3:17 A.M
Yoongi x TerminalPatient!Reader
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hospital AU, One-shot, Mentions of Death
Summary: For seventy-three nights, Yoongi wakes at exactly 3:17 a.m., knowing the pain will soon pull you from sleep. In the quiet confines of a hospital room, the two of you build a routine of gentle conversations, shared laughter, and unwavering love—until one night, 3:17 arrives, and only one of you wakes up.
Word Count: 6.7K
The first few nights, Yoongi believed it was coincidence.
Hospitals never truly slept. Monitors hummed behind closed doors, wheels from passing carts whispered against polished floors, and distant conversations drifted through the hallway until they dissolved into silence. He assumed one of those sounds had pulled him awake every night, yet his eyes always found the same blue numbers glowing from the clock mounted above the door.
3:17 a.m.
By the tenth night, he stopped questioning it.
By the twentieth, the nurses stopped questioning it too.
Room 712 had become familiar territory for everyone on the overnight shift, and so had the man who refused to leave the chair beside your bed. His black hoodie remained draped over the backrest no matter how many times the nurses offered him a proper blanket, and the untouched cup of vending machine coffee beside him inevitably turned cold before sunrise because his attention never wandered far enough to remember drinking it.
You stirred before your eyes opened, your fingers twitching weakly against the white hospital sheets. The smallest crease appeared between your brows, the first warning that the pain was returning, and Yoongi reached for your hand almost instinctively. His thumb traced slow circles across the back of your skin. The tension in your shoulders loosened by a fraction.
"I'm awake," you whispered, your voice barely louder than the steady rhythm of the heart monitor.
"I noticed."
Even after weeks of sleeping in an uncomfortable chair, his tone carried the same dry humor that always managed to coax a smile from you. He shifted forward until his elbows rested on the mattress, studying your face with quiet concentration, as if memorizing every eyelash and every faint shadow beneath your eyes could somehow stop time from moving.
"You look terrible."
A breath of laughter escaped you, thin but genuine. "So do you."
He glanced toward the dark window and shrugged one shoulder. "I've seen worse."
"You looked better yesterday."
"I looked better three months ago."
You rolled your eyes, though the movement exhausted you enough to leave you staring at the ceiling afterward. The silence that settled between you wasn't uncomfortable. It had become another routine, another familiar part of these endless nights spent measuring time through medication schedules and changing IV bags instead of sunsets and dinners at home.
A gentle knock broke the stillness before one of the nurses stepped inside carrying another syringe. She smiled the moment she noticed Yoongi already awake. "I was going to wake you."
"You would've been late."
She shook her head while checking your chart, completely unsurprised. "I swear you have an alarm nobody else can hear."
Yoongi only reached for the blanket that had slipped from your shoulder and tucked it back into place with careful hands. "Maybe she snores."
You nudged his arm with the little strength you had left. "I don't snore."
"You absolutely do."
The nurse hid a laugh behind her clipboard while replacing the empty IV bag. "I'll bring another warm blanket."
Yoongi nodded without looking away from you. "And hot chocolate."
"You ask for that every night."
"You bring it every night."
"You never drink it."
"I like having options."
The nurse disappeared into the hallway still smiling.
You watched the doorway until it closed before turning back toward him. "They all know you now."
"They tolerate me."
"They like you."
"They pity me." The answer arrived so quietly that it almost vanished beneath the monitor's steady beeping.
You squeezed his fingers. "They don't."
For a moment, he couldn't bring himself to answer. Instead, he brushed a strand of hair away from your face and tucked it behind your ear with practiced familiarity. The motion had become as natural as breathing, something he repeated dozens of times a day without realizing it because illness had a habit of making ordinary acts of affection feel impossibly precious. Outside, rain tapped softly against the window.
"I saw a cat earlier," he murmured after a while.
You shifted your attention toward him. "The orange one?"
He nodded. "The security guard finally fed it."
"I told you someone would."
"It ignored him."
"It likes you better."
"It likes free food."
You smiled again, smaller this time, your eyelids growing heavier as exhaustion settled over you. "Did you feed it?"
"It stole half my sandwich."
"So you did."
"I was robbed."
Another quiet laugh slipped between you before fading into comfortable silence.
The clock above the door ticked forward.
3:18
3:19
3:20
Your breathing gradually evened out beneath the soft hiss of oxygen flowing through the tubing. Yoongi kept tracing slow circles over the back of your hand long after you had fallen asleep, unwilling to move because every night followed the same fragile pattern. Pain arrived at 3:17, conversation carried you both to 3:20, and sleep borrowed a few peaceful hours before morning arrived.
He had started believing the ritual would always save you. The thought settled somewhere deep inside him, stubborn and hopeful, refusing to acknowledge the doctors who spoke in careful voices or the sympathetic smiles that lingered a little too long.
As long as 3:17 ended like this—with your hand in his and your breathing steady against the silence—he could pretend there would always be another night.
Morning arrived in fragments instead of sunlight. Pale streaks slipped through the narrow gap in the curtains, painting soft lines across the hospital floor while nurses traded shifts outside the room, their hushed voices blending with the distant rattle of breakfast carts.
Yoongi had fallen asleep with his cheek resting against the edge of your mattress, one hand still wrapped around yours. His neck protested the awkward position the moment he stirred, but the familiar ache barely registered. He lifted his head first to look at you instead of the clock, instinctively searching for the slow rise and fall of your chest before allowing himself to blink the exhaustion from his eyes.
Your eyes fluttered open a few seconds later. "You look worse than yesterday."
A quiet snort escaped him as he rubbed at the crease between his eyebrows. "I've been informed that's becoming your favorite hobby."
"You should sleep."
"I am sleeping."
"In a chair."
"It's a very expensive chair."
You let out the faintest laugh, the sound rough from days of medication and endless interruptions. Even weakened by illness, you still laughed the same way you always had—small at first, then with enough warmth to soften the guarded expression Yoongi carried everywhere else.
The doctor arrived just before noon. White coats, clipped explanations, carefully chosen words that never sounded frightening enough until they settled into the silence afterward. Yoongi stood beside the window with his arms folded across his chest, staring outside while percentages and treatment plans drifted through the room like another language.
He caught only pieces. Stable. Continue monitoring. Pain management. Comfort. The last word lodged itself somewhere behind his ribs.
After the doctor left, you watched Yoongi study the parking lot three floors below as though every answer he needed might be hidden between rows of parked cars. His shoulders had always carried tension differently from everyone else. He didn't pace or raise his voice. He simply became quieter until silence did all the talking for him.
"You don't have to stay every minute."
He slipped his hands into the pockets of his hoodie without turning around. "I know."
"You could go home."
"I know."
"You could shower."
"I know."
You smiled. "You smell like vending machine coffee."
That finally pulled him away from the window. "I smell like dedication."
"You smell terrible."
"I'll put that on a T-shirt." The corners of his mouth lifted just enough to convince you he was trying.
Lunch arrived untouched.
The soup cooled beside your bed while Yoongi picked at a sandwich the nurse had practically forced into his hands. Every few bites, his eyes drifted toward you, checking that you were still comfortable, still breathing evenly, still there. It was a habit he never noticed.
But the nurses surely noticed. One of them paused in the doorway while updating your chart and caught another quietly watching the two of you.
"He looks every thirty seconds."
The older nurse followed her gaze. "Twenty."
"You counted?"
"I've been on this floor for fifteen years." She lowered her voice. "The ones who stop looking are the ones who already know." Neither of them finished the thought.
Evening settled over the city with gentle rain tapping against the windows. The sky darkened until the glass reflected the room instead of the buildings outside, leaving only the two of you suspended in a world made of fluorescent lights and steady heartbeats.
Yoongi reached into his backpack and pulled out a small paper bag.
You tilted your head. "What's that?"
He unfolded the top and produced a tiny plastic container. "Convenience store pudding."
Your eyes widened with genuine excitement. "The caramel one?"
"They were sold out."
"I don't love you anymore."
"I bought the vanilla."
"I'll think about forgiving you."
He peeled the lid back and scooped a small spoonful before holding it toward you. Your hands trembled too much to manage the spoon yourself, so he waited patiently until you swallowed, brushing away the smallest smear from the corner of your mouth with his thumb. Neither of you acknowledged how natural the gesture had become. The pudding disappeared one careful bite at a time while rain continued its quiet rhythm outside.
"I miss home." The words slipped out so softly that Yoongi almost thought he'd imagined them.
He set the empty container on the bedside table. "What do you miss?"
"The couch."
"You always complained about the couch."
"I miss complaining about it."
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "The neighbor's dog?"
"It barks too much."
"The old elevator?"
"It gets stuck."
"The dishes you keep leaving in the sink?"
"They're soaking."
"They've been soaking for two weeks."
"They're marinating."
You watched the amusement reach his eyes for the first time all day and committed the image to memory.
"I miss ordinary things." The smile faded, replaced by something quieter.
Yoongi reached for your hand again, threading his fingers through yours with practiced familiarity. "We'll go home."
You looked at him for a long moment. Not because you doubted him but because you wanted to believe him as much as he believed himself.
The digital clock above the door continued counting forward.
11:48 p.m.
12:31 a.m.
1:56 a.m.
The hospital settled into its familiar midnight hush. Nurses dimmed the hallway lights, visitors disappeared, and rain surrendered to the stillness that only existed in the hours before dawn.
Yoongi refused another blanket, ignored the untouched coffee cooling beside him, and leaned his head against the mattress while your breathing lulled him into a shallow sleep. Somewhere beneath exhaustion, his body had learned its own ritual.
Long before his mind woke, before his eyes opened, before consciousness returned, something inside him always reached for the same moment. Three seventeen. Every night. Without fail.
A sharp inhale pulled Yoongi from sleep before any machine had the chance to protest. His eyes opened into darkness, instinct carrying him upright in the narrow chair before his thoughts caught up. The digital clock above the door glowed faintly against the dim room, its blue numbers washing the walls in an almost ghostly light.
3:17 a.m.
You hadn't called his name. You hadn't moved. Even so, the familiar crease had returned between your brows, the one that always appeared seconds before the pain settled into your bones. Your fingers tightened weakly around the blanket instead of his hand, as if you were trying to hold yourself together without disturbing him.
Yoongi reached across the mattress before you could say anything. His palm covered yours with practiced certainty, his thumb tracing slow circles over your skin until your grip loosened. The motion had become so instinctive that he no longer remembered learning it. Somewhere between the endless nights and endless medications, his hands had simply memorized the language of comforting you.
"You cheated," you murmured, your voice rough with sleep.
One eyebrow lifted. "How?"
"You woke up before me."
"I have a reputation to maintain."
The corner of your mouth curved despite the discomfort pulling at your features. "You really think the nurses are impressed by this?"
"They definitely have a leaderboard."
"For what?"
He tilted his head toward the hallway. "Boyfriends who survive entirely on vending machine coffee."
"You'd win."
"I've been training."
Your laugh barely reached the room before exhaustion stole the sound away, but it was enough to soften the tension lingering in your shoulders.
Silence settled again, carrying the steady rhythm of the monitor and the distant squeak of rubber soles against polished floors. Rain had disappeared sometime after midnight, leaving the city wrapped in the muted glow of streetlights that spilled through the window and painted pale shapes across the blanket covering your legs.
You stared toward the ceiling for a long moment. "Do you remember the first time we met?"
Yoongi didn't answer immediately. Instead, he leaned farther into the chair until his forearms rested beside your pillow, studying your face with the quiet concentration that always appeared whenever he thought something mattered enough to deserve precision. "You spilled coffee on my laptop."
"It was your fault."
"You walked into me."
"You stopped in the middle of the sidewalk."
"I was reading."
"You were impossible."
"I still am."
"You definitely still are." Another fragile smile found its way onto your face. "I thought you hated me."
"I almost did." His other arm reached for your intertwined hands.
"Almost?"
"You bought me another coffee."
"I felt guilty."
"You bought me another one the next day."
"I still felt guilty."
"The next day too."
"I was making sure you forgave me."
His gaze drifted to your intertwined hands. "I never stopped showing up after that."
Neither of you spoke for several seconds. There was no need.
The memories filled the room more completely than words could. You remembered tiny apartments cluttered with music equipment and half-finished lyrics scribbled across napkins. You remembered grocery shopping at midnight because Yoongi always forgot to eat until hunger became impossible to ignore. You remembered falling asleep on the couch while he worked, waking hours later with a blanket draped over you even though he insisted he wasn't the affectionate type.
"I miss your studio."
His thumb paused for the briefest moment before continuing its slow circles. "It's dusty."
"It always smelled like coffee."
"It smelled like old speakers."
"And coffee."
"And old speakers."
You closed your eyes, letting the image settle behind your eyelids. "I miss listening to you work."
"I'll play something when we get home."
"You never let anyone hear unfinished songs."
"You aren't anyone." The answer arrived so naturally that it carried none of the self-consciousness people often wrapped around confessions. It was simply a fact.
You opened your eyes again and found him already watching you. "What if I forget?" The question hung between you with surprising weight.
His shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly. "You won't."
"What if I forget the songs?"
"I'll play them again."
"What if I forget our apartment?"
"I'll show you every room."
"What if I forget you?”
For the first time that night, Yoongi looked away. His gaze settled on the window, on the reflection of the two of you suspended against the darkness outside, and he remained there until he trusted his voice again.
"Then I'll introduce myself." You watched the muscles in his jaw tighten before he turned back toward you. "I'll tell you we met because you ruined an expensive laptop."
A weak laugh escaped you. "You'll exaggerate."
"I absolutely will."
"And I'll buy you coffee?"
"You'll owe me at least three."
The laugh faded, replaced by quiet breathing and the steady pulse echoing through the room.
You squeezed his hand with what little strength remained. "I think..." Your voice trailed away. Yoongi leaned closer, catching every syllable. "I think I'd still fall for you."
Something fragile crossed his expression, so fleeting that anyone else might have missed it. His lips parted as though he wanted to answer, but emotion crowded every sentence before it reached his tongue. Instead, he lifted your hand and pressed his forehead gently against your knuckles. The gesture carried more honesty than words ever could.
Outside, somewhere beyond the hospital walls, the first birds began greeting a dawn that neither of you could see. Inside Room 712, the clock quietly advanced from 3:17 to 3:18, and for one more night, the ritual held.
Morning arrived with clear skies for the first time in nearly a week, washing the hospital room in soft gold instead of the muted gray that had become so familiar. Sunlight settled across your blanket and warmed your face just enough that Yoongi reached for the curtain, hesitated, and left it open after deciding you looked better with light on your skin.
A nurse stepped inside balancing two paper cups and a clipboard against her hip. "I brought actual coffee today."
Yoongi accepted the cup with a nod before peering inside. "So this is what generosity looks like."
"It means I got tired of watching you drink whatever comes out of the vending machine."
"I was building immunity."
She rolled her eyes and shifted her attention toward your chart, but her smile faltered for the smallest moment when she compared yesterday's notes to this morning's numbers. The pause lasted less than a second before she tucked the clipboard against her side again, yet Yoongi caught it anyway, his fingers tightening around the paper cup until the lid crinkled beneath his grip.
You noticed too. The room had taught you how to read people long before the monitors or medications ever could. Doctors slowed their steps before difficult conversations, nurses smiled a little brighter on hard mornings, and visitors laughed louder whenever they were trying not to cry.
"I'm okay." The reassurance escaped your lips automatically.
Yoongi looked at you instead of the nurse. "I know." The words landed with enough certainty that even you almost believed them.
The nurse adjusted your IV line, checked your temperature, and lingered beside the bed for another moment. "Physical therapy is stopping by after lunch."
You groaned into the pillow. "I'd rather fight a bear."
"You said that yesterday."
"My opinion hasn't improved."
Yoongi folded his arms across his chest. "I'll cheer for the bear."
"You always take the wrong side."
"I take the entertaining side."
The nurse laughed quietly before slipping out into the hallway, leaving behind the faint scent of hand sanitizer and fresh coffee.
For a while, neither of you spoke. Cars crawled through the streets below, tiny from the seventh-floor window, their movements slow enough to make the outside world feel impossibly distant. Somewhere downstairs, a child laughed, the sound carrying upward through an open courtyard before disappearing beneath the steady hum of hospital air conditioning.
"I had a dream."
Yoongi shifted his chair closer. "Good or bad?"
"I couldn't tell." You watched the sunlight creep across the blanket as though the answer might be hidden there. "We were home."
His shoulders relaxed. "You kept leaving your guitar in the hallway."
"I do that."
"I almost tripped over it."
"Also accurate."
"You were making coffee."
"I'm sensing a pattern."
"And I couldn't remember why we owned seven mugs when there are only two of us."
A quiet smile touched his face. "You keep buying them because you think they're cute."
"They are cute."
"They all say the same thing."
You frowned. "They don't."
"They literally all say 'World's Best Coffee.'"
"They have different fonts."
He let out a soft breath that almost resembled a laugh, and for a fleeting second the hospital room disappeared, replaced by your tiny apartment where mismatched mugs crowded every cabinet and music drifted between unfinished laundry piles.
Then the smile left your face. "I woke up before we got home."
The silence that followed carried a different weight than usual. Yoongi reached for your hand without looking away from you, his thumb finding the familiar path across your skin. "We'll get there."
You searched his expression, looking for the slightest crack. The stubborn hope remained exactly where it always had, anchored behind tired eyes and sleepless nights. He wore it the way other people wore armor, refusing to remove it even when the weight of it bent his shoulders lower every day.
After lunch, physical therapy arrived exactly on schedule. A cheerful therapist wheeled in a walker and greeted you with enough enthusiasm to brighten the room, but simply sitting on the edge of the bed drained the color from your face. Your fingers clung to the mattress while Yoongi stood close enough that your elbow brushed against his sleeve.
"You've got this." Yoongi restrained himself from helping you up because he knew you’ll just swat his hands away. "I hate encouraging people."
"You hate everyone." You laugh under your breath.
"I tolerate a select few."
"Am I included?"
He pretended to consider the question. "The jury's still out."
You pushed yourself upright anyway. Your knees trembled before your feet even touched the floor, the effort pulling uneven breaths from your chest. Yoongi instinctively extended a hand, but you shook your head and steadied yourself against the walker instead, determination flickering behind the exhaustion.
One step, then another. The therapist offered quiet praise while measuring distance in feet and progress in tiny victories, but Yoongi measured something else entirely. He counted every breath that hitched, every moment your grip tightened until your knuckles lost their color, every smile you forced whenever someone looked at you.
Halfway across the room, you stopped. Not because you wanted to but because your body had already decided.
Your shoulders sagged, and before anyone could react, Yoongi moved beside you, sliding one arm around your waist with practiced familiarity. "I've got you."
You leaned into him without protest. For a heartbeat, neither of you cared that the therapist politely looked away or that a nurse paused in the doorway pretending to organize paperwork. The world shrank until it contained only your uneven breathing and the steady rhythm of Yoongi's heartbeat beneath your temple.
"I'm heavier than I used to be."
He adjusted his grip. "You've always been difficult."
"I was trying to be sentimental."
"I'm trying to keep you from falling."
The smallest laugh escaped you, carrying equal parts exhaustion and affection. When he helped you back into bed, your eyes drifted closed almost immediately. Within minutes, sleep claimed you.
Yoongi remained in the chair beside the mattress, watching sunlight slide across the floor until it reached his shoes. His coffee sat untouched on the windowsill, now completely cold, while the clock above the door continued its patient march toward another night.
Another 3:17. Another promise that he would wake before the pain did. Another promise he intended to keep, no matter how impossible it was becoming.
Yoongi woke before the clock. The habit had rooted itself so deeply into his body that exhaustion no longer mattered. His eyes opened into the dim hospital room, instinct already reaching for you before consciousness fully returned, and his fingers found the warmth of your hand resting above the blanket.
The room was unusually still. No restless shifting beneath the sheets. No quiet inhale that caught halfway through your chest. No whispered complaint about the ache in your shoulders or the stiffness in your neck. Only the soft mechanical rhythm that had accompanied every night for weeks.
His gaze drifted toward the clock.
3:16 a.m.
The smallest smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You finally gave me a head start."
The joke slipped into the darkness, expecting the familiar pause before you rolled your eyes and accused him of turning everything into a competition. Instead, the room offered nothing back except the muted hum of fluorescent lights beyond the closed door.
He looked at you again. Your face had relaxed in a way he hadn't seen for months, every line of discomfort erased from your features until you looked impossibly peaceful. The crease that always appeared between your brows during the early hours had disappeared, leaving only the quiet expression of someone enjoying uninterrupted sleep.
Yoongi loosened his grip on your hand and brushed a strand of hair away from your forehead. "You've got five seconds before I claim victory."
Silence. He counted anyway. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
"I win." Nothing.
The smile lingered for another heartbeat before uncertainty settled beneath it. His thumb resumed its slow circles across the back of your hand, repeating the motion that had soothed you through every difficult night. He waited for the tiny squeeze that always followed, for your fingers to curl weakly around his, for the almost imperceptible sign that you were still there with him. Your hand remained still.
The digital clock clicked forward.
3:17 a.m.
Yoongi leaned closer until his forearms rested against the mattress. "Hey." His voice stayed low, careful not to disturb you. "It's time."
No answer.
Outside the room, rubber soles whispered against polished floors before fading into the distance. Somewhere farther down the hallway, a monitor chimed twice before a nurse silenced it, and the familiar sounds of the hospital continued without noticing that something inside Room 712 had shifted.
He reached for the call button, then stopped. You had slept through medication checks before. You had slept through blood pressure readings. Once, after an especially exhausting day, you had slept through Jin's painfully loud video call, only waking when Yoongi threatened to answer it himself. This could be that. It had to be.
"You always complain when I wake you up." His fingers tightened around yours. "So I'm giving you another minute."
He settled back into the chair, never releasing your hand, and watched the rise and fall of your chest. One breath. Another. The movement was so faint that he almost convinced himself he had seen it.
The clock changed again.
3:18 a.m.
A quiet knock interrupted the silence before the overnight nurse stepped inside carrying another folded blanket. She paused the moment her eyes landed on the two of you. "You're awake already."
Yoongi nodded toward the untouched blanket. "She's winning today."
The nurse smiled automatically, expecting the usual exchange that had become part of her shift. She crossed the room and reached for your chart, but her attention drifted to the monitor almost immediately. The smile disappeared. She stepped closer then closer still. Her fingers found your wrist with practiced precision while her eyes searched your face.
Yoongi watched her, confusion knitting his brows together. "She's just sleeping."
The nurse didn't answer. Instead, she pressed the call button on the wall, her movements calm but impossibly quick.
Within seconds, footsteps echoed through the hallway. Another nurse entered then another. The room filled with quiet urgency. Someone gently guided Yoongi's chair backward. He didn't move.
"I'm staying."
A doctor arrived still fastening the sleeves of his white coat, his expression composed in the way only years of practice could produce. He checked your pulse, listened for a heartbeat, adjusted a sensor, and exchanged a look with the nurses that lasted less than a second but seemed to stretch across an eternity.
Yoongi barely noticed any of it. He kept talking instead. "You skipped physical therapy yesterday."
His thumb continued tracing slow circles over your hand. "They're going to think you're avoiding them."
No one interrupted him.
"They'll make you walk twice as far." His eyes never left your face. "And you still owe me caramel pudding because vanilla was a terrible compromise."
The doctor lowered his stethoscope. The nurses gradually stepped away from the bed, each movement slower than the last.
Someone rested a hand against Yoongi's shoulder. He shrugged it off without looking.
"You promised we'd go home." The words escaped in a voice so quiet they almost disappeared beneath the steady, unbroken tone that had quietly replaced the familiar rhythm of the monitor.
He stared at your face, waiting for the tiny laugh that always followed whenever he became too serious. Waiting for your fingers to squeeze his hand. Waiting for 3:17 to end the way it always had. But for the first time in seventy-four nights, the pain never came, and neither did you.
The room never became chaotic. No one shouted instructions across the bed or rushed equipment through the doorway, because there was nothing left to fix. The nurses exchanged brief glances that carried years of experience, the doctor lowered his eyes toward the chart instead of the monitor, and the steady tone that filled Room 712 continued with quiet indifference, stretching into every corner until it became impossible to tell where the sound ended and the silence began.
Yoongi remained exactly where he was. His hand still covered yours, his thumb still tracing slow circles over your skin with the same measured rhythm he had repeated every night for weeks. The movement had become muscle memory long ago, existing independently of thought, and he couldn't stop even when the warmth beneath his fingertips had already begun to fade.
A nurse crouched beside him. She had been the one bringing him hot chocolate every night, the one who always laughed when he complained about vending machine coffee, the one who pretended not to notice that he never drank either. "Yoongi."
He didn't look at her. "You forgot the blanket."
Her hand paused halfway toward his shoulder. "It's right here."
He glanced at the folded fabric resting over her arm and gave a small nod, as though she had simply arrived a few minutes later than usual. "She gets cold around this time."
The nurse swallowed against the tightness in her throat before unfolding the blanket with careful hands. Together, without exchanging another word, they draped it over you exactly the way they always did, smoothing the edges near your shoulders and tucking the corners beneath your arms.
For one impossible moment, it almost looked like another ordinary night. The doctor stepped forward after giving them enough time to breathe. "I am so sorry."
Yoongi stared at the clock instead. The blue numbers continued shining above the door.
3:23 a.m.
"You don't understand." His voice remained steady, almost conversational, the same tone he used when correcting someone's coffee order or reminding you to take your medication. "She always falls asleep after the pain passes."
No one interrupted him.
"If we wait another few minutes, she'll wake up and complain that my hand is too cold." His thumb continued its slow circles. "And she'll ask what time it is."
The doctor removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose before speaking again, but the words never reached Yoongi. They dissolved somewhere between the monitor and the window, lost beneath memories that crowded his thoughts with relentless clarity.
You, laughing because he had burned toast. You, stealing his hoodie even in the middle of summer. You, insisting that seven identical coffee mugs counted as interior design. You, whispering at exactly 3:17 every single night, "You're awake."
A vibration against his thigh pulled him back. His phone. The screen glowed with an incoming video call. Namjoon.Yoongi stared at the name until it disappeared.
A second later, another notification arrived.
Jin: Did you both survive the terrible hospital breakfast?
Then another.
Hobi: Tell Y/N I found the blanket she wanted.
The messages continued appearing one after another, piling across the screen while the room remained perfectly still. Yoongi locked the phone without answering. He knew that once he replied, the world outside Room 712 would learn what had happened.
As long as he stayed silent, time hadn't moved yet. As long as he stayed silent, somewhere beyond sunrise there still existed a version of today where you would wake up hungry and complain about pudding flavors.
The nurse quietly slipped the phone into the pocket of his hoodie when it buzzed again. This time she didn't look at the screen. She simply rested a hand against his shoulder.
Yoongi finally turned toward her. For the first time since 3:17, his expression cracked. Not dramatically. Not with sobs or desperate pleas. Just a tiny fracture around his eyes, the kind that formed after too many sleepless nights and too much hope carried for too long.
"I promised her we'd go home." The sentence hung between them, unbearably small.
The nurse couldn't offer reassurance that would matter, so she reached for the cold cup of vending machine coffee sitting untouched beside the chair and quietly threw it away.
Outside, dawn began spreading across the city. The first rays of sunlight slipped through the window and landed gently across your face, warming your closed eyes exactly the way Yoongi had always liked. He noticed the light immediately and stood without thinking, crossing the room to adjust the curtain.
His hand stopped halfway. You had always looked prettier in the morning. Slowly, he lowered his arm again and left the sunlight where it was. Then he returned to the chair beside your bed, laced his fingers through yours one last time, and settled in as though another night still waited ahead.
The digital clock continued counting.
3:41.
3:58.
4:12.
Yoongi never looked away from you. If anyone had asked, he would have answered with complete certainty that he was only waiting. After all, for seventy-three nights, you had always responded.
And some stubborn, exhausted part of him still believed that if he kept holding your hand, if he kept tracing those familiar circles across your skin, if he stayed awake long enough, you would open your eyes and ask the same question you always did.
"What time is it?"
------------------
Winter arrived without asking for permission.
The first snow settled across Seoul in thin layers that disappeared by noon, dusting sidewalks, rooftops, and the windows of Yoongi's studio before melting into nothing. He watched it from behind the piano, a mug of coffee cooling beside scattered sheets of music, and caught himself counting the minutes until someone would walk through the door to complain that the heater was too high.
No one came. The silence no longer startled him. It simply lived there now, tucked between unfinished melodies and the faint scent of coffee that had seeped into the walls over the years. The studio looked exactly the way it always had—cables tangled beneath chairs, notebooks stacked in uneven piles, hoodies thrown across the sofa—but there was an emptiness woven into every familiar corner, a shape that belonged to someone who would never occupy it again.
He still owned seven identical mugs. People had asked why he never threw them away. He never bothered answering. Every Saturday morning, he reached into the cabinet without thinking and pulled out two. One for himself. One for you.
By the time he realized what he had done, steam would already be curling from both cups. He would stand in the kitchen for a moment, staring at the second mug until the coffee cooled, before quietly drinking them both because wasting it somehow felt worse than pretending.
Namjoon stopped mentioning it after the third visit. Jin simply washed the extra cup and returned it to the cabinet without a word. The others learned to leave one chair empty whenever they gathered, never discussing why the seat remained untouched through dinner, movies, or nights that stretched too late into morning. Some absences deserved respect instead of explanation.
Yoongi returned to writing music because he no longer knew what else to do. The melodies came slowly, gathering one note at a time until they resembled conversations that would never happen again. He left mistakes exactly where they landed, refusing to polish every rough edge, because perfection had started feeling dishonest after discovering that life could end in the middle of an ordinary sentence.
The piano became the only place where grief stopped feeling heavy. There, it transformed into rhythm. Into pauses. Into chords that lingered longer than they should.
One evening, he found a strand of your hair caught inside the sleeve of an old hoodie. He didn't remember the last time you had worn it, only that you always stole his clothes and insisted they smelled better than yours. The tiny thread rested against his palm, almost weightless, yet it carried enough memories to send him sinking onto the studio floor with the fabric gathered tightly against his chest.
He stayed there until sunset painted the room amber. Not crying. Not speaking. Just listening to the quiet settle around him until breathing became easier again.
Life continued because it always did. Schedules filled calendars. Albums reached deadlines. Friends dragged him outside for dinner often enough to keep him from disappearing completely into the studio. He smiled when expected, argued over takeout menus, corrected Jin's terrible movie opinions, and rolled his eyes whenever Namjoon knocked over another glass.
Anyone watching from across the room might have believed he was healing. Only Yoongi knew the difference between healing and learning where to place the ache.
Months slipped by. Winter surrendered to spring, and spring carried enough warmth to leave the windows open at night. City lights stretched across the river while distant traffic hummed through the darkness, familiar enough to blend into dreams.
Then, without warning, Yoongi's eyes opened. The room remained completely dark except for the faint blue glow of the digital clock resting on the nightstand.
3:17 a.m.
He didn't sit up immediately. His hand moved first, sliding across the mattress with quiet certainty until his fingers reached the empty space beside him. The sheets were cool beneath his palm, untouched except for the small indentation that no longer existed anywhere except in memory.
His thumb traced slow circles against cotton. The same circles. The same rhythm. The same silent promise his hands had memorized long before his mind understood it.
The words escaped before he could stop them. "Does it still hurt?"
The apartment answered with stillness. Outside, rain brushed softly against the window, and somewhere in the distance a train carried strangers toward homes where lights still glowed in waiting.
Yoongi closed his eyes. For the first time since that night, he didn't wait for a reply.
He pushed the blanket aside, crossed the quiet apartment barefoot, and made his way into the studio where the piano rested beneath the moonlight spilling through the glass. An unfinished score still sat on the stand. He had started it months ago. He had abandoned it after the second page because every melody kept finding its way back to you.
Tonight, he lowered himself onto the bench without hesitation. His fingers hovered over the keys then they began to move.
The first notes drifted into the empty room, gentle enough to sound like footsteps returning home. The melody wandered through familiar places—the warmth of convenience store pudding shared after midnight, sunlight falling across hospital blankets, laughter over identical coffee mugs, hands finding each other at exactly 3:17 every morning. It wasn't a goodbye. It never could be. It was every ordinary moment stitched together into something that could survive memory.
As dawn slowly painted the horizon pale gold, Yoongi reached into the pocket of the hoodie draped across the piano bench. His fingers brushed against smooth plastic. The hospital bracelet. He had carried it everywhere for months without realizing its weight.
Carefully, almost reverently, he placed it beside the sheet music. Not hidden inside a drawer. Not locked inside a box. Just resting there, where the morning light could find it.
The melody came to a quiet end. Yoongi looked toward the window as the first rays of sunlight slipped into the studio, warming the empty chair beside the piano exactly the way they used to warm your face. A small smile touched his lips, tired but unmistakably real.
At 3:17 every morning, his body would probably still wake before the sun. The habit would remain, stubborn and faithful, reaching across empty sheets for a hand that no longer answered. But somewhere between the silence and the music, Yoongi realized that love had never disappeared with you.
It had simply changed shape, becoming the quiet rhythm that carried him from one dawn to the next, one note at a time.