. "Are you drunk?" I opened the door of the closet with one hand, seeing the shattered glass in the floor of the bedroom in front of us. It was a broken beer bottle that had previously shattered.
"Dear God, Yoongi. We need to clean this up," I rose.
He pulled me back down.
Closing the closet door, he turned to face me again. His nose was mere millimetres away from mine.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
His eyes were watery, pools of black gold.
"I'm trying to stay awake." His voice was raspy. His mouth was smiling.
It was probably 5 AM by now. "But why? Nights are meant for sleeping."
He chuckled, shaking his head. "And people wonder why we miss out on the stars."
I felt impatient, "Yoongi, seriously. All your bedroom furniture is gone, you're sitting on the floor of your closet, smoking, getting wasted and yet, you're still acting as if everything's okay?"
He slammed his hand on the door. I froze.
His shoulders quivered and he exhaled, clenching his jaw. He raised his cigarette to his lips again, but I grabbed it from his fingers.
"Stop smoking! It'll kill you!"
"SHUT UP!"
Yoongi moved towards me, blonde hair falling into his eyes. His finger pointed at me, "just shut the fuck up! Don't tell me smoking kills when you never even bothered to fucking ask what else is killing me in the first place!"
"I'm so--"
He grabbed his cigarette from my hand, leaving my wrist tightened around his grasp. He kept muttering to himself and I strained to hear the words that left his mouth, "can't fall asleep, can't fall asleep, can't fall asleep. . ."
My eyes started to water. I wasn't sure why the spaces between my ribs were starting to hurt. Just seeming him so different, so in pain but so dull, left me yearning.
"Yoongi, please. . ."
He pulled up his sleeve, exposing fading marks on his blanched arm. It wasn't just the tattoos that imprinted his skin. He took one long drag of the cigarette, blowing smoke into my face,
and pressed it into his arm.
"STOP!" My tears that were threatening to fall escaped. "STOP IT!" I tried to grab his hand away from his arm, tried to stop him burning the lit cigarette into his skin over and over again, tried to stop him from hurting and paining and burning himself.
"Please! J-just stop!" I choked out, cheeks wet and salty.
"I have to stay awake, Hoseok! Can't fall asleep, can--"
I knocked him over, cigarette slipping from his fingers. We rolled together onto the closet floor, his legs entangling with mine. Heavy breaths escaped his lips.
"What the fuck are you thinking?! You're hurting yourself!"
My face hovered above his, and soon, tears began to fall down his cheeks. They weren't his; they were mine.
He stared up at me, watching the tears fall and slide down my face. He raised his finger, wiping them away from my cheeks softly.
"Don't cry, Hoseok." He whispered.
I hiccuped, "I'm not crying for me. I'm crying for you, idiot!" I let my head rest on his chest and his arms snaked around me, holding me in place, right in perfect place.
"How. . .how could you do this to yourself?" I mumbled and shook into his shoulder, heart still hurting.
He grazed his fingers through my hair, twirling strands here and then.
"I'm trying to stay awake."
I tried to lift my head, but he hugged me tighter, not letting me move from his hold.
Seconds passed and my heart was questioning me. Questions were digging into me, begging to be touched by answers.
Where's all your furniture, Yoongi? Why were you burning yourself with a cigarette? Why were there previous burn marks on your arm? You've done this before, haven't you? But why? Why are you trying to stay awake? Why can't you just fall asleep?
His voice turned raspy, "sometimes, everything's coming at me all at once. Colours, words, voices, people. It feels like I'm going down and down a roller coaster and it feels like it's going on forever." He shifted his head, his lips were near my ear.
"And when I fall asleep and wake up, after all that's over, I feel dead. That's exactly what falling asleep does to me. It makes me fall." His voice cracked. "I'd rather stay awake than fall asleep."
His voice dimmed, "I'd rather feel alive than feel dead."
"Smoking, drinking, drag racing, screaming, picking fights — they make me feel alive."
I felt something wet slide against the side of my cheek.
He was crying.
"T-there are people inside me, Hoseok. And. . .and they can't decide whether they want to stay. Sometimes, a happy person comes along -- he's kind, he's good. But other times, someone else tucks himself inside me -- sad, so grey, just so fucking tired of being tired."
His voice cracked and so did my heart.
"I don't know when exactly this all started, but one day, sitting in class, the teacher made a joke and me and my classmates laughed." He hugged me tighter.
"But it wasn't until after the laughter was gone did I feel so empty. Like the empty soda-can you kick on the sidewalk and its metal reverberates throughout its hollow cylinder."
"Since then, if it wasn't that emptiness, then it was different emotions surging at random intervals. From wild eyes at 3AM to sluggish arms at 2PM -- like different people coming through your door whenever the fuck they wanted to. And you couldn't do anything but wait until they left on their own. Sometimes, after hours, other times, after weeks."
I turned my cheek and rested it against his chest, feeling his heart beat. The thing about sadness was that it made you believe you were dead. Even when the organ in your chest was still beating.
"Driving until gravity wasn't real. It felt good, it felt like I was alive, but it didn't feel like me. It didn't feel like me."
He sniffled and I realized I was crying too.
"I don't know which one is me."
His voice dimmed again, hesitant, "I can't choose which one is the one I want you to love."
I squeezed his hand tight, trying to feel all his pain so I could feel how it felt to not know who you were. My throat felt like it was being clenched by gruff hands.
"We don't need to choose, Yoongi." I raised my face and stared into those eyes, those eyes that were not lit by the projector's stars, but with the fire inside him. "They're all a part of you, whether you're awake or asleep. They're pieces of you, and I love them all the same."
I rested my forehead against his.
"You love them?" He asked, eyes widening.
"Yes. All of them."
"You haven't even seen all of them. You don't even know all of them."
"That's okay. At the end of the day," I closed my eyes, "they're part of you. And that's enough for me to know them. And love them. Everything that's a part of you is worth loving."
I felt his warm breath, smoke and tears and all feelings felt upon me.
I wasn't sure how long we stayed like that, first forehead against forehead, then chest against chest. I wasn't sure how long I had fallen asleep with the remaining time that was left before the sun came up.
But that didn't matter. Because as I fell asleep counting the projector's lighted stars on the wall, held warmly against Yoongi, it finally felt as if the stars had granted one of my wishes.
I didn't know whether it was the stars in the sky or the ones in his eyes that did.
___