SugaKookie

38: Studio Break pt Tear

3rd Person POV

Present Time

"Fuck!" Yoongi yelled in frustration, his angry fist narrowly missing the expensive keyboard. He's been cooped up in the semi-dark studio for hours, and the sleepless nights were starting to take their toll. Dark circles under his eyes, skin sickly pale, knuckles bruised from punching the table, and dirty hair hidden under a dark red beanie, Yoongi wasn't feeling (or looking) his best.

He supposed the upcoming tours were the reason for all the rushed practices, but was it really necessary to have a 4 hour dance practice on top of a 2 hour vocal session? Followed by a rather boring interview, and an even less interesting staff meeting he had been expected to participate in. How was anyone supposed to be expected to work in this mess? Honestly! Their schedules were more packed than the NYC highways at rush hour.

Tugging the headphones back over his ears, Yoongi turned to the too-bright screen. Hitting 'play', the rapper let himself to wallow in guilt for a full minute before suddenly getting up and reaching for the red sweatshirt that had been left on his small couch a few days prior. Yoongi kept meaning to return it, but... as much as he hated to admit it, Min Yoongi was a weak man.

So he told himself off now, picking up the light cloth and burying his nose in the soft fabric.

It smelled lightly of burnt popcorn and caramel, with just the hint of Jungkook's cologne. The cologne Yoongi did not have a hidden stash of.

The pale man walked backwards until his legs hit his desk, and then, only then, Yoongi pressed 'restart', sinking down into his chair and focusing intently on the flow of the first verse, fixing the slight hiccups in the beat.

It was beyond him now, really, to feel guilty about inhaling the golden maknae's scent while working. It had become somewhat of a habit.

(Months earlier, the smiling bunny boy would burst into Yoongi's studio, hair disheveled and laughing. He'd brush off Yoongi's half-heartened grumbling and plop down on the rapper's lap. Jungkook would sit there for hours, sometimes making suggestions, sometimes scrolling through his phone, and most often falling asleep. He never scolded Yoongi for being cooped up in the studio at odd hours at night, and Yoongi never pried about the reason he was there after the initial question of "what are you doing here?". It was a silent agreement that the studio was a sacred ground where no fighting could occur. It was. Until a certain day.)

Yoongi slowed down the chorus, fiddling with the individual notes. They sounded disjointed, and at this point, the man was at wit's end. Turning his chair to face a different keyboard, he closed his eyes and placed his hands on the keys. Pale fingers danced over the same 7 notes, unable to join them smoothly. It was a minuscule part of the piece, but Yoongi was a perfectionist. He fidgeted, trying to relax, trying to reclaim the calm his studio used to bring him. Maybe he'll finally come to terms with it. It wasn't the studio that brought him his sense of orientation.

(It was a peaceful kind of bliss. One Yoongi attributed to the calming design of his studio, and the comforting low hum technology. A utopia where warm arms always wrapped around his waist and a small chin rested on his shoulders. A place where he could let himself be enveloped in the familiar smell he attributed to Jungkook, and lose track of time for hours. His heaven on earth, one that had a real angel who laughed at his jokes and told him to "Stop missing me hyung; I was gone for 5 minutes." An angel who didn't mind when Yoongi lied, "I'm not missing you brat. I know when you're here I can keep an eye on you and relax because you're not breaking any of my shit." An angel that smiled and buried his beautiful face in the crook of Yoongi's neck, flushing a pretty red when the rapper complimented him.)

It got cold after that. Chased with snippets of memories, Yoongi's fingers flitted across the keyboard, wincing at the heartwrenching song that burst forth from his struggling. He wasn't trying to compose. But a genius' moment wasn't to be disrupted. So he played on, fingertips kissing the white piano keys, lines of music appearing on his computer monitor. It looked beautiful. It sounded even better.

So why was he crying? Why were the broad shoulders shaking, lungs burning as he gasped for air? Why were his hands trembling, and his cheeks burning from the salty rivers streaming down?

It was a masterpiece, he knew that much. A masterpiece he wanted to forget.

But he couldn't, he wouldn't.

Mechanically, turning back to the computer, the white hands fly over the lettered keys, typing out, word by word, sentence by sentence.

There's no such thing as beautiful goodbyes

So just begin now

Woo take it easy, slowly carve out my heart

It's a sort of therapy, if he was being honest. Reliving the moment, tasting the coffee he was drinking. It was bitter. Or maybe he just remembered it that way. There was still a stain on the pristine walls from where he threw the cup after Jungkook's confession.

Please burn up my heart that was torn into shreds

That's right, right there, what are you hesitating for

This is the ending you were wishing for

So go on and kill me without hesitating

Every word carved a hole. Every single one was like a tiny bullet. Jungkook had blurted it all out quickly. Something that took less than 5 minutes had then replayed in his head for months.

When he was done, coming back down from that high, Yoongi collapsed back, spent. Meaningless words still lingered on his earlier work, but they were just that; meaningless. This was the real thing. The group could either take it or leave it; Yoongi wasn't changing a thing. He fell asleep like that, promising himself a minute of shut-eye.

2:14 AM - The studio door closed, a head of light brown disappearing down the hall. It looked as if Yoongi wasn't the only one out of bed past Jin's curfew.

When Yoongi woke up an hour later, he had caught just the vaguest trace of familiar caramel in the air.