The Broken Dancer

Fragments of Rhythm

The first change was small.

Jimin walked into the room and sat down before Yoongi could say a word.

No stiff hesitation at the threshold, no brittle pause waiting for command. He just lowered himself onto the chair, gaze sliding away, movements still precise but less mechanical.

Yoongi noticed. He didn't comment - he never did. But he noticed.

Night one, the silence lingered, not sharp but waiting.

Yoongi broke it first. "Do you ever sleep?"

Jimin's eyes flicked up, startled by the question. Then narrowed, suspicious. "Why would you ask that?"

"You look like you don't," Yoongi said simply. "Dark circles. Same as me."

A pause. Jimin scoffed, a soft disbelieving sound. "You notice too much."

"Insomnia makes you notice things," Yoongi replied, tone even. "It makes the world sharper when you're awake too long."

Something flickered in Jimin's expression - recognition, or maybe just weariness. He didn't answer, but he didn't shut down either.

That night ended with silence that felt... shared.

On night two, Yoongi mentioned music. Not his work, not his career. Just... music.

"I was listening to an old record earlier," he murmured, leaning back. "The kind that crackles when the needle drags. It sounded like the room was breathing with me."

Jimin tilted his head, a small crease forming between his brows. "You talk like a poet sometimes."

Yoongi huffed a faint laugh. "That's a generous way of saying I sound starnge."

"I didn't say strange," Jimin muttered. His gaze darted away. "...I used to listen to the radio. When I was a kid."

The words slipped out before he could stop them. His throat closed around the last syllable, regret flashing across his face.

Yoongi didn't push. He only said, quietly: "Then you already know what I mean."

Jimin said nothing more, but his chest tightened in a way he couldn't explain.

By night four, there was less tension in his shoulders when Jimin entered now. Less armor in the way he sat.

They spoke of smaller things. The weather. A half-joking remark Yoongi made about the velvet curtains shedding lint. The faint sound of footsteps outside their door.

Jimin surprised himself by replying without barbs, without venom. His tone wasn't warm, not yet - but it wasn't frozen either.

It felt dangerous, this easing. But for the first time, he didn't want to fight it.

Night seven, Yoongi spoke of loneliness.

He didn't mean to. The words slipped out, almost careless. "Sometimes the silence in my apartment feels louder than this room."

Jimin's head snapped toward him, eyes sharp. "Why would you tell me that?"

Yoongi's mouth lifted in a faint, humourless smile. "Because it's true. And because maybe you'd understand."

The words sank into Jimin like stones thrown into water, rippling out until he had to look away. He didn't reply. But when the night ended, his chest felt heavier - and somehow, less empty.

Time folded in on itself. Nights became a rhythm.

Jimin found himself moving differently, softer, when he entered that room. He told himself it was only to avoid suspicion. Only to keep the balance intact.

But the truth - the one he refused to speak, even to Taehyung or Jungkook or Seokjin - was simpler.

He anticipated Yoongi's presence.

The stillness they shared became something fragile but sacred, a bubble untouched by the world outside.

Jimin clung to it in secret, hiding it fiercly. To name it aloud would ruin it. To confess it would shatter it.

So he held it close, silent but unyielding, a secret carved into his chest.

And Yoongi, watching him slowly shift, felt the sanctuary forming too.

The room had changed.

Not a cage. Not anymore.

Something else.

Something they were building, word by word, silence by silence.