Sope One Shots

Open Mic

The little pub venue was dark and cosy, with dark grey walls and candles flickering on every table. There was a small stage at one end, its back wall a sheet of fairy lights. There was a small chair, a mic, and a keyboard. There were guitars clustered amongst the audience members. Hoseok sat nervously among them, his own beautiful honey wood Yamaha gripped in his shaking hands.

It was the first open mic he'd be doing without Yoongi and he was terrified. On top of that, it was the first he'd done in a couple of months, full stop. It just hadn't felt right since Yoongi had left. He had Tae with him, who was good for holding his hand until he went up, and Namjoon, who always had some comforting words to offer, and Jin, who may only have been there as an excuse to spend time with Namjoon but whose incorrigible confidence always translated to those around him, but none of it was quite the same as having Yoongi.

Yoongi had been there for every open mic and performance Hoseok had done since he started, at only 12 years old. Could it really have been a decade now? Yoongi always nodded his head along and occasionally mouthed the words too. They'd even gone to the same uni, and he's continued to be so encouraging and lovely and, over time, their relationship grew and grew into something even more special. But now the love of his life was in grad school overseas and Hoseok had another year left on his degree before he could go join him. He was heartbroken. He sipped at his lemonade.

The organiser, Lisa, took to the stage to introduce herself, the first act. She played brilliantly, her fingers dancing across the fretboard as her blonde fringe grazed her eyelashes from under which she looked out at the audience with an intense sensuality. Hoseok watched the acts with genuine interest; as much as their styles, ages and backgrounds were all different, they all communicated in that one, wordless voice of hope: music. Before long, Lisa announced his name, and he shuffled onto the stage.

He sat, guitar on his knee. He looked out at the audience. This was a fancier place than the run of the mill pub open mics he was used to, the lights were so bright he could hardly see the audience. That was good. He could almost pretend Yoongi was out there among the twinkling candles which were all he could currently make out.

"Hi everyone, my name's Hoseok and I'm gonna start off with a song I wrote, it's sort of about when you meet someone and, you know when you just know this person is gonna be important in your life and you just don't wanna forget anything they say or how they make you feel, well music is how I capture feelings so, I guess this is a song about those moments where I'm like, goddamn I'm gonna have to write so many songs about this person."

He loved opening with this one. It was strummed, so the nerves could die down and he could channel that energy into the strokes, and his voice for it, so powerful and strong, caught the audience's attention and gave him confidence for the rest of his set.

He strummed, picked, and sang his way through the rest of his carefully prepared set and introduced his final song.

"This last one is dedicated to my boyfriend, he's far away at uni right now, like 750 miles of far away, and I wrote this song when we first met, so..."

He trailed off, and started playing. The song was beautiful, Cm7 and Am7 adding an eery quality to some otherwise standard chords, the picking pattern complex but intelligible, Hoseok's voice soft and unique as always, even softer now as he feared that to raise his voice would be to loose the flood of emotion building in his throat. The room was silent save for his song by the end, and as he finished a blanket of soft tension and admiration cloaked the audience. Hoseok broke it with a soft, "thank you," and suddenly the audience remembered themselves and broke into a thunderous applause.

Hoseok left the stage, guitar in hand, and waded into the audience to his table, only to find a familiar face smiling back at him.

"That was incredible. The best yet." Yoongi told him softly. And it felt perfectly natural that he should be there to say it.

(A/N thank you so much for reading, I can't believe I'm at 600+ reads now that's insane!! If you want more parts please please feel free to write some suggestions for scenarios/themes in the comments, I'd love to write more but this second year of uni is pretty killer and I don't have as much time anymore, but having a little help with inspiration would be super super useful for me to be able to update more frequently. Again, thank you so so much for reading, you're amazing 💕💕)