The Long and Winding Road || A Vhope FF ||✔️

Chapter 18

By the time that they got out of the shower for the second time ("Baths are gross," Hoseok informed Taehyung, when he had whined about not wanting to take a shower for the third time that day. "You're in someone else's water. It's not great."

"You're so careful about baths, hyung," Taehyung told him. "It must be why you smell so good all the time."

"You notice how I smell?"

"I did when you started sleeping with me in my bed. You make my sheets smell better.") they really did smell good.

Hoseok let Taehyung use his shower gel, and now everything was coated in a vanilla with sandalwood scent, smooth and perfect. Even the sheets, which Hoseok had never noticed before. Funny, how that turned out.

Hoseok flopped down onto the bed as Taehyung went to go find Yeontan and bring him inside. He planned to just try to beat the next level of Candy Crush on his phone, which was, of course, when he noticed that Yoongi had called him. Twice.

Hoseok bit his lip, and decided to pretend like he didn't see. For now, he was so happy that he didn't want to know.

He'd call him tomorrow, Hoseok decided, and went to go wait at the door for Taehyung to bring Yeontan inside.

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Yoongi's phone calls sat in Hoseok's mind like a stone in his shoe, a little sore, a little annoying, but mostly distracting.

Still, he put it off the best he could. He did his best to not think about it the rest of the night, trying to justify this to himself and say that it was too late to call. (It wasn't. Yoongi almost never slept.)

Then in the morning he said that it was too early to call (that one was probably true), and then he had chores, and then he had to talk to Taehyung and pet Yeontan and-

And then Hoseok had a free hour to himself, where Taehyung was off doing something in the barn and Hoseok was making their lunch, and there was no reason not to call.

So Hoseok steeled himself, and clicked on Yoongi's number, praying that it wasn't as bad as he feared.

"Hoseok?" It was only one word, but Hoseok could feel the stress rush out of his body just at the two syllables that made up his name.

Yoongi had been Hosoek's manager for the past five years. They had been through a lot together, and so he knew what Yoongi sounded like when things were okay, and when things were not okay, despite Yoongi's best attempts to hide it.

So far, it seemed, things were okay. None of the telltale signs of stress--the lower timber, the tense strain to his voice even through the phone, the clipped tone--were there. Whatever Yoongi had called him about, twice, a truly rare occurrence, it couldn't possibly be that bad.

Hoseok let out the breath that he had been holding.

"I'm here, hyung. What's up?" Hoseok sagged against the kitchen counter in relief. "How have you been?"

"I'm fine. Things have been fine. Really quiet, really, now that you're not around. Thank God, now I can actually get some work done."

"Aw, hyung, that means that you miss me, doesn't it?" Hoseok couldn't help but needle, because he could picture Yoongi's embarrassed expression right now.

"Well it's been over a month and a half," Yoongi said, his voice getting gruffer betraying that he was, in fact, embarrassed. "And you basically are my job. So when you're not here..."

"When I'm not there then you don't have a job, right? Right?"

Yoongi sighed. "You could say that, I guess."