Min Yoongi likes being an .

Because, in all honesty, what value is there to sacrificing yourself, and meddling in someone else's business, someone he will probably never see again. “That's only because you're a rich ,” Namjoon says over coffee on the floor of a five-star hotel. “You should pay attention to these things. Sometimes, some things fall apart so that better things can fall together.” Yoongi tends to take things Namjoon says less-than-seriously, so when he first hears Seokjin's proposal, he insists on declining it.

That day, with the sunlight glinting off the windows in Seokjin's office, a mansion on cubicle-shaped stilts that overlooks the Seoul skyline, and a small harbour of clouds off drifting in the distance, Yoongi played with the rubik's cube, his legs crossed. Seokjin is saying something, something he knows he shouldn't be listening, because it's going to ruin his mood like sugarless coffee. But what he did not realise is that even bitter coffee tastes good.

“Listen,” Yoongi says, dropping the completed rubik's cube on the table, cutting Seokjin off mid-sentence. “Books like these, no one ever reads them. They sit on some glass display, clean and pristine, and not dog-earred and kept next to you when you sleep, because you fall asleep reading it. People who buy those books only have one motive. So that they can brag that they read something like this and then—”

“This isn't about writing a novel, Yoongi,” Seokjin replies, leaning forward. “This isn't even a novel! It's your life!" His hands were trembling with agitation, Yoongi noticed, as he held up a cup of coffee to his lips. When he regained his composure, he said quietly, "You wouldn't know, because you never pay attention to anything outside your own world.”

As Yoongi's manager, Seokjin has the persistence to hold steady control over Yoongi's attitude. It's autumn, and the sun starts to set. Yoongi squints his eyes and looks over at the pink-blue sky, but they've been through this before, and Seokjin continues talking because he knows Jongin's still listening. It's not like he has a choice. “It isn't about readability, or some ing prize-winning book. It'll sell, because it's you—your face, on the front cover of—”

“Stop, shut up,” Yoongi says, lifting himself off the back of the couch. “I'm tired of hearing about my face.”

“No, you're not,” Seokjin says with a small smile, and Jongin opens his mouth to reply, but realizes that he can't think of anything witty, or true, to say.

So he mumbles, “I can't write,” instead.

“Not a problem,” Seokjin replies, sliding a sheet of paper across the glass, and Jongin glances down at it, a lot of words that blur like the hazy skyline. “Here's a writer whom I have found for you, and he's willing to—”

“What the , hyung,” Yoongi replies, finally pulling his gaze away from the skyline and shifted in his seat. “I'm not going to have some random guy off the street typing out my life story.”

"Fine, then." Seokjin says, the corner of his lips lifting as he leaned backwards. He knows victory is already in his hands. "I'll give you three days. Find someone yourself and we're settled."

Yoongi blanches. “What makes you think I'd know—”

–

Outside of your own world is what Yoongi takes from that conversation.

“We breathe the same air,” Yoongi has always said, getting a laugh out of Seokjin, but he's only recently figured out that it isn't so much a laugh of amusement as it is a laugh of contempt.

“You're pretty naïve, for an adult,” Seokjin would say.

Because Yoongi actually breathes in air of cigar smoke and expensive alcohol and breathes out cocky words and spits of contempt, only admitting himself into high-end clubs and mingling with his kind of people, Seokjin would say. “We're both rich,” Yoongi would point out, and Seokjin shakes his head. "It's different. You're lonely." Namjoon is Yoongi's only friend, and that's a stretch, because they hardly hang out together, except for the years in high school when they formed a rap duo.

Yoongi's apartment is at the top of a high-rise complex, and he owns half the floor, including the one-person-wide balcony that snakes around from his bedroom to the living room. He would never have dreamed of it as a kid—he only delved himself into writing lyrics and rapping.

Yoongi's high school yearbooks sit on shelves opposite his television like tacky souvenirs and memorabilia, because school then was a place he rarely attende