Work Text:
Yoongi liked to steal money.
He stole some from his brother back when he was alive and he stole from ATMs and just about anyone he could. But the food at this one ramen shop was so cheap it was more daylight robbery than his actual heists. The food wasn't the best out there but it certainly wasn't bad for how much it cost.
He sometimes tipped, sometimes didn't, but he went there often enough that the people who worked there knew his name and order.
Once he tried to get them to raise their prices on their food, but they told him it would be bad for business, because then they'd be competing with every other store that sold it for the same price.
He didn't try again. He wasn't the best when it came to business or economics or money—that was always his brother. Yoongi was never the smarter of the two.
He also liked to watch people, liked to see if they left a mess behind or if they tried to stack their plates and clean up. He knew who came there semi-regularly and who only showed up once or twice. He knew when someone wouldn't pay and when they would try their luck when they returned—the staff always kicked them out. He knew who tipped and who was rude to the staff; he figured he spent more time at the restaurant table eating ramen than he spent in his own home.
There was a man in the corner of the ramen shop every single evening. He would eat his noodles and stare at the wall for a long time before finally getting up, taking a small bag and leaving. Yoongi knew this because he watched him. He knew he wanted to figure this man out as soon as he saw him leave without paying, only to come back the very next day and the staff not mentioning it.
From then on he'd take his time eating just so he could watch him. It felt different than watching the entire shop and who left and who didn't—the whole restaurant felt like it was alive when he watched people come and go, moving on with their lives or taking their time—but focusing on just this one man with a weird hat made it feel darker, more intimate like it was just him and the stranger alone in the store together.
He didn't think the man ate anything other than noodles, outside or inside the shop. Not that Yoongi had ever followed him far enough to see where he lived. He had thought about it, but he usually had things he needed to do or he felt guilty for it.
He didn't know why he didn't feel guilty for most things, sometimes people said he didn't have the ability to feel it, that he was too heartless to understand what it would feel like to atone for what you've done. Yoongi never really cared what they said.
One day he decided to sit next to the strange man as they ate. The man didn't say anything at all, just one glance up to him when he sat down and then continued eating his food like nothing changed at all. Yoongi always wanted what was harder to get, and something inside him decided this man's attention was something he really really wanted.
The next day, when Yoongi would usually eat alone, he instead sat beside the stranger again, and the two of them still ate in silence. The man was wearing almost the exact same outfit—an outdated 2015 style of bad boy clothes—just with a bucket hat on this time. But this time he didn't completely ignore Yoongi, his brow twitched and he glanced at him twice. That's double the amount of yesterday.
Yoongi watched as he didn't pay, again, and as he left the store. He was tempted to follow him, but held himself back. If he wanted to actually get to know him, he'd have to do this like a regular person, which was a near impossible task for someone like Yoongi.
By the third day, Yoongi was sure the man was mute or deaf or something. He didn't speak as Yoongi sat down in front of him, he didn't say anything when Yoongi offered him some toppings from his own bowl. He just took it with a small nod of gratitude. It wasn't until the meal was over and Yoongi was about to stand to leave that the man actually spoke.
"Why do you sit with me?"
Yoongi felt like the winner of the lottery—he had to forcibly stop himself from celebrating right there. It only took three days! He had dealt with harder things, but none even a shred as interesting as this man.
"You looked lonely," Yoongi lied. Well, it wasn't that he didn't look lonely, but that wasn't the main reason he came up to him. "What's your name?"
The man paused for a moment, eyes glancing down to hands and then back to Yoongi. "Jung Hoseok."
Yoongi mouthed the name, testing how it felt to say without repeating it back to him. "I'm Min Yoongi."
Hoseok made a small bow of his head. "It's nice to meet you, Yoongi."
"We met three days ago," Yoongi teased.
Hoseok nodded, his lips were closed and he had the slightest feeling he wouldn't be getting anything else out of him today. Yoongi stood, giving him a small bow and left the shop.
He felt accomplished, even though he had hardly stolen anything for the past three days and was barely any help to his "coworkers" recently either. But life was about a lot more than money, that's not something Yoongi had to learn, it's something he always knew and always lived by.
Hoseok didn't look like he had a lot of money, either that or he lived below his means. The free food was interesting though. Is Hoseok friends with the owner? Is he paying them using other methods? Are they taking pity on him? Yoongi was rather eager to find out.
He couldn't go back to the shop until the next week, having to deal with gang threats and pulling off another heist. He fed his goldfish and took care of all the things needed to be set straight. It was a very busy week, and he was excited for a simple evening where he could just sit down and eat his noodles.
He entered the shop, and as expected, like he was a fact, Hoseok was there. It was like the natural law of the world, the sun will rise, the sun will set, the days will pass, everyone will die, Hoseok will always eat dinner in that same shop.
Yoongi sat down with his food at Hoseok's table. Hoseok had his lips turned downwards into a small frown, and Yoongi couldn't tell if it was sadness or concentration. He still hadn't noticed Yoongi, so he assumed the latter.
"Miss me?" Yoongi smiled, trying to get a reaction out of him.
Hoseok didn't flinch or look surprised. He slowly looked up from under his hat. "Hey," he said. It was such a simple response, but not unkind.
He looked back to his food, his head lowered so his cap covered almost his entire face. He stirred his noodles in silence.
Yoongi shrugged his reaction off and pulled apart his chopsticks. He slurped the noodles, still watching Hoseok, not wanting to miss his eyes if he ever lifted his head. Hoseok was entirely focused on something else, he didn't have a phone out or a book and he was hardly eating—there was nothing to distract him from Yoongi except for whatever problems he had in his head.
And eventually, he did look up. Slowly, carefully, like he had nothing to do and nowhere else to be than here.
"I missed you watching me eat."
Yoongi blinked a few times. Hoseok didn't talk much, but when he did it was clear he made it count. He didn't expect to hear that specific sentence in his life at all.
"I missed watching you eat," Yoongi said back, a small smile on his lips.
Hoseok ducked his head again, but not as low this time, a faint blush spreading across his cheeks. He still had hardly touched his food, just stirring it idly with his chopsticks.
Hoseok's face was too young to be living like this—he was clearly homeless, always wearing the same outdated clothing—no parents should leave their child to fend for themselves like that. Was he a child? No, he clearly wasn't. He looked like a late teenager at least and twenty-two at most.
"Do you have any family?" Yoongi asked, trying to figure this man out through light conversation.
What Hoseok said, however, was simultaneously ambiguous and final. "No."
Yoongi nodded, taking another slurp of his noodles. He respected a man who spoke plainly, even like this. Hoseok's answers always intrigued him, yet this one also worried him.
"Do you?" Hoseok eventually asked.
Yoongi didn't know what it was, but looking into Hoseok's eyes just made the world feel like it was set straight. It was like Hoseok was supposed to be here, like he had always been and always would be. It made Yoongi feel safe, and he couldn't figure out if he wanted that or not. He told the truth, like it was easy.
Hoseok was just a man at the ramen shop, he wasn't some important figure or a close friend or a lover he wanted to impress. He could tell Hoseok anything about himself.
"I had a brother."
Hoseok's eyes didn't narrow the way he expected, instead they widened a fraction, his pupils growing and his face softening. He looked untouched by the dangers of the world for just a moment, and for just a moment he didn't look like a borderline homeless man.
Yoongi watched Hoseok who was staring with those sympathetic eyes and slight opening of his mouth.
"What happened to him?" Hoseok asked, voice gentler than Yoongi had ever heard from someone.
Yoongi hesitated, but didn't make it seem like hesitation. He made it look like a deliberate pause, as he considered whether or not he should tell the truth or cover it up like usual. Hoseok could do anything with the information, including selling it to the cops and having him set on the run again.
But there was some gut feeling Yoongi had about him that he just couldn't place. It was like he knew he wouldn't do that. He let his hand place the chopsticks down and his eyes drifted away from Hoseok's. "I shot him in the head."
He expected fear, maybe shock and disgust or something of the sort, but what he got was Hoseok's mouth opening just a fraction, then closing it. He swallowed, not nervously and made a single nod of his head.
"Okay."
Hoseok wasn't scared of Yoongi. He never once looked at him like he was afraid he'd be next after his brother. He didn't know how to feel about that.
He didn't know how to feel about Hoseok in general. He seemed like a safe, unmoving person, but Yoongi could also see how dangerous he could be; how Yoongi would change to shape around him. Never in big, dramatic ways, but smaller, more intimate ways. Like how he didn't eat alone anymore. Like how he didn't scan the room for interesting groups of people anymore, just Hoseok. He would go to sleep replaying their conversations in his head like it was the only thing that mattered.
He wanted to know everything about him. He wanted to never have to eat without him ever again. He wanted more than anything to simply know this man. Who is Hoseok?
The thing about Hoseok was that he seemed like a very easy man to read. Expressions often lit his face, showing what he was feeling like it didn't know how not to, Yoongi just didn't know him well enough to recognize what expression tied to what emotion.
Feeling a little uncomfortable with where the conversation had gone up to that point, he decided to change course.
"You're homeless, aren't you?"
Hoseok looked up, noodles still caught between his teeth. "Yeah?"
Yoongi laughed at the visual and shook his head, somewhat fond. "That's why you look like you just walked out of a 2013 music video."
Hoseok laughed for the first time since Yoongi met him. His face scrunching up and a heart shaped smile squishing his cheeks up. He looked like a damn teenager and it hurt to know he slept outside at night.
"How old are you, Hoseok?"
"What year is it?"
Yoongi couldn't help but snort at the question. "It's 2023."
"Oh, then I'm..." Hoseok counted on his fingers. "29."
Yoongi tried to blink back his shock. There is no way this man was only one year younger than him. He looked twenty-one at most. "You're 29," he repeated, incredulously.
"Yeah."
Yoongi couldn't stop himself from staring. Hoseok had a soft look to him, like his baby fat hadn't yet left his face. He supposed he could be older than that, some people don't lose their baby fat until their thirties...still, it was a little strange. He had to get used to thinking of this man as a twenty-nine year old man and not a nineteen to twenty-two year old. He supposed it was very much possible for him to be someone with one of those faces. Some people just look young forever.
Hoseok's youthful face morphed into a frown, red tinting his cheeks. "You're staring."
"You've just got such a...soft face," Yoongi stated.
"You can just say I have good skin," Hoseok grumbled.
"You've got good skin for a homeless person."
Hoseok shook his head, but his smile on his face betrayed him. "Okay, back-handed compliment."
Ever since then, it's been easier to talk to Hoseok. They never really had full conversations, Yoongi never took the chance to ask him what he really wanted to know, and the two of them still ate together every evening. The ramen tasted better than it used to, Yoongi thought.
Yoongi began to miss him whenever he had to eat somewhere else or if he was too busy to have supper at all. He almost likes Hoseok as much as his goldfish.
Their conversations turned almost domestic, and they usually began with Yoongi noticing something about Hoseok and Hoseok having a mute reaction to it.
"Your pants are too big for you."
Nod.
"You've got something in your teeth."
A hum of agreement.
"You don't talk much."
A nod, then, "I don't have much to say."
Yoongi didn't know if it was his honesty or his bluntness, but he enjoyed their conversations that went nowhere. He liked being able to say anything. Hoseok never looked like he minded.
Sometimes Yoongi felt something in his chest after he gets home; something that he was sure someone else would describe with flowery language — like how his heart had opened up or some shit — but Yoongi wasn't just anyone. The only thing he'd use to describe it was different. It made sense. Yoongi was different, what he'd feel would be different.
It wasn't a coherent thought. Most thoughts aren't right before you sleep.
Yoongi wasn't one to care whether it rained or no, but he recognized it as something others minded. It was a little inconvenient on occasion, but in general it didn't change Yoongi's actions; he'd still do what he'd have to do and he'd still eat dinner at his favourite ramen shop.
He once threatened the owners that if they'd ever close up he'd kill them. Of course, he'd just pay them enough money to stay in business, but that doesn't make a very good threat.
He walked in through the automatic doors and ran a hand through his hair, pulling it up and wringing some of the rain out. He looked to the server who nodded and immediately turned back to the kitchen to get him his food.
Yoongi scanned the tables, watching as a guy angrily stood up from his date, slammed money on the table and left. He watched the girl cry into her hand and attempt to finish the rest of her food through wretched sobs. He watched an old man dip his dumpling into his sauce and then accidentally drop it before it reached his mouth.
He liked watching people. Ever since he met Hoseok it's been harder to notice the others around him. Even now, it was like a full-time job just to keep his eyes away from the table he knew Hoseok was sitting at. He felt something ugly twist in his chest. He didn't like having to force what once came naturally to him.
His finally let his eyes land on Hoseok. He had his food in front of him, but he wasn't eating, just staring. Yoongi waited until the server handed him his food on a tray and he made his way over to him.
He slid into the seat in front of him easily, a natural smile finding its way to his face before he could stop to think about it.
Hoseok looked at Yoongi without him having to make himself known first. It made Yoongi feel somewhat seen. He couldn't decide whether it was a good thing or not.
"Hi," Hoseok said. He smiled, though his eyes held something guarded. He was in the same clothes as the last time he saw him, but they were completely dry.
"You get here before the downpour?" Yoongi said, breaking his chopsticks in half to stir his food.
Hoseok stared for half a second, then turned his head to the side, looking deliberately away from him. "I didn't know it was raining."
Yoongi couldn't help but snort at his strange response. "You're so weird. Do you live here or something?"
Hoseok's face did something odd then, the slight narrowing of his eyes, the way his lip thinned out—he could see it even from his side profile. Yoongi liked to think he was getting better at reading him, and if he had to hedge a guess, he would guess Hoseok looked called out. If not that, then scared. Which was even stranger, since he looked like he hardly cared when Yoongi told him he shot his own brother in the head. He assumed then on that the man didn't know fear.
"No," Hoseok said. He turned his face back to Yoongi and smiled. "I definitely don't live here."
Yoongi found that response even odder. "So...do you know the owner?" He pressed. "Why don't you ever pay?"
Hoseok swallowed and looked down at his bowl of untouched food. "They...take pity on me, I guess."
"You're a terrible liar."
"It was worth a try."
Yoongi sighed. There had to be another angle he could come from, another way he could learn more about this weird homeless guy. When he said it in his head it sounded better.
"What do you do for fun?" Yoongi asked, just when Hoseok was about to take his first bite.
Hoseok looked up at him, and for just a second Yoongi thought there wasn't a single thought behind that man's eyes. Then, his smile returned, sharper, amusement in the shape of teasing.
"You trying to get to know me, Yoongi?"
Yoongi dropped his head a fraction. "Forget I said anything."
"No, no!" Hoseok reached out, his hand hovering in the air, like he expected Yoongi to leave. He awkwardly put his hand down on the table. "I uh... I like to dance."
Yoongi let his curiosity win. He never knew anyone who liked to dance. "Oh?"
"Okay, I really like to dance." Hoseok said and looked down in a way Yoongi's learned to recognize as his flustered expression. It was harder than Yoongi thought it would be to draw that expression from him—Hoseok was honestly a very shameless man.
"What kind of dance?" Yoongi asked as he finally dug into his own food.
What Hoseok said was very much not what Yoongi expected from him. "Choreography, really."
Yoongi paused in the middle of a chew. "Like, in groups?"
Hoseok nodded. "Yeah. In groups."
"Huh."
Yoongi continued eating, letting his mind try to piece together the picture of Hoseok's life. Homeless, too young face, outdated clothes, dancer, choreography dancer, long teeth, odd mannerisms, only ever went to this same store, never pays.
Yoongi physically stilled when he realized he was categorizing Hoseok into boxes—he always did that with people. He did that with everything. His brother used to say it was his biggest weakness. His brother was the only person who knew how to get any sense into him—or at least that's what his family told him. He continued eating, trying not to dwell on the past.
Hoseok, mercifully (or perhaps he didn't notice) didn't say anything about his pause. Yoongi supposed he was in no place to talk, with his own cryptid answers. Why couldn't he just figure him out? Why doesn't he have an answer?
Hoseok always had a piece of food stuck in between his canine and his front teeth. Yoongi wanted to tell him about it so bad. He's had it since he met him and he realized that without access to clean clothes, a shower and toothpaste, Hoseok should smell unbearable. But he smelled like nothing. It was like he didn't have an aura, like he didn't really affect the world around him. It didn't look like he lived in the real world, more that he was just...there.
"You're not gonna figure me out by looking at me," Hoseok said, eventually. Yoongi had to give credit where it was due — well, he didn't have to, but today he was feeling charitable — Hoseok was actually a very observant person. More than he previously believed.
"How do you know that's what I was doing?" Yoongi challenged.
Hoseok shrugged. "It's obvious. You stare at me like you're getting paid by the hour."
Yoongi decided it would be best to let the comment roll off him. He didn't care about money. "Maybe your face is just nice to look at."
Hoseok rolled his eyes. "Nice try."
"I wasn't trying."
"Yeah, you were. I'm nin—" Hoseok stopped, his face was easy to read for anyone now—horrified. He tried to cover it up, but it was a delayed action, and they both knew that Yoongi saw. Hoseok coughed into his hand. "I'm not feeling so good."
Yoongi made a disgusted face. He knew he did; he could feel the way his lip curled. "I'm not gonna fall for that. You look fine."
Hoseok smiled again, toothy and sharp. "Fine as hell."
Yoongi couldn't hold the eye roll back if he was held at gunpoint. "You're the worst."
"You still sit with me."
Yoongi once again stilled, lips brushing against the noodles that still haven't made their way into his mouth yet. He let his lips twitch upwards, despite the drop he felt in his gut. He didn't want to talk anymore. They ate in silence for the rest of the evening.
Yoongi couldn't deal with the non-answers anymore. He zipped up his bag full of money and shut the ATM.
The sun was shining right above him, which was annoying because now the shade from the buildings wouldn't stretch out enough to cover him. Noon was usually the worst time of day in the spring and summer. He hated sweating underneath the bright lights.
It was surprisingly easy to make away with the money in his massive bag with relatively no fanfare.
He didn't go home this time, instead straight to the ramen shop. It's more his home anyway.
It didn't make sense for Hoseok to be there at this hour, but Yoongi knew he would be. A part of him knew more than the rest of him would actually admit.
There's something strange going on, something he knows the answer to but won't say. The feeling inside him nestled somewhere above his stomach as he walked through the automatic doors. And, with horrifying certainty, he found Hoseok sitting there, hands rest on the empty table in front of him.
Yoongi was in a haze as he sat in front of him. He placed the bag down at his feet and stared right at Hoseok's bowed head. Why was he doing this? Why didn't he act like he had a life outside of when Yoongi sees him? Why did he never see him outside this damn shop?
"Why are you here?" Yoongi asked, harsher than he meant to.
Hoseok didn't look at him. "I can't go anywhere else."
Yoongi stared at him, helplessness seeping into his bones. He wanted to do something. Why didn't Hoseok do anything? Why didn't he live outside this shop? Why did Yoongi feel responsible for it?
"You don't—" Yoongi choked on his own words. "Why don't you change? What's wrong with you?"
Yoongi regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Not that he thought it was particularly hurtful to Hoseok but because he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of those words. He watched Hoseok's face, which was surprisingly blank.
"I don't know, man," was all Hoseok said.
Yoongi stood and stomped out, bag thrown over his shoulder haphazardly. He found it uncomfortably hard to sleep that night. He didn't eat supper. He didn't feed his fish. He still came back the next day.
"Your teeth still have that," Yoongi motioned to his mouth. "That..."
Hoseok's mouth twitched slightly downwards. "I know."
"You never..." Yoongi didn't understand why he wasn't finishing his sentences properly. "I don't know, licked it off?"
Hoseok shrugged. "Clearly not."
"That's highly unlikely."
"A lot of things are highly unlikely."
They didn't speak for the rest of the meal. It wasn't even awkward or tense silence. The two of them usually just knew when to stop talking and when to start eating.
"If you want to figure me out you could always ask," Hoseok offered one time when he caught Yoongi staring at him too long.
Yoongi just shook his head in response. He didn't want to ask him.
When you ask questions they can lie in their answers, but you can't lie in the way you hold yourself, in the way you move around in the world and the way you breathe—and just like Yoongi noticed the first time, Hoseok breathed and moved like he had all the time in the world. Yoongi, however did not, and always left the shop to sleep. There was something wrong with Hoseok.
"Where do you think we go when we die?"
Yoongi was taken aback by the unprompted question.
Hoseok didn't usually start conversations, and he never spoke about deeper things. When conversation would naturally bend that way, Hoseok would always push it back with a short answer. A shrug, an "okay," a small smile, the nod of his head. Him asking something like this out of the blue made Yoongi a little uneasy—in a good way.
"I don't think we go anywhere," Yoongi answered. He finished his food a while ago, but he still hadn't left.
Hoseok nodded, slowly. "Yeah. Me too."
Yoongi looked at Hoseok's face again. He began to see him burned into his eyelids. He bet he saw Hoseok more times in his life than even his own mother.
His eyes were dark, his hair was dark, his face was soft and tan — he looked unique. Yoongi had never seen anyone like him, and now he'd never seen anyone more than him. Sometimes Yoongi didn't believe he was real.
Why did Hoseok bring that up?
Was it because he was thinking about the time Yoongi told him of his dead brother? Was this about Hoseok's own family that he said he didn't have? Did Hoseok lose someone or is this just a thought experiment? He didn't even know if he should ask—he didn't know when he started wondering what he should and shouldn't do.
Who was Yoongi becoming? Did he take the safe road now? Was Hoseok...safe? What's wrong with him now? He hardly thinks about the same things he used to. He found himself empathizing in ways he didn't know were possible ever since he and his brother had their falling out.
Why did Hoseok bring that up?
Yoongi wasn't a religious man. He also didn't really believe in anything. Not some vague fate or luck and he really didn't believe in the afterlife. He didn't believe in friendships either, but that particular one has been turned around, softly. Slowly. The way Hoseok was.
Why did he never see him out sleeping on the road if he was like this? If he was so homeless why did he make a home out of this store?
He hated the way his brain phrased it, but what was wrong with him? He hated the way he couldn't tell whether or not the fault lay with Yoongi or Hoseok.
Their conversation ended again, and Yoongi didn't see him again until a week later. His nerves had calmed and he no longer felt like there was something inside him that was failing to function.
One day, a Saturday evening, one of those summer evenings that liked to close their heat around you in a moist blanket, Yoongi was sitting across from Hoseok. He didn't even second guess himself. This was what he did. This was his table now, not the other one. He didn't want to imagine eating dinner alone anymore.
Hoseok was usually a pretty clean eater, and when he did get dirty, he'd usually clean himself up. Only exception being his food stuck in his teeth, and now. He had some sauce on his cheek from when he slurped the noodles too quickly and they slapped against his face in all wild directions.
Yoongi laughed softly and reached over. He wiped the sauce and with the first swipe of his thumb, he knew something was terribly wrong.
Hoseok's face wasn't soft as it looked, it felt... Wrong. It was like TV static and a numb feeling against his hand, cold and unmoving. Hoseok didn't say anything, and his face, which Yoongi had gotten so good at reading was completely unintelligible.
Hoseok was dead.
Yoongi hated that he already knew. He hated that he knew something was wrong for a long time and couldn't admit it to himself. He didn't like believing in things he didn't use to. He didn't like changing parts of himself.
He held his breath, but his hand was still touching Hoseok's face. The longer he did, the worse it felt. The prickling sensation of a local anesthetic was the first thing he felt beneath his fingertips. The second was something deeper than that. Something that settled a little above the stomach. What's wrong with you?
"Hi," Hoseok said, with a soft and knowing smile on his face.
"Your face feels weird."
"I know."
"You're dead."
"I know."
Yoongi stared again—at this point it was the only thing he knew how to do. He made a few aborted movements, unable to get the words he wanted to say out of his body. There was some other force holding him down, making him unable to ask what he really needed to.
Hoseok knew what to do, speaking for him, answering without being asked. "I choked on my ramen."
Yoongi had to close his eyes as he let out a laugh. It wasn't brittle, it had a very thick outline to it, but it came from somewhere hollow within himself.
Of course it was something stupid and mundane. This was Hoseok. All he ever was was domestic and mundane. And the only question Yoongi could ask was ordinary and boring.
"When?"
"2014, I think," Hoseok said with a small shrug. "All I ever do is eat the same food that killed me." Hoseok half scoffed and continued with a frown. "Ironic."
"That's not what ironic means."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it's not."
"Yes, it is"
"No, it's not."
"Are you scared of me?"
That hit Yoongi in a place he didn't know even existed to be hit. Yoongi wasn't scared of anyone, not even his brother, and he wasn't scared now, but there was something halfway to the truth in what Hoseok said that made it hurt all the same.
"No, I'm not."
Hoseok nodded, slowly. "Good. I'm harmless."
Yoongi couldn't think of a word that described him worse.
Harmless—? When Hoseok had flipped so many of Yoongi's views upside down by just being there? That kind of influence is powerful, it's dangerous, Yoongi knew people with that kind of influence and status and control—they never looked like Hoseok, though. They were always activists with a cause to rally behind or popular people who only need their personalities to sway people, or they're CEOs dressed in sharp suits who throw their money at their problems.
Maybe Yoongi was kidding himself. Maybe Hoseok didn't have that kind of general influence and Yoongi would have to take the blame for his own shortcomings. Maybe he just had another weakness to add to the pile.
His train of thought was scattered and broken when he looked back at Hoseok's face. He was smiling. He was dead.
Yoongi had so many questions. Does everyone become ghosts when they die? Is he the only one who can see Hoseok? Who leaves the noodles out for him? Why is he his friend?
Hoseok's skin moved under his hand like it was some organism of its own.
"What do we do now?" Was what he ended up asking. Because really, what question was more important?
Hoseok didn't miss a beat. "Same thing we've been doing."
The static and under his palm kept zipping at his skin. "You say that like it's easy," Yoongi huffed, pulling his hand away.
Something about this entire situation made Yoongi feel small again, the way he was in his brother's shadow, the way he is when he slips away from the authorities—why was Hoseok able to do this to him?
Hoseok just tilted his head. Yoongi had to remind himself that this was a dead man he was talking to.
"It's not?"