Don't Ask Don't Tell

Chapter 10: revenge is a dish best served bloody

It was cold out, and Yoongi wished he had thought to grab a jacket, but that didn't matter now. Yoongi knew where the metro station was from here, and it wasn't incredibly far. He'd walked farther coming home from work, in all honesty.
Yoongi watched as the ever-present swarms of people heading to and from work or school passed by. A group of uniform-clad girls chittered loudly about a boy one of them liked, an older man in a suit looked angry at his cellphone, a pretty woman with bouncy curled hair walked jovially along the sidewalk. Yoongi elbowed his way into the metro station and fought his way onto a train going from line two. It took him an unusually inordinate amount of time to fish his metro card out of his pocket, and the whole line behind him seemed to want to kill him for it.
This was peak time, rush hour. Everyone was getting off of work, and the entire subway car was packed full. Yoongi was nearly crushed between two people getting on,
Yoongi sighed softly. He thanked Christ he didn't have to work tonight because he didn't think he could face V again so soon. His co-workers didn't seem to like him at all anymore. Nobody seemed to like him at all anymore.
Was what Ruki said actually coming true? Was that Ruki trying to help him? Once you stop being their top earner, you're spat on just like the rest of us.
Chanyeol had warned him about his dalliance with V. Told him not to do it. Told him he was better off to stay away. God, Yoongi wished he had fucking listened for once.
Yoongi got a sharp elbow to the forehead from a particularly tall man fighting his way to get off.
Was this really the kind of life he wanted to lead? Being assaulted by strangers on the train to and from work? Worrying about paying his rent and having to pay Heechul and god, so much paying? V was devoted enough to give him money hand over fist. V was prepared to literally and violently murder someone for him. In front of him.
Yoongi got off at his stop, and once he emerged from the bustling downtown to where he lived, with its dilapidated buildings shedding lead paint chips and boards and its gutters full of broken bottles and cigarette butts. He was pretty sure each alleyway held a viciously murdered corpse, and definitely held a bunch of knifey drug dealers.
Yoongi opened the door to his home, and Jihoon ran to greet him at the door with a hug.
"I missed you!"
"I know."
"Did you miss me?"
"Yeah."
Yoongi picked Jihoon up and carried him into the kitchen, where his mother sat at the table, bills spread out in front of her like usual.
"Hi, honey. How was school?"
"Alright, I guess," Yoongi answered with a shrug. "School was school, y'know?"
"I do. Where'd you run off to, you're home a little late."
Yoongi glanced at the clock, seeing he'd just barely made it home by six-thirty.
"Namjoon and I hung out for a bit, there's a really nice cafe downtown."
Mrs. Min nodded. "You know, Namjoon's always been a little sweet on you."
Yoongi snorted. "Right. And I'm the Dalai Lama, mum."
"I mean it, he's told me as much. And I think that you two would be cute together."
"Mum, he's my friend."
"And he should be your boyfriend." She countered.
"I think Joonie should be your boyfriend too," Jihoon said, and Yoongi nearly threw him across the room.
"I'm not going to date Namjoon, okay? I've kind of got something going on with someone else."
"Oh? Who?"
"Wouldn't you like to know, mother," Yoongi said, setting Jihoon on the table.
"Come on, who's the lucky boy?"
"How do you know that it's a boy?"
"Honey, you're as gay as they come. I know it's not a girl."
"Maybe you're wrong."
"Maybe I'm perfectly correct." Mrs. Min answered, setting aside a long bank statement with bolded words like "final notice" and "pay" on it. Yoongi pretended he didn't notice and pretended that it didn't make him want to cringe.
"Either way, you should date Namjoon. He used to tell me that if he had nobody else, he'd marry you when he grew up."
"Mum, that's kid talk. You should know that kids babble about anything, it doesn't mean shit."
"Language, and I'm pretty sure twelve isn't exactly dumb-child-babble stage still."
"I think," Jihoon said, looking at Yoongi. "That you and Joonie should date."
"And I think," Yoongi countered. "I'm going to go and do my homework. And never have this conversation possibly ever again."
"You can't run from the truth forever, honey." Mrs. Min called after him. "Namjoon likes you!"
"No, he doesn't!" Yoongi shouted back.
Of course, Namjoon didn't have a crush on him. Namjoon had been Yoongi's friend for basically their entire lives, who would-
Yoongi thought about the jealous protectiveness as of late. And, if he was honest, as of always.
Yoongi sat cross-legged on his bed, book splayed open, not reading. He had to ask Namjoon if this was true. There was no way, but his mother wasn't the type to lie, and especially not about something like this.
Was there a way to ask that didn't seem weird, though? Yoongi didn't know.
He decided it didn't matter either way. Namjoon would be his friend and that was all he would ever be. Yoongi was busy contending with whatever specific brand of psychotic V was, he didn't have the time to worry about his best friend maybe being into him.
Nonsensical relationship drama was something Yoongi thought he had grown past. Yoongi supposed he wasn't as much of an adult as he fancied himself as being. He was adult enough to land a job as a stripper in an illegal underground nightclub, adult enough to be paying basically every bill, but not adult enough to be past petty high school bullshit. So what if Namjoon liked him?
The prospect of having to choose between V and Namjoon was an easy one to make, but one that Yoongi didn't want to make. Yoongi knew that if he chose one. He'd have to drop the other one. Namjoon was incredulously, almost comically jealous. V was... well, simply put, possibly completely and utterly violently psychotic and sadistic. Neither were a very good combination.
Yoongi's first instinct was to ignore it. That never worked out in the end, though. He didn't want to talk to V, and he probably couldn't as of right now because V was probably up to his elbows in Bogum's innards, and that would just be inconvenient for both of them. He didn't know how to talk to Namjoon without it becoming weird.
Yoongi laid down, face first into his pillows, and promptly fell asleep. It's always pertinent to sleep on important decisions, after all, and this would be one of those.