Day 11 of 60
"What is it with you and numbers?"
Hoseok stopped sipping his strawberry shake and looked over. Yoongi was waiting for an answer. The brunette swirled his straw in the plastic cup, watching the bits and chunks of pink melt and sink in the vanilla cream.
"What do you mean?"
Yoongi blew a swirl of smoke, chin resting in his hand as he stuck his head out the car window. His tattoos were more noticeable today, not covered under heavy clothing today due to the surprisingly warm weather. One tattoo, a sun, right above his collarbone seemed so vivid on his pale skin, and Hoseok wondered what it symbolised. For a person like this smoker, nothing was ever as it seemed. When smoke bellowed from his mouth, so did the tension from his muscles. When words bellowed from his mouth, so did the world.
Hoseok wondered.
With Yoongi, Hoseok wondered a lot.
"You're always counting down. When you're frustrated, you're counting breaths. When you're tired, you're counting minutes. When you're, I don't know, you're counting days." Yoongi tilted his head and the light of the cigarette glowed, "how come?"
"You're always smoking. How come?" The cigarette paused mid-air. The ashes were accumulating at the end.
Bull's eye.
"I feel warm." The blonde shrugged.
Hoseok laughed bitterly, shaking his head. He unlocked the door and stood outside, shielding his eyes from the beating sunlight. Yoongi followed behind and watched him. They were in the parking lot of a small abandoned diner, an old one resting upon a hill. Hoseok stood on the edge of the hill, perfectly in front of the rows and rows of fraying trees beneath and ahead.
"Warm? If you wanna feel warm so bad, why don't you watch sunsets? Or lay in the sunlight? O-or in the arms of someone else? Why do you choose something so damning as smoking?"
Hoseok yelled out to the sea of echoing brown and green. "Answer me. Tell me. You say you wanna know me, but I wanna know you too."
Yoongi felt thunder crashing in his chest. A foreign and awakening rumbling right in between his ribs. His fingertips tingled and he closed his eyes shut. He dropped his cigarette.
"Because I'm so fucking tired." He screamed. Not to Hoseok or the world. But to himself.
"I'm just so fucking tired of feeling dead. Of feeling cold."
Yoongi's voice grew an octave louder with each word. Raspy words, new words.
"Is it a crime to want to feel alive and warm? Is it? When you can't find it t-through anything, or anyone else? Then why is it a crime if I find that through smoking?"
His nose tingled and his chest shivered. Not from the cold, but from the warmth.
Tears streamed down his cheeks and Hoseok watched Yoongi's back heaving and breaking, shuddering and gasping.
"I-I just want to live."
And it was so unfair. So unfair that those who searched for stars only saw grey skies.
