You are my only sun,
one and only in the world
"So my mom gets home and my sister and I are just standing on the kitchen table with bed sheets tied around us like capes and strawberry jam slathered all over our faces." The guys cracked up as Hoseok brought his childhood story to an end.
All seven of them were sitting around their dorm, sprawled across every couch and armchair in their living room. It was getting pretty late at night but the guys didn't mind.
Their new music video for Run was coming out soon, which meant that in a couple days their schedules would be nothing but performance stages and variety shows. But they had a couple days off before the comeback so they were taking the time to just relax and hang out. They'd ordered a buffet of take out food and several empty bottles of soju now littered the coffee table. And after said bottles had been consumed Jin, Hoseok, and Namjoon had taken to telling amusing anecdotes about their childhoods. Somehow, every story involved getting into some sort of trouble, but the guys were all laughing boisterously and actually having a lot of fun.
Of course, as more stories were exchanged and the more the guys laughed, the more distant Yoongi grew. At first he'd been laughing right along with them, but soon enough his own childhood memories came floating back and his good mood was essentially spoiled. It wasn't that his childhood had been terrible, quite the opposite actually. But Yoongi couldn't keep his mind from flashing back to Chaerin, and that was causing his heart to ache. It was times like these, when the world around him seemed completely and perfectly happy, that he missed her the most.
"Hey Yoongi," Jimin called his name and broke Yoongi out of his thoughts.
"Yeah?"
"How come you never tell us about your life?" The question caught Yoongi off guard. It wasn't something he expected to hear and his eyebrows furrowed.
"We've known each other for years. You know plenty about my life," he rolled his eyes and scoffed a little at Jimin's silly question.
"No," now it's was Jimin's turn to roll his eyes. "I meant about your life before you were in the company, before we were all living in the dorm, before BTS. You never tell us anything about what your life was like before all that."
An uncomfortable lump was forming in Yoongi's throat and it felt like there was cotton in his mouth. "There's nothing to tell."
"Oh come on, tell us!" Taehyung chimed in. He wanted to hear about Yoongi's life too. For as long as they'd all been living together he'd never really spoken about the life he had back home.
"Seriously, there's nothing to tell. I started playing piano, I wrote music, I decided to move to Seoul, then I joined Big Hit. And somewhere in between coming to Seoul and joining the company I picnicked at Han River. That's it." Yoongi tried to keep the speech short. He knew that the longer he talked the more likely it would be that her name would slip from his mouth.
"But who did you do all that with?"
Jimin didn't even blink. He asked the question with such certainty in his voice, it was like he knew that Yoongi was leaving out the biggest piece of the puzzle.
"What?"
"All those things, they're not stuff you do alone. I mean joining the company, yeah. But a picnic at Han River? Who was with you?"
Yoongi swallowed painfully. "No one."
"Come on. Did you have a brother, a sister, a girlfriend? There had to be somebody."
The other guys stayed quiet as Jimin worked to pry the information out of their friend. Namjoon, who had know Yoongi the longest, could see the slight tick in his jaw and the way his fists tightened. It wasn't because he was getting angry, it was because Yoongi was trying to hold something back, something that was obviously close to his heart.
"...She wasn't my girlfriend."
It was like time stopped when Yoongi spoke those words. He'd done it. He'd broken the floodgates. Memories of Chaerin stormed his head and even when he looked around at the familiar faces of his friends all he could see was her big, beautiful eyes and the little smile that she reserved especially for him.
"Who was she?" Jin curiously invoked.
Yoongi's eyes squeezed shut as he felt the slight pressure that was brought on by tears.
"...Chaerin."
"Who's Chaerin?"
He couldn't cry. Yoongi couldn't cry. She wouldn't want him to be sad. Of course the handful of times that Yoongi had cried in front of Chaerin, she'd never said that. She always just hugged him and let him rest his pain on her shoulders. But deep down, he knew how much it hurt her when he cried. Chaerin's heart was too big for her own good, and when the people around her felt pain, so did she.
"She was my best friend—my only friend. Chaerin was the one person who took me for what I was, cold personality and all, and never tried to change me."
"What was she like?" Jungkook spoke softly.
Hearing Yoongi talk about this girl was like hearing a deep secret that had never before been told. They were finally learning something about his life, so Jungkook didn't want to pry too much and cause Yoongi to stop talking. Because judging by the look on his face, this Chaerin was pretty damn important to him, and they guys were all beyond curious about her.
The corner of Yoongi's lips twitched upwards just barely at the inquiry. What was Chaerin like? That was a loaded question, whose answer was no shorter in length than the Oxford English Dictionary.
Yoongi smiled.
"She was...perfect. In the completely annoying, wake you too early, convince you to do things you hate, and hog the blankets sort of way," he chucked slightly as stopped fighting against the memories and allowed them to overtake him.
"Chaerin was...Chaerin. There's no other name or title that could do her justice. She was there for me when no one else was. The first day that I moved in with my grandmother Chaerin was there. She made it her mission to befriend the messed up kid next door—eventually she did. She wore me down." The image of a shy little girl with a messy ponytail and a big smile popped into his mind.
"The first time I played piano for her she sat right beside me and smiled the whole time. And when I told her I wanted to be a musician she didn't call me an idiot or tell me I was stupid, she just said that she'd support me the whole way. It was actually kind of annoying how excited she would get every time I told her I'd written a new song. She would yank me out of bed and drag me downstairs so I could play it for her on that old piano..." Yoongi let out a strained chuckle and rubbed his hands over his face.
"I stopped playing for a while at one point. I actually forgot how much I loved to play. But then her grandmother died, and Chaerin just retreated back into herself. She was like a shell. The outside was there but the inside just wasn't the Chae I had known all those years. That was when I dragged her down to the piano and finally started playing again, because she needed it...I think we both did."
He drew a deep breath as the thought of a broken Chaerin floated through his head. The sight of her sitting at the window, basically catatonic, just watching the rain pour down, still haunted Yoongi to this day.
"After her grandmother died we decided to move to Seoul together. I wanted to be a musician and she wanted to be an actress, so it was the right place for us to be. Things were good at first—great actually. I mean, we lived in a shitty apartment and worked odd jobs for hardly any pay, but we were happy. She even saved up her money and converted the one bedroom in the apartment into a proper studio for me..." Yoongi cut off. He couldn't talk about it anymore. His heart was throbbing painfully in is chest and if he kept going then he was sure it would implode.
"So what happened?" Namjoon didn't know the can of worms that came along with that question.
"...I screwed up."
The boys said nothing. They didn't want to push him. The look on Yoongi's face told them that this was getting very personal for him. If he wanted to tell them, then he would. And if he didn't, then they would just have to accept that. They could pry with all their might, but Yoongi's resolve had always been air tight. If he didn't want them to know something, then they would never know it.
"I gave up. Nothing was going right. I broke my shoulder and landed in the hospital. Chaerin was working eighteen hours a day to pay all the bills and I was just falling further into my own self pity. I didn't want to pursue music anymore. I tore apart the studio Chae made for me. I destroyed it." His fingers rubbed at his forehead as the awful memories came flooding back.
"That night we had the biggest fight we'd ever had. It was all my fault. I let her down. Afterwards, I left the apartment so I could cool off and I left her alone there. When I came back...she was gone."
"Gone?" Jungkook's quiet whisper broke the silence. "She left?"
"How could she just leave you?" Oddly enough, Jimin felt a twinge of anger towards this girl he'd never met. He didn't like it when people hurt his friends.
"I don't blame her. I did everything wrong. I ignored her and shut her out. I tore apart eight years of friendship in one fell swoop...Chae was wonderful and I was a terrible friend. I promised I would protect her. I promised. And in the end it was me who hurt her the most. I drove her away."
Finally admitting this truth to himself was like twisting a knife into his own gut.
"I'll never forgive myself for what I said and did that night." The air in Yoongi's lungs felt like fire and breathing was nearly impossible.
"She left me a note," he whispered.
"A note?"
"What was in it?"
His eyelids slid shut as he recalled that torn scrap of paper. It was all the she had left behind for him. "It said not to give up."
Yoongi fingered the long chain around his neck. A custom made silver locket rested against his chest. He'd had it made the day after BTS's debut. A triangle was carved into the surface of the silver charm, and the note she'd left him was folded safely inside it. He wore that locket every day. And every day he would look down at it and be reminded of the friend he'd lost and the advice she'd given him. Yoongi knew for a fact that he wouldn't be anywhere if Chaerin hadn't done what she did. Leaving like that...it broke him. But it also made him finally see what he'd been doing to himself. It made him want to keep fighting for the dreams that he and Chaerin chased together.
"The next week I auditioned for Big Hit. I swear if I didn't know any better I'd think that girl knew all of this would happen." He let out a wry laugh.
For a while all the guys just sat silently, absorbing the story that Yoongi had told them. They would occasionally send pitiful glances up at him. None of them were quite sure how to comfort him after that. But then again, Yoongi didn't really want any comforting.
Wordlessly, Yoongi stood from his seat and walked slowly towards his bedroom.
"Yoongi?" Taehyung called. "Are you okay?"
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Yeah...Yeah. I just want to be alone for a while."
It was a lie.
Yoongi didn't want to be alone. He wanted to be with Chaerin.