Beyond Repair (Min Yoongi)

29. Testing The Waters

Yoongi had expected some kind of drastic change in the dynamic between himself and Jimin after the kiss(es), but there wasn't one. It was more like several tiny shifts in his behaviour. He now found himself pressing into Jimin for no other reason than that he wanted to. Yoongi felt more cuddly with the other members now, too, and he told them every chance he got how much they meant to him (and those remarks were usually met with blushing and/or teasing). The others got more affectionate with Yoongi in return and no longer hid their physical displays of affection with each other from Yoongi in fear of making him uncomfortable.

Aside from that, nothing really changed. Life continued on as normal. There was hurt. There was comfort. There was love and bickering and little kisses stolen here and there.

It seemed too normal. Too good to be true. Maybe that was why Yoongi liked it too much.

The exception to the normalcy, which Yoongi had been so dearly craving for such a long time, was that the feeling of being dirty never really went away. Yoongi took showers at least twice a day, sometimes more after a flashback or a nightmare, and he would only initiate contact if he had recently bathed. He didn't want to get everyone else dirty, too. But he was no longer wracked with waves of disgust when his friends touched him, even kissed him, and Yoongi couldn't be happier.

Several uneventful days passed until one morning. Everyone was eating a late, low-maintenance breakfast, scattered around the living room and kitchen. No one had wanted to cook for seven people, so they all either had left-overs from the previous night's dinner or found something simple to prepare for themselves. Yoongi was on the sofa, contently snacking on a bowl of fruit (which Jimin and Jungkook kept trying to steal from, earning them a playful swat on the hand every time) when Hoseok cleared his throat from the kitchen table.

"I was thinking of going in to work today," Hoseok said. If he hadn't had everyone's attention before, he certainly did now. "I miss the gym at the BigHit building and I've been wanted to get back into real dance practices. Plus, I've got some ideas for a new song and—"

"Don't," Yoongi shouted with his mouth full. The shift in the atmosphere from laid-back to anxious was instantaneous and harsh.

"Why not?" Hoseok asked, sounding almost frightened.

Yoongi swallowed his food and refused to meet anyone's eyes as he murmured, "What if something happens?"

It was then that everyone realised that no one in the group had gone anywhere alone since Yoongi had been taken. Yoongi hadn't even been apart from any of the others since he'd been back.

"I'll take someone from the security team with me, and any and all of you are welcome to come, too," Hoseok offered.

"I miss the gym, too. Staying cooped up in the house isn't helping with the weight I've gained," Jungkook added, though Yoongi couldn't see anything different about his physique.

Yoongi looked around at his friends with wide eyes. "You can't go, though. It isn't safe!"

Namjoon then stood up and carefully approached Yoongi, crouching down in front of him to force him to meet his eyes. When the leader spoke, it was with a soft voice full of reassuring certainty. "Yoongi, Lee Daejung is in jail. He can't get to us. We're safe, wherever we go and whatever we do. We don't even need the security escort, honestly. The only reason we still have them is as a precaution until the trial begins."

"When is that, by the way?" Taehyung asked.

"I think it starts this coming Monday," Namjoon said. "The governments are still working out a lot of legal stuff, but since he's a U.S. citizen, the trial is going to be held in America."