Chapter Text
The first sound was silence. Not the kind Yoongi was used to—the kind that clung like dust to the inside of his helmet, that hovered in every empty corridor of deep-space vessels. No, this silence was unnatural. It was dead.
He can't hear the engines or the thruster humming. Not even the oxygen cycle or navigation ping. He could hear nothing except the sound of his own blood thudding in his ears.
“Agust,” he rasped, throat raw, “status report.”
Nothing.
The ship was dark. Sparks glimmered like fireflies from the cracked nav console, and the artificial gravity was fluctuating in uneven waves. He could feel it in his spine. His boots lifted an inch off the floor, then slammed back down again.
He gritted his teeth and tried to move.
His shoulder screamed as he reached up to manually power the auxiliary screen. The panel flickered—dim green text crawling across shattered glass. Static lines buzzed across the field display.
CORE TEMP: STABLE
NAVDRIVE: OFFLINE
COMMS: NONRESPONSIVE
QSN LINK: NULL
He exhaled, jaw clenched. He leaned back into the pilot’s chair, still strapped in, chest rising and falling beneath his charred flight suit, taking a deep breath. Truing and failing to calm himself. He could still feel the weight of descent—as if the planet was pulling him down. As if it had reached up and grabbed him from the stars.
Yoongi unbuckled slowly, pushing off the control board with his palm, and floated into the narrow corridor behind the cockpit.
His knuckles dragged along the wall as he passed all pressure seals. Thankfully, all intact.
Then his boots hit a solid surface again. Gravity had stabilized—barely.
He reached the manual comms unit, a clunky analog backup installed more for nostalgia than necessity. Yoongi had insisted on keeping it just in case.
He yanked off the cover and flipped the power. The machine buzzed to life, low, old, and familiar.
He leaned into the mic, voice quiet. “Unit 7B, designation AGUST-03. This is Yoongi Min. Stranded. Crashed. Sector unknown. Requesting emergency link to Outpost Aeon.”
He can only hear static.
“Coordinates unknown,” he continued. “Environment breathable. The ship is partially functional. Awaiting response.”
He repeated the call every ten minutes for two hours.
There was no answer but static.
By the time dusk fell over the horizon, the planet had begun to glow. It didn't glow as the Earth glowed—this was different and stranger. The sand beneath Agust’s cracked hull shimmered in dull crimson. Distant crystal spires glittered in fractured light, jagged like teeth, humming so faintly that Yoongi could feel it in his molars.
He stood on the ramp, wind brushing the ends of his unbound hair, and stared out at the alien world.
“Beautiful,” he muttered, and meant it bitterly. “Of course, it’s beautiful.”
His respirator hissed gently over his mouth and nose. He tightened the strap behind his head and trudged into the dusk with a toolpack on his hip. His footstep sank an inch into red powder. The sky was a deep lavender, with no stars visible—only the outline of twin moons, waiting to rise.
He didn’t know the planet’s name yet. Maybe he would have to name it himself for now until he found some help.
Later that night, as he rigged an external antenna on Agust’s dorsal wing, the QSN monitor sparked once, and again. Then it lit up—dim, flickering, trembling with life.
Yoongi froze. His heart kicked hard against his ribs. He yanked off his mask and slammed his hand on the receiver.
A burst of static filled the cabin.
“—hello?—”
“—this is Outpost Aeon—come in—”
“—AGUST-03, do you copy—?”
He inhaled sharply. His throat suddenly went dry.
“Copy. This is AGUST-03. Unit 7B. Yoongi Min speaking.” His voice cracked. “I hear you.”
Static again. “Yoongi Min?— ” the voice asked, breathy, high-toned, and lively. “—You’re alive.”
Yoongi blinked. The voice was unexpected.
Warm and gentle. Almost melodic. It vibrated in his chest in a way no mechanical signal should. He leaned in, eyes narrowing.
“And you are?”
A soft laugh came from the other end. The static was less than before. “Flight Controller Jimin Park, Sir. I’m— I’m your primary link from Aeon.”
“Where were you two hours ago, Park?”
Another quiet laugh, flustered this time. “Trying to find you. Your signal was bouncing all over hell. I rerouted your pulse trail through the secondary net and caught it on a crystal reverb echo. Not bad, huh?”
Yoongi stared at the comms screen like it could show a face. Of course, it didn’t.
It was only the voice, bright and confident, with a softness that curled at the end of each word. Like he wasn’t just doing his job—he was trying to reach him.
"...No visual?” Yoongi asked. “You can’t see me?”
“Nope. Your video’s completely fried. And—uh—mine’s off too. I’m at an auxiliary console. Comms only. Just voice.”
Yoongi let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Good,” he muttered. “I hate being seen.”
Another laugh. “Well. Then you’re in luck, Yoongi Min. Because I’ll be the voice in your head for a while.”
Yoongi closed his eyes.
It had been a long time since a voice made him feel... less alone. Ever since Agust crashed, he thought he was going to die here alone.
There was a pause—soft static, quiet breathing.
Yoongi leaned back against the metal frame of the communications unit, hand still gripping the receiver. His knuckles were raw, smudged with soot and red dust. His lips felt chapped, but he didn’t move.
“Still there?” Jimin’s voice came again. Softer this time.
“Yeah.” Yoongi let his eyes slide shut. “Still here.”
“Okay.” A breath. “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
Yoongi exhaled through his nose, chest tight. His body ached from the crash, from strain, from everything. But something in the air felt different now. The kind of difference that didn’t come from systems or pressure shifts. It came from presence.
The voice. That spark of survival, the thought that he's not alone in this anymore.
“You got a situation report on your end?” Jimin asked, his tone turning focused, professional, but not cold. “I’ve got limited data, but I’m running diagnostics blind until I know what’s intact.”
Yoongi glanced over his shoulder at the dark cockpit, lit only by flickering console fragments.
“NavDrive is offline,” he said. “Core temperature is holding, but the pulse reader’s toast. Oxygen’s stable—barely. I’ve got rations for a few weeks. Water’s tight. Comms were dead until... you.”
There was a soft click. Jimin had probably pressed something on his end.
“That matches the noise I’m seeing. Looks like you took a full atmospheric breach during descent. Did you blackout?”
“No.” Yoongi stretched his sore neck. “Stayed awake the whole way. Felt like falling through a goddamn heartbeat.”
A low hum of sympathy from Jimin. “Must’ve hurt like hell.”
Yoongi gave a dry, bitter chuckle. “You have no idea.”
Jimin didn’t rush to respond. He let the silence exist—not heavy or awkward. It settled between them like something alive.
He quietly asked, “You’re not injured?”
Yoongi hesitated. “Nothing broken. Left shoulder’s torn up. Might’ve dislocated for a second. Reset it myself.”
“...Damn. Might have hurt like bitch.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Both of them were quiet, lost in their own thoughts. Then Jimin's voice came softer and warmer, “You’re kind of a badass, huh.”
Yoongi snorted despite himself. “I’m stranded and half-dead. That’s hardly—”
“No,” Jimin interrupted, light teasing in his voice, “You’re stranded, half-dead, relocated your shoulder, and manually rebuilding a wrecked analog radio line to talk to me. Admit it. You’re at least a little impressive.”
There was no smugness in it. Just a smile, Yoongi could hear but not see. It caught him off guard.
He rubbed his neck, a habit he has when he's shy when someone praises him, his lips twitching. “...Fine. Maybe a little.”
“Thought so,” Jimin said, satisfied.
Yoongi let the smile stay for a few seconds.
Time passed in patches.
Yoongi ran more diagnostics while Jimin guided him through deep system bypasses. They worked in sync. Jimin knew when to speak, when to pause, when to let Yoongi breathe. He had a habit of humming softly when thinking—nothing melodic, just the shape of music—a subconscious lull. Yoongi found himself listening to it even when the words stopped.
Eventually, Jimin’s tone softened again.
“It’s getting late planet-side, right? You should rest.”
Yoongi frowned. “I’ll sleep when the ship’s stable.”
“It’s not going anywhere tonight,” Jimin said gently. “Neither are you. Trust me, Yoongi Min—your body will quit long before your ship does if you don’t lie down.”
Yoongi didn’t argue. He let go a big sigh he didn’t know he was holding, and sat there in the co-pilot seat, hand still near the mic, and let his eyelids drift low.
Outside, the wind shifted, and crystals hummed. Inside, the only sound was Jimin’s voice—quiet, steady, kind.
“I’ll stay on the line,” he whispered. “You don’t have to say anything. Just sleep.”
“Mm.” Yoongi’s reply was little more than a breath. “You always talk this much?”
Jimin laughed softly. “Only when I’m nervous.”
“Why nervous?”
There's a beat of silence. Yoongi could almost feel him smile.
“...Because you’re listening.”
Yoongi smiled, too. A real one after months, maybe years. The kind he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
And that’s how it began. With no visual of what Jimin looks like, but with a name and a melodic voice like warmth over wire.
A boy in a sunless world, and the sound of someone refusing to let him fall alone.
Outpost Aeon, 03:12 Station Time
The comms floor had gone quiet.
Most operators rotated out after their twelve-hour shifts, faces buried in caffeine and mission logs, voices monotone and forgettable. The glow of suspended monitors still hummed in the air—holograms of planetary grids flickering above empty desks—but the room itself was still. Vast and cold.
Except for one seat.
Far left by the edge of the dome. Where the twin moons of Elara cast pale light through the observation window, Jimin was still there.
His headset rested beside him, silent now. The emergency line to AGUST-03 was inactive; transmission closed for the night. But Jimin didn’t move. He just sat there, one hand curled around a cup of now-cold tea, the other still hovering near the mic switch.
Yoongi had fallen asleep mid-sentence. Or maybe not asleep, just quiet. But not the kind of quiet that hurt. The kind that felt shared like a blanket stretched between distant stars.
Jimin exhaled softly and leaned back in his chair, spinning slowly to face the wide glass wall behind him. Beyond it, space sprawled—black, infinite, unknowable. A faint reflection of his face shimmered on the glass: tired eyes, parted silver hair, a crooked front tooth barely visible as he smiled to himself.
He hadn’t meant to talk so much. He has received many complaints that the Flight Controller Jimin Park talks too much. It's a habit he formed while growing up when he was comfortable with people or the environment. He can't help himself, but Yoongi had listened.
Not just to the tech reports or the system data—he’d listened to the shape of Jimin’s words, the pauses and the half-laughed phrases, as if he was collecting them, storing them somewhere inside his hard drive.
“Because you’re listening,” he’d said.
Jimin’s fingers found the edge of his mic switch again. He didn’t press it, just touched it. Then tapped the dial on the console to open his audio log recorder.
“Personal log. Operator Jimin Park. Day 843, Aeon orbit.”
He hesitated, then whispered, “Today I heard a voice that didn’t feel like work.”
“I think he’s scared. He didn’t say it, but... I could hear it. In the way his breath caught. In the silence between words.”
He released a long sigh. “I know I’m not supposed to care. We’re not trained for emotional tethering. They teach us to detach. But—how do you detach from a voice like his?”
A soft chuckle. “Deep, raspy, kind of gruff when he’s annoyed, but soft at the edges. Like someone who used to be gentle, but forgot how. Like maybe he just needs... reminding.”
He looked back out into the stars.
“I’ll keep him talking,” Jimin whispered. “As long as it takes.”
The recorder clicked off.
-
The morning didn’t exist on Caltris. Not really.
There was no sunrise, no birdsong, or light shifted through trees or atmosphere. It was just a slow, eerie change in the hue of the red dust outside—deep crimson fading into soft rust. The crystals on the ridge line shimmered faintly in the half-light as someone had exhaled over glass.
Yoongi sat cross-legged inside the tower.
He called it The Core now. The inner chamber he’d cleared and stabilized with old insulation strips, heat blankets, and a battered solar unit. He’d sealed the slats in the stone walls with black tarp. In one corner, a metal rack hummed quietly, keeping oxygen levels from slipping. Everything else was improvised like him.
He adjusted the QSN receiver carefully. His hands were steadier today. He could hear himself breathing. The silence was louder when you were waiting for something—someone.
And then— He heard a click, followed by static: “— Yoongi Min, good morning! You awake?”
A breath left his lungs before he could stop it. Something like relief—or something he refused to name.
“I’m here.”
There was a pause. Then Jimin’s voice came again—bright as ever.
“Great! You survived the night! That’s already a win in my book.”
Yoongi smirked. “The planet tried. I guess they didn’t try hard enough.”
He heard Jimin laugh. He liked hearing Jimin laugh. He’d decided that yesterday.
“Crystals didn’t sing you into madness?”
“They tried,” Yoongi said dryly. “I out-grumbled them.”
Another laugh warmer this time. “Alright, Captain Grumble. Let’s start with diagnostics again.”
They worked through the first hour in tandem.
Jimin read out system prompts while Yoongi reconfigured the nav control wiring with a precision that made his fingers ache. It wasn’t easy—half the panel was still burned out, and the sand had crept inside some of the circuits. He cursed under his breath more than once, but Jimin never rushed him; he just waited.
Sometimes Jimin was humming again. Sometimes filling the space with soft updates from Aeon—ship traffic, orbital rotations, data pulses from passing satellites. None of it really mattered, but Yoongi let the words wash over him. Like rain on metal. Familiar, absolutely meaningless, but tenderly comforting.
“How long were you out there?” Yoongi asked suddenly, mid-screw turn.
“You mean Aeon?”
“Mmh.”
“Almost three years. Longest-serving operator on base now.”
“Why?”
“Because... someone has to stay.”
Yoongi tilted his head. “That a noble thing or a self-destructive thing?”
Jimin gave a sheepish laugh. “Ask me again when I finally leave.”
Later, when the midday heat began to make the air shimmer inside The Core, Yoongi slumped back against the wall, sweat damp at his hairline, and let his head fall back.
He didn’t mean to ask. It just slipped out.
“Jimin, what do you look like?”
There was a heartbeat of silence.
“O-oh,” Jimin breathed. “That’s... direct.”
“Someone has to ask.”
“True,” Jimin said. There was a smile in his voice.
Silence settled between them again, as if Jimin was thinking how to respond. Then, tentatively, almost shyly, he replied.
“I’ve got silver hair, a little messy right now. Skin’s a bit tanned now—our light cycles aren’t exactly Earth-perfect, but I'm naturally fair. I’ve got a... crooked front tooth, please don't laugh. Thanks to a playground incident I won’t talk about.”
Yoongi’s lips curled. He didn’t realize he was smiling until he felt the stretch. “What else?”
“I’m... kind of short for a flight officer, I envy I'm not taller like my colleagues. But I’ve got long legs. And, although my ears are small, they stick out a little.”
“Cute.” The word escaped before he could stop it.
Silence.
“...You think so?” Jimin whispered.
Yoongi cleared his throat and turned slightly toward the wall, heat rising in his neck. “Just making conversation.”
Jimin’s laugh was soft this time. Almost shy. “And you?”
Yoongi blinked. “What about me?”
“You. What do you look like?”
Yoongi hesitated. He hadn’t described himself in years. Didn’t need to. People saw him as a silhouette, a job title, a call sign. But now—
“I’m tall, all muscles, I guess? Silky black hair, shoulder-length. I have... pale skin. My cheeks blush easily. People used to tease me about it.”
Jimin chuckled warmly. “You just described a drama lead.”
Yoongi snorted. “I described a tired engineer.”
“Still sounds like someone I’d want to see.”
The words hung there suspended in static.
Yoongi didn’t reply, but his hand stayed resting on the mic, and he didn’t look away from the red light blinking on the console. As if Jimin could see him through it.
They didn’t speak for another thirty minutes—just breathing, shifting, sharing silence like an invisible thread. Then, just as Yoongi was preparing to end the transmission—
“Hey, Yoongi?”
He looked up. “Hmm?”
“You’re not just a signal anymore. You know that, right?”
He didn’t answer. But when he lay down that night in the warm hush of The Core, he kept the line open. Let the soft sound of static fill the room and lull him to sleep.
It was the first night since the crash that he didn’t dream about dying.
Outpost Aeon, 23:54 station time
The corridor lights were dimmed to sleep-cycle mode, but Jimin’s fingers still hovered over the comms dial, even after the line had gone quiet.
He could hear Yoongi’s last breath in his mind. The way it softened at the end of his words, the way it slowed.
He closed his eyes and let his head fall forward into his hands. His mic was already off. He wouldn’t say it out loud, not yet. Not even to himself. But the truth was curling around his ribs.
He was falling.
Not fast or foolishly. Just... inevitably.
It started somewhere in the middle of the first silence. That long stretch between Yoongi’s clipped responses and the soft, awkward laugh he didn’t mean to let out. It was in the grumble he gave when crystals got in the wiring. In the sharp breaths, the aching quiet, the questions he asked that no one else ever had the time to.
Jimin had replayed that moment too many times tonight: “Cute,” Yoongi had said.
It wasn’t flirty. It was honest. And weirdly, it shook him.
He stood slowly from the console and walked to the tall glass window overlooking the ship bays. Aeon’s main dome was silent now. It was only the dull flicker of starlight reflecting off metal. Somewhere out there, far beyond the reach of his vision, was a wrecked ship named Agust, and a man who talked like the silence owed him something.
Jimin pressed his fingers to the glass. Cool and solid. Impenetrable.
He imagined Yoongi’s hand on the other side. He knew that it was stupid. But he whispered anyway.
“You’re not just a signal, either, Yoongi Min. You’re... something else now.”
The glass didn’t answer. But in the static inside his chest, he thought he heard something hum.