Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

it takes another hour to get to the city. jungkook is kept company by the effervescent jimin, who doesn’t asks questions but talks endlessly. despite his earlier bad impression of jimin, jungkook finds that the other is actually quite friendly and nice. he uses hand motions a lot and does little movements that speak of a settled inability to keep still. he makes jokes that jungkook doesn’t always understand and likes to touch him a lot, slinging an arm around his shoulders or ruffling his hair. he doesn’t know where the man from earlier is, the one that held him at knifepoint.

jungkook is learning that people are often much more different than at first glance.

suga doesn’t say anything else for the way there, only stopping so that he can rebandage jungkook’s feet - a process that has jimin raising his eyebrows in surprise before his eyes settle in a wicked, knowing look - and to eat for a while. jungkook is glad he packed a lot.

despite the walking for hours - something that jungkook is obviously not used to - he feels...liberated. free. there is no wall at his back, no wall in his path. he can walk and walk and go anywhere he wants (in theory) and there will be nothing to stop him. he can touch the entire world that’s around him, if he wanted.

the city looms ahead of them when they break through to a hill, finding themselves at the top of it. there’s no set path on the way down, but there is a trailing one toward a bridge that leads them over to the city walls itself. jungkook feasts his eyes on the entire thing, having never experience such a sight. in the light, the city looks gleaming, open, inviting. he wants to walk the warm streets and hear the sounds.

jimin sighs noisily, wiping his brow. “home sweet home, right hyung?”

suga grunts. he looks a little apprehensive at being back at the city, but not altogether unhappy. there is one structure that looms over all the others, a catch in the distance: a large, curving palace that reaches toward the sky, outlined in white and black and gold.

“time to get there,” suga says, hurrying them on. “let’s move, now.”

when they cross the bridge, jungkook stops to look over the edge. he’s excited at the sight of his reflection in the water: he sees familiar features; his own eyes, his hair mussed by the wind, his shoulders.

perhaps he leans over a little too much, because suga pulls him back by his collar and scowls. “don’t fall in, kid.”

“sorry,” he says, but he’s not really sorry at all. he wonders if the water will feel cold or hot if he falls in.

the city streets are bright and alive. cartels and merchant wagons bumble through the stone pavement roads, people moving to either side of the road to walk on two strips of smoother road. there is a burst of color and beings and movement, of those walking to and fro, going from one place to the next. there is the bustle of chatter and livelihood - fresh faces, reddened cheeks, white smiles and pulled back hair. jungkook is enraptured by all of it. he wanders too close to things he wants to get a better look at - the jewelry stand, with their glinting necklaces, the flower cart with their sweet smelling blooms, the perfume stand and their clouds of scents. suga has to keep a hand on jungkook’s wrist to keep him from going too far.

“why not just hold hands?” jimin chortles, and suga sends him a baleful look.

jungkook ends up pulling him everywhere, exhaustion and thirst and hunger all disappearing. he likes the way the sun hits him more than just his face, like on his back and his shoulders and his legs. he likes the way people will stop him and offer him food for a smile, or a drink, or try to give him cloth for a discount. what nice people! jungkook takes a drink from a kind looking, portly woman with a smile and sips it, hand slipping away from suga’s grasp.

it’s got a little kick to it, but it’s warm and fizzy and sends bubbles down jungkook’s throat. “what is this?” jungkook marvels, looking at the steel cup.

“my finest apple cider,” the woman tells him proudly. “take another cup if you’d like, dear! you look much too skinny!”

so jungkook takes another cup, holding it with both hands and sipping it. he’s never tasted anything like this before. suga ends up by his side and snorts, turning toward the lady. “sorry, how much do you want for that?”

the lady smiles widely. “none needed! that smile and look of awe was payment enough for me.” she even offers suga a cup too.

when jungkook tries to pull him along to another cart filled with puffed pastries - jimin having left a couple of minutes back - suga stops him with a firm jerk. “alright, i know you’re excited, kid, but if i don’t put these down i’m going to break my back or something.”

“ah, sorry,” jungkook says, shuffling forward. he notes that there are little kids and some teenagers as well walking around barefoot as well, as it’s easier to move along the roads with nimble quickness without shoes on. it also makes jungkook feel not as bad for not wearing any shoes.

suga leads him to a different, quiet part of the city. the crowd thins out until there’s little to no people left, and those that are around don’t seem like the most friendly of sorts. jungkook is stared at constantly by a man with a haggard tooth and dark, sunken eyes, following his every movement as he scuttles behind suga. the shades of the sun get darker - it may be that it’s setting, but jungkook thinks that may also be the place that they’re currently strolling through.

for his part, suga looks entirely unaffected. he even nods to some people, as if giving them a casual hello. the buildings are a little bit more run down here, a little bit less nicely put together. a little bit less like a picture book.

“suga,” jungkook starts, hesitating, “where are we?”

instead of answering outright, suga gives him a roundabout answer. “i know that it looks a little bad right now, and you might be a little freaked out, but you’ll be okay. no one will hurt you if i’m here. i live with a couple of other guys; i used to work with them, but i don’t anymore.”

jungkook snaps his head away from a scantily dressed woman leaning against the side of a building that winks at him. “a-alright.”

suga eventually leads him to a solid building; it’s rectangular and in good shape. suga goes straight to the front and taps thrice. the door opens to a dimly lit eating area. jungkook follows after him, feeling smoothness underneath his feet. it’s dimly lit so he has to peer to get a good look at everything, but to him, it seems like...another eating place. restaurant, he remembers the word suga taught him.

suga takes his bag from him and heaves them onto the long table where there’s a lot of mugs and barrels. “hyung,” he calls out needlessly, having already gotten the attention of a tall, broad shouldered man wiping the table, “i need my room for the night. and a couple of extra pillows and blankets.”

“it’s spring, suga, you don’t need that many blankets,” the guy who must be seokjin retorts, before he notices jungkook lingering. his eyebrows raise in surprise. “oh, you have a little guest with you, huh?”

suga: “yeah. don’t talk to him.”

jungkook blinks at suga’s rudeness, bowing. “hello, i’m jungkook.”

seokjin’s mouth twitches upward. “i’m kim seokjin. it’s nice to meet you, jungkookie,” he finishes warmly. “how did you end up with suga over here?”

“i’m doing him a favor,” suga interrupts coolly, taking a half filled glass of an amber colored liquid for himself and sipping it.

jungkook, adamant, shakes his head. “i didn’t want to come with him at first,” he argues. “he stumbled into my house and i thought he was a kidnapper! so i accidentally hit him and he was bleeding so i patched him up. then he said - “

“okay that’s enough,” suga hisses, putting a hand over jungkook’s mouth and another on his neck, his glass clinking on the table.

seokjin looks in between them, biting his lip to keep from laughing. “i’ll go get your room ready, suga. have a fun time.” he leaves them with a wink. jungkook waves back at the man’s warm wave and friendly gestures. when he looks at suga, though, the other’s ears are entirely red. he’s sipping again at the amber colored liquid, slouching against the table. seokjin has taken their bags, too, so jungkook - feeling weirdly light - slides next to suga.

“your ears are red,” he observes, leaning forward to brush his fingers against one of the neon appendages. suga jerks away, turning to stare at him. jungkook catches a fleeting glimpse of warmth. “are you okay?”

for some reason, suga just keeps staring at him. instead of responding, his brows furrow. “i need another fuckin’ drink,” he mutters.

jungkook’s eyes flitter to the barrels across from them, to the semi-empty tables around them, as well as the long, narrow table they’re leaning on. “what’s that word mean?”

suga, who has finished his glass, pours himself another from a flask nearby. he takes a drink after asking, “what word?”

“fucking.”

suga chokes.

alarmed, jungkook pats at his back. suga regains himself and pushes away his drink, wiping at his brow. “what the fuck, jungkook.”

“there’s that word again,” jungkook marvels. “what’s it mean?”

“how - “ suga coughs into his hands. “how do you not know what it means?”

shrugging, jungkook leans back. “every single word i learned, i learned from the books in my library. mom always got me those books, and she explained to me what those words meant. i’ve never heard of the word ‘fucking’, but you say it a lot! so i just thought i’d...ask...” jungkook trails away at suga’s indescribable stare. “what?”

“nothing,” suga answers immediately. then he grimaces and turns away, swirling around the drink in his glass. “do you...really love your mom, jungkook?”

“i do!” jungkook replies. as soon as he thinks about that, he becomes worried. “ah, i really shouldn’t have left...but i really wanted to see the floating lights. mom always said i’m a bit naive, and - and i’m not really smart, but i thought - well, since i came with somebody instead of going myself, i’m sure she’ll be okay with it.” jungkook convinces himself that his mother would like suga. he was dependable and nice, too, when he wanted to be.

suga coughs to get his attention. “your mom...told you that? that you’re not really smart?”

jungkook shrugs, a little embarrassed. “i mean, it’s true - i’m not all that smart. i don’t really know how to react to some situations and - and i panic a lot, and i’m really shy so people don’t really want to talk to me...”

the fingers around suga’s glass tightens. “she told you that too?”

jungkook shifts, a little uneasy at suga’s tone. “well, yeah?”

suga nods once stiffly, and then drinks the rest of his drink in one go. when he’s done, he turns to jungkook with a surprisingly intense stare that has jungkook rooted to his seat.

“you,” suga begins, pointing a finger straight at jungkook’s nose, “are not dumb.”

jungkook goes a little cross eyed. “i - “

“no, listen,” suga insists, voice a little rougher than before, movements swaying, “you are not dumb. your mom is a liar, because you’re smart and pretty and nice. you’re a lil too trustin’, yeah, but that ain’t bad...fuck, i just might be a little jaded, and of course you’re shy you’ve been livin’ in a fuckin’ tower all your life - “ suga downs his fourth glass of the night. he coughs this time.

jungkook is starting to wonder what the heck he’s drinking. jungkook tries to take the glass to maybe take a sip, but suga snatches it away, raising an eyebrow at him. “you’re too young to have this,” he says, snorting. “you’re always going to be too young to have this. shit. is that another word you don’t know?”

jungkook shakes his head.

“oh man,” he downs another glass. “oh man.”

“suga, that is enough,” seokjin’s disapproving voice tells him, taking both the empty glass and the flask away from him. “i haven’t even distilled this! you’re already drunk off your ass after a couple of glasses when you can drink anyone under the bar, that’s how strong this liquor is. what do you think you’re doing?”

“i,” suga starts, standing up and speaking loudly, “just had a revelation.”

“you,” seokjin says in the same tone, “need to go to sleep.” he motions for someone to come over. “namjoon, put suga’s drunk ass to bed, please.”

a tall man with dimples and strangely colored hair comes by, setting something on the table in front of seokjin before putting suga’s arm over his own. “c’mon man, you’re smashed.” his eyes flicker over jungkook’s form, strangely light. “looks like you have someone to look after, too.”

“don’t worry about him, jungkookie,” seokjin puts a bowl in front of him, steaming hot, a pair of chopsticks next to it. “i left to make you guys some dinner, but it looks like suga would have preferred to drink himself into oblivion for some reason or the other. or, well, accidentally drink himself into oblivion.”

jungkook peers down into the bowl to see a wonderful smelling broth and noodles, as well as a couple of vegetables and a boiled egg in there as well. still, he looks to the amber liquid, sitting innocuously on the table as if it had not brought a man to an unrecognizable form of himself. “what is that?”

“this?” seokjin shakes the flask and sets it out of sight. “it’s one of the newer, stronger spirits that was shipped to me this afternoon. suga is going to pay for that,” he mutters at the end, before smiling widely at jungkook. “look at you, you look so tired. eat up, okay? a bunch of us are going to be coming down for dinner as well, so it’ll give you a chance to meet them.”

“us?”

seokjin, who was rubbing a glass with a rag, pauses. “well,” he starts a little cautiously, “did suga ever tell you what he does for a living?”

eyebrows furrowing, jungkook shakes his head no.

“hm,” seokjin sets the glass down. “until he tells you, just think of us as his friends, okay?”

friends. these are suga’s friends. jungkook nods and heads for the bowl of noodles. just from the first mouthful, he feels warm and cared for - no one except his mother has ever made him food before. seokjin’s cooking is wonderful too. the broth is fulfilling and the noodles aren’t overcooked at all. before he knows it, jungkook’s already finished his first bowl before anyone else has come down at all.

he smacks his lips, looking down at the bottom of bowl and then to seokjin shyly. fortunately, the older man seems to understand what jungkook wants, because he laughs, pleased, and takes the bowl. “i’ll get you another serving.”

just then, jimin bounds down from the stairs at the back of the room, dressed more like a villager now, in soft browns and a white shirt. he combs back his hair with deft fingers and practically lights up when he sees jungkook.

“seokjin hyung, can i have foooooood?” he yells out, leaning over the table.

seokjin pushes his forehead with a single finger to get him to sit down. “you may, if you can behave yourself.”

“i’m always well behaved,” jimin scoffs. “anyway, jungkookie - is this your first time in the city?”

jungkook nods.

“well, since it’s nighttime now, we can’t go outside,” jimin pokes his nose. “but, i can tell you a bunch of stuff you can do tomorrow. with suga-hyung.”

“with suga-hyung?” jungkook repeats, patting his nose.

“oh boy, try calling him that to his face.” jimin snickers. “i’d pay to see that.”

jungkook flounders around, not sure what to do.

seokjin comes by with three bowls in his arms, setting two of them in front of jimin and jungkook, the third one for the empty chair next to jimin. “oh, hyung, for me?” jimin flutters his lashes, putting a hand to his chest.

“for taehyung,” seokjin corrects, before disappearing to do whatever he needs to do.

“who’s taehyung?” jungkook asks.

suddenly, jungkook’s vision is engulfed in darkness, due to hands that smell surprisingly like lavender covering his eyes. he’s pulled back to someone’s chest. jungkook reaches up to pull away at the hands and they go willingly - he meets face to face with a handsome guy, green stripes through his brown hair. he stares wide eyed at jungkook with a blank expression before giving a boxy smile.

“i’m taehyung!” he says a bit loudly, causing jungkook to wince. “wow, are you suga-hyung’s boy - “

jimin reaches over and tugs at taehyung sharply, bringing him to his side. at jungkook’s querying look, jimin smiles pleasantly. “sorry, taehyung has no filter sometimes.” he jerks on taehyung’s shoulder. “remember the plan, dummy!”

“what plan?”

“the one we just discussed upstairs,” jimin hisses. jungkook wonders if either of them know he can still hear.

“food,” taehyung says instead, grinning at them both with that same, easy smile. “you’re jungkook, right?”

“right,” jungkook says, accidentally biting off the rest of the noodle so that it splashes into the bowl. his cheeks redden at that, remembering how his mother used to tell him of his awful eating habits, but thankfully, neither of them seem to care. taehyung is too busy putting down his own food, and jimin is pushing the other slightly for something.

“so, you still have to meet namjoon hyung and hoseok hyung,” jimin tells him. “but they both just left recently for a job, so you’ll formally meet them later! anyway, what was i trying to tell you? oh yeah, stuff you can do tomorrow in the city - take notes, jungkookie...”

by the time both jimin and taehyung are done, jungkook feels like he’s been through a whirlwind.

both of them have this indescribable energy in them that just oozes when they’re around each other. though jungkook was initially a little quiet, he soon found himself laughing and fooling around easily with the both of them. they took him in like he was their little brother. taehyung called him his space cadet friend and flicked him on the forehead; jimin cooed over him and pinched his cheeks. they told him stories of their time together - they’d been friends for a long time - and jungkook found himself listening closely to their tales. even though he himself stuttered a little or messed up a bit on his manners, neither of them seemed to care. the more they didn’t care, the more confident jungkook got.

the words his mother put into his memory, the very same words he’s been hearing all his life, slowly started to come apart. people didn’t care if he was a little over excitable sometimes, or if he spaced out into his thoughts, or if he didn’t always understand things the first time they were said. jimin and taehyung repeated anything jungkook asked them to repeat, and more often than not, taehyung would blank out more than jungkook himself did: jimin took to calling him ‘blank tae’.

halfway through, they told jungkook to call them ‘hyung’, both of them two years older than jungkook’s almost eighteen. “my birthday is tomorrow,” he said, and taehyung had almost fell off his chair.

in fact, after that, he shouted “what!” and ran off somewhere jungkook couldn’t follow with his eyes. jimin was chortling.

jungkook smiles sleepily at the memories now, warmth pooling in his gut. after all that, seokjin had come by to take their bowls and give them a glass of milk each. to jimin, seokjin said: “to help your dream of getting taller.” and to jungkook: “you look like you need it.”

then seokjin had taken him upstairs to the room he’s in now, what he’s been told is suga’s room. it’s wide and spacious and actually looks lived in. there’s a table in the corner with a bunch of maps and scrawled handwriting that jungkook can’t really make out well. there’s a pile of books next to the desk in place of a bookshelf. there are posters on the wall of various things that jungkook doesn’t understand, like paintings and people. the bed is wide and on an actual frame, like jungkook’s own, and right in the middle is a sleeping lump that jungkook assumes is suga.

he looks around for where he’s going to sleep. he supposed that he was to sleep on the floor, but looking at the area now, there’s no actual sleeping area set out. the couch, too, on the side of the room is covered in clothes and bags and other miscellaneous things.

jungkook sits on the floor and finds his bag. he reaches down and searches around for the bandages there; after he finds them, he peels the dirty ones away from his feet, wincing at the feeling of them on his cuts. the air sting a little, but for the most part, they’re still clean. jungkook proceeds with caution, making sure that his feet don’t touch the ground as he rebinds them. the bruises have turned an astonishing purple, swollen in some areas, and when he touches them they’re tender. the cuts have stopped bleeding. as soon as the familiar feeling of them being rebound is there, jungkook sighs and leans back against the wall.

it’s then that he spots an extra pillow and blanket on the bed with suga. ah, maybe seokjin had left it there so jungkook could choose where to sleep and how he wanted to put everything? seokjin hyung is so nice, jungkook thinks, standing up with a new goal. he has to be quiet, because the floors creak when jungkook walks across them. it forces him to take a couple of steps at a time, especially when suga moves a little.

finally, he reaches the bedside. after a moment of glancing at suga’s hair peeking out of the covers, jungkook pulls at one of the blankets so that he can put it on the floor. it’s a little bit cold, but jungkook has slept in drafts of his tower before - this is practically nothing. the blanket extraction is a success, and he settles it neatly on the floor, much like he did for suga just a day or two earlier.

he goes for the pillow, which looks like it might be less easy to get. suga is, after all, sleeping on both of the pillows.

jungkook tugs at one edge of the pillow, hoping to get it out of suga’s grasp, but he finds that the other is only woken up by his ministrations. suga blinks up at him blearily and jungkook lets go immediately, whispering, “it’s okay, just go back to sleep - “

“what’re you doin’,” suga grumbles, voice a little slurred. “damn, get in here.”

jungkook pauses. “what?”

“sleep,” suga says, reaching out to tug at jungkook’s arm. he looks...strangely young when he does that. like someone asking for another to stay through a nightmare. “sleep, already.”

“okay,” jungkook says, just to calm him down. suga eases into sleep once more, eyes closing, but he doesn’t let go of jungkook’s arm.

well...he did say that jungkook could sleep in the bed. jungkook tries to reach down and pull for the extra blanket, thankfully catching a corner of it and bringing it up on the bed with him. he tucks himself in, working suga’s death like grip away from his shirt, bringing the blanket up over his shoulders. the pillow is soft, the mattress nice and easy to sleep in. jungkook finds his eyes closing quickly, losing himself in a dreamless sleep.

/

the morning has suga waking with a minor headache. immediately, he knows it’s the aftereffects of alcohol on him - he rarely gets headaches unless he’s drinking. from what he can remember of last night, he got drunk quickly off of liquor that was not watered down yet. of course he would get himself accidentally drunk.

he puts a hand to his forehead and when he tries to sit up, is stopped by a weight on his shoulder.

jungkook is there, sleeping away. his face looks smooth in the morning light - what time is it, anyway? - and for all intents and purposes, he seems knocked out. only his head is heavy on suga’s shoulder; the rest of him is curled into the blankets, covered all the way up to his chin.

carefully, suga slides himself out so jungkook can sleep on the pillows without getting cricks in his neck.

he could use some water right now; his throat feels dry. leaving jungkook on the bed by himself, suga heads downstairs where he knows everyone else will be if they’re awake. he remembers everything from last night, from jungkook’s oblivious words to namjoon having to help him up the stairs. it causes a frown to mar suga’s face as he sits beside hoseok and scowls at the younger to stop being so loud.

i’m not that smart...i can’t do this, i’m not -

suga knows what that sounds like. mothers don’t tell their kids shit like that.

all in all, it makes him want to keep jungkook away from that tower. that kid...suga doesn’t know why he’s got a strange urge to want to protect him. jungkook may be taller than him but he’s still a child on the inside, kept away from everything that makes one grow up. suga had to face those things too early. he thinks that it’s good that jungkook still has trust, still has the ability to believe people when they tell him things. suga is way past the point of that. jungkook? jungkook somehow brings out the best of them all.

seokjin is never that warm and caring; not to strangers, at least. suga has brought people to this place before; people from work, people to stay the night. seokjin has never treated them like he treats jungkook.

jimin is more of a little shit. to outsiders, he’s snarky and rude and can be downright mean sometimes. he does it on purpose, but he’s not like that with jungkook, not after the first impression. in fact, if suga had to say so, he’s been making an effort to be kinder.

the thought of jungkook going back to that tower, locked up behind it’s walls, when obviously he’s a soul meant for the big, wide world...it kind of hurts to think about.

“rice and stew,” seokjin says, putting the food in front of him, “eat up. hoseok, you better not be stealing from jimin’s plate.”

“he’s stealing from taehyung’s plate,” hoseok retorts.

suga notes his bigger than usual portion. “hyung, i’m pretty sure i’ll only eat like, half of this.” and suga is no seokjin when it comes to appetite, but he can put away a bit as well.

seokjin waves him away. “for all the walking you’re going to be doing today, you’ll need it.”

“walking?” what?

jimin and taehyung giggle at each other like five year olds. suga glares in their general direction, the sound grating on his nerves. jungkook bounds down the stairs then, looking confused at the area around him before he sits next to suga. there’s not even a ‘good morning’ from him: he still looks sleep muddled. it’s a far cry from the jungkook suga saw in the tower, already up before suga himself. abruptly, he wants to see all the different faces jungkook can make when he wakes up everyday.

suga blanches at the thought. he digs into his food to get rid of it from his brain.

“jungkookie, you’re awake,” seokjin says kindly, reaching over to pat him on the head. jungkook almost leans into it, smiling a little. he looks soft and touchable. suga wants to pinch himself; where the hell are these thoughts coming from?

“so you’re the infamous jungkookie,” says hoseok, suddenly all up in jungkook’s face. he gives the younger the solemn look before breaking out into a wide, sunny grin. “call me hobi hyung, okay? aigoo, you’re so cute, where did suga pick you up from?”

jungkook sighs. “in a tower.”

all of them pause, and suga swallows heavily. when the both of them turn around, each one of them - including namjoon - has a surprised expression.

“wow, suga-hyung,” hoseok praises, “didn’t think you had the ‘savior’ thing going on for you!”

suga scoffs. “i can rock anything, fuck you.”

“he didn’t save me from anything,” jungkook says, confused. “i wanted to stay in my tower.”

“do you live with anyone?” taehyung asks.

“well...my mom, but she’s comes and goes. she has a lot of work to do, you know.”

“so you stay up there by...yourself?” namjoon raises a brow.

for some reason, this makes jungkook uncomfortable. the life that he’s always led, the life that has been normal and usual for him, doesn’t seem like that anymore. “well, yes?”

“isn’t that kind of lonely?” jimin tilts his head.

jungkook opens his mouth but finds that there’s nothing to say. suga puts a hand on his thigh to calm him down a little, seeing that he’s visibly distressed. “he wanted to see the lantern festival.”

everyone else, thankfully, takes this as the reprieve that it was meant to be. wisely, they all switch topics. jimin bounces up and down in his seat. “oh yeah! tae, we have to go buy lanterns to set off tonight!”

“i wanted to make one, but i forgot,” taehyung looks down at his hands a little miserably. suga will never understand how these kids switch moods so fast.

“i’m sure there’s some place you can make them in town,” seokjin rolls his eyes. “i have to prepare this place for all the ruffians that will get drunk after failing to convince the king and queen that they’re the lost prince.”

“the lost prince?” jungkook repeats, gathering everyone’s attention.

“there’s a story behind the lantern festival,” hoseok starts, jumping up to sit on the table - now known to jungkook as the bar. “it happened when i was a kid - three years old, maybe? seokjin-hyung must have been five.”

“yeah, it was a huge ruckus,” seokjin tacks on. “there were guards and people everywhere; the city was put on lockdown, the gates shut.”

“what happened?” jungkook asks, in wonder. what could make a huge city like this one simply close?

“a tragedy,” namjoon says. he has the voice of a storyteller, jungkook thinks. low, but not so low that he can’t put inflections if he tried, like suga’s. “our king and queen, eighteen years ago, tried very hard for a child. when they succeeded, the queen became ill halfway through. the guards searched all around for a cure, and it took around three months for them to find one - apparently it was some flower up in the mountains. they made some tea from it, and the queen was cured.”

“then, a month after the baby was born, someone broke into the palace and stole into the baby’s room. they took the kid, disappearing into the night, leaving us without a crown prince. no one knows where the baby is ‘till today, but it’s not hard to imagine what might have happened,” he finishes with a grimace.

jungkook looks around at everyone’s grave faces. “what? what might have happened?” how could there be such a sad story with something he’s only associated with freedom? jungkook feels a twist inside of him, like a sign telling him something’s wrong.

all of them are quiet, as if they’re trying not to upset him. for some reason, jungkook feels like if it were anyone else but him, they’d have said it already. suga is the one to answer him finally, setting down his chopsticks with a sigh. “he most probably died, jungkook. how could someone be missing for eighteen years? the person who took him - “ at jungkook’s downturned face, suga stops himself. “well, that’s that. every year the royal family holds a lantern festival for their son.”

“some say that they hope their son will one day see the lights and come home,” jimin adds, trying to bring a little bit of hope to the story.

jungkook nods mutely. he can’t imagine what that must feel like, losing your child. thankfully, he has his mother to keep him company and give him the love of family.

“what was his name?” he asks. jungkook thinks that he’ll join in with the grieving, the hoping, for just a day.

“his name,” namjoon repeats, surprised. “hm, well, it’s written on a large mural near the castle walls, but i don’t remember it at the moment.”

“if you want, jungkookie, we’ll go check it out later!” taehyung beams. “me and jimin are going to try and make a personalized lantern in the main square! do you want us to make you one too?”

“i want to make one of my own.” jungkook replies, excited at the thought of it. he turns to suga, putting the full force of those eyes on him. “can we go right after this, please?”

suga almost chokes, seokjin’s words coming back to him. for all the walking, he had said. suga’s head whips around to see knowing faces back at him, and he scowls. he can’t, however, say no to jungkook, because he technically did promise to show him the lantern festival personally. “yeah, fine, whatever.”

they’re the first to leave; jungkook drags him out the door, practically, before stopping sheepishly at the roads. suga takes over from there, winding their way to the main square with ease. with a start, as he sees all the banners and flags, the decorated buildings, he realizes that today is jungkook’s birthday as well. he knows that this was the kid’s birthday wish, but...

jungkook tugs at his sleeve, bringing him around to one of the stalls that sells little firecrackers. there’s a bunch of them, and jungkook fingers the edge of one before suga has the mind to pull his hand away. there’s a sheepish little smile from the younger before they’re dragged away once more.

the first place they end up going to is a library, a place suga has not frequented much at all. jungkook seems to love it though, by the way he vibrates at the entrance.  suga is left following after him, trying to keep up with the dark haired boy as he flitters from all the shelves. a couple of minutes later shows jungkook talking animatedly to a librarian, who leads him to a certain shelf to give him a couple of books. jungkook looks positively elated to have them, and immediately shuffles to a corner of the library to situate himself down on a chair and curl up.

suga watches it happen with fascination: how he goes from curious and vibrant to settled and focused. his eyes are only on the books. jungkook sets aside most of them and takes the one on top, running his hand over the cover before opening it up. when suga sits down on the chair next to him, he doesn’t expect jungkook to realize he’s there, but the younger does. “do you like books too, suga?”

suga jolts a little; jungkook rarely says his name, and makes suga self conscious when he says it. “they’re alright. i don’t like them as much as you do, it seems.”

jungkook smiles at him beatifically. showing the page of the book he’s currently reading, he says, “i love books. i especially like the ones with pictures in them; i can look at the pictures forever. do you want me to read one to you, suga?”

after a quiet moment, suga scratches the back of his head. almost inaudible, he starts, “call me hyung.” and then, “if you want to, kid.”

jungkook hears it anyway, because flips open to the first page. “okay, hyung. the wind blew cold and terrifying on that night in march, it’s grip holding over the small town in between the valleys, but one little girl was not afraid...”

jungkook has a soothing voice, suga thinks. when he reads, it’s like he’s bringing them all to a different world. suga remembers how jungkook sang little tunes on the way here, or the way he hummed to himself. jungkook would have a nice singing voice, suga thinks blearily, as the other’s voice lulls him into a state of half sleep. it’s too comfortable here, and it’s too early to be falling asleep again, but suga can’t help it.

an hour or two later, jungkook is shaking his shoulder awake. “i finished the book, hyung,” he says dutifully. “but i want to read the others!” the unspoken can you take them out for me makes suga sigh. he ends up doing it anyway, giving the librarian the fake civilian name he always uses when jungkook is distracted. the younger is still oblivious to what he does, and by the way he reads about the black and white, good guy-bad guy stories, suga is a little - just a little - cautious of revealing it to him.

he tries not to think too hard on why he doesn’t want jungkook to dislike him.

after that, suga buys them both pastries filled with cheese and jam, which jungkook nearly eats all of. suga is taking a moment to talk to the leather maker when he turns around and suddenly, there is jungkook, being pulled this way and that by a couple of children. he’s laughing, but it makes suga swear and turn away from the man he’s talking to with a throwaway apology. in the end, jungkook gets pulled into threading flowers in a little girl’s long, blonde hair. they’re sitting by the fountain and more often than not, he’s accidentally crushing the flowers as they go in her bangs, but he’s still gentle with her. while the other kids laugh, she stands up and gives him a barefooted curtsy, purple dress pulled up by small fingers.

“thank you!”  she grins, wide and bright, cheeks apple red.

jungkook waves as she goes prancing off, calling the other kids. suga reaches up to him and mutters, “i can’t take my eyes off you for a second.”

“they’re so much fun,” jungkook says, motioning to the little girls and boys who are dancing in a circle. “they wanted me to dance with them!”

“children usually are bright and lively,” suga says. he looks at the state of the kids; how no one seems to be particularly worried after them, how they walk barefooted with patched up clothing that is all too familiar. suga wets his mouth and leans down to a kid who is fiddling with a stick on the ground. carefully, gently, he asks, “where are your parents?”

“ain’t got no parents, sir,” the boy says back shyly. “none of us do.”

“that so,” suga says, while jungkook gasps behind him.

“you don’t have any family?” he asks, eyes wide. “none at all?”

the boy, who moves away a little, shakes his head in a tentative ‘no’. suga is just about to tell jungkook to back off a little, the kid probably doesn’t want to talk about it, when jungkook leans down and puts out a hand. “i’ll be your brother for today, then! your big brother!”

suga blinks, speechless, and the kid breaks out into a shy but sweet, missing toothed smile. “really?”

“really!”

and then, right before his eyes, something changes.

suga watches in a daze as jungkook leads the rest of the kids in a dance around the fountain, skipping his feet across the pavement and holding their little hands. they seem content to follow him, laughing out in shrieking laughter. the people that weren’t minding them before suddenly turn to look at jungkook and the kids following behind him like a little train of small humans. suga steps back so he won’t break their little circle.

if only he had someone who put out their hand like that when he was a kid. maybe he wouldn’t be a thief now - but then again, maybe he wouldn’t have met jungkook at all, either. his mind takes him back to the bag in his room, the one he had ran for with his life. the lost prince’s crown.

he didn’t care about the crown or the prince. as a child, subjected to the cruelty of poverty, he had no sympathy toward the lives of the rich and lavish, the royal family included. if they were so rich, he pondered, why couldn’t they help those who weren’t? suga never had shoes to walk in when he was a kid. like jungkook, he ran barefoot. like jungkook, he bound his feet so he wouldn’t have to feel the roughness of pebbles and rocks beneath the soles of his feet.

so suga didn’t really care that he was commissioned to steal the prince’s crown for an outside jewels dealer. he had a job to fill, and he was going to fulfill it - there’s a reason he’s the best in the business. he had been trailed by the royal guard deep into the forest, riding on a (stolen) horse and holding all his cards close. then the horse suddenly stopped, spooked by something or the other, refusing to go any farther, so suga ran. he ran right into a little clearing near a cliff and waterfall, where a large tower resided. and in that tower was jungkook.

jungkook, who makes him feel guilty for stealing. jungkook, who has lived a life of loneliness - one even more so than suga’s own childhood - all the way up until now, but still finds it in him to smile and be happy about things. jungkook, who makes suga want to smile too.

no wonder he was kept in the tower, what a dangerous kid, suga thinks, holding a hand to his forehead. he’s been out in the heat for too long, too. that’s the only reason why he’s feeling this way: he’s not used to standing in one place for so long with the sun bearing down on him.

now the regular folk are in on it too, dancing in pairs. there’s music coming from somewhere - likely a couple of bards that caught sight of the festivities and decided to join in. thankfully jungkook seems to run out of steam, because he stumbles next to suga, red cheeked and bright.

“i’ve never done something like that before!” he says a little too loudly in his exuberance. “usually i can’t - i can’t even dance in front of my mom!” he sounds giddy. his bangs fall into his eyes, and suga has the strangest urge to push it out of his eyes.

“you dance pretty well,” he compliments, even though he doesn’t know what good dancing looks like. he thinks jungkook can do anything well, if he sets his mind to it. “c’mon, i’m kind of - “

cut off by jungkook’s gasp of excitement, suga can do nothing but follow the younger as he tears his way through the crowd. thankfully, he’s tall enough that suga can pick him out from the other common folk. he sees what’s caught jungkook’s attention: a group of teenagers drawing in hand chalk on the ground, creating beautiful patterns and shapes that sprawl all across the corners of the streets. jungkook looks down at the chalk with unrestrained wonder, reaching down to touch it with one hand. it comes back red. he shows it to suga with a little bounce in his step, asking, “what is this?”

“chalk,” suga replies, amused. “don’t worry, it washes off really easily.”

“chalk,” jungkook repeats. “i want some too!”

he manages to share some with another girl who runs off to wash her hands and feet. suga says no when jungkook asks him to come and draw as well, knowing very well how good he is at art.

jungkook - jungkook is talented. he’s got an eye for color and detail, and soon enough, there’s an abstract sun of iridescent colors on the ground, beginning from the middle and sprawling out in all directions. suga thinks it’s like jungkook himself - small at first, a little hard to notice, but when you do - when you start seeing more and more, the colors start bleeding together brightly into something beautiful.

he comes back with stained cheeks and a streak of red across his forehead where he wiped it absentmindedly. the color suits him.

jungkook stands by his side and looks at his masterpiece from an angle. the girl he was sharing with comes back at this time, gasping at the sun on the ground. “it’s beautiful!” he hears her exclaim, leaning down to trace a finger along a smudged line. jungkook looks inordinately pleased but is obviously trying to hide it, his features pink.

suga, while looking at him, thinks: yeah, it is.

they get lunch at a little store that suga is surprised jungkook knows about, but the younger tells him that jimin and taehyung had told him a bunch of places to visit today, and this was one of them. their sandwiches are amazing, something suga can attest to, and he watches as jungkook downs three or four in one go before slowing down. his cheeks puff up when he eats, like a chipmunk; suga wonders how he never noticed before.

“i’m going to miss these,” he hears jungkook sigh to himself happily, and suga’s fingers turn cold at the thought.

right, he thinks numbly to himself, jungkook still wants to go back.

does he, though? suga looks at jungkook and how he treats time like it’s fleeting, how he stares at everything like he’s memorizing each and every tiny thing. the sound of children’s laughter, the sound of the hearty men chuckling, the sound of ladies pinching his cheek and cooing at him. he finds nothing annoying, not the awful smells or the drunkards or the little skirmishes, not even the sun on his face or the pebbles and rocks beneath his feet.

when they’ve settled down somewhere near the city walls, the wax wrappers of their lunch between them, suga asks quietly, “do you want to leave?”

jungkook hums at him first. “what?”

“i said - do you want me to take you back?”

jungkook pauses, his little happy high coming to an end. he’s talking about the tower, jungkook realizes. his first thought is: of course i want to go back! his mother is there, his paints, his books...but does he really? there are more paints here, more books...there are people here, people he’s come to see with his own eyes and touched with his own fingers...jungkook looks down at his hands.

“i - i don’t know,” he says truthfully, biting his lower lip. “can you - can you ask me again later?”

suga’s expression is indecipherable, but jungkook finds that he’s had a similar look like that all day. finally, the elder nods. “we should be heading for the boats, then.”

“the boats?”

suga smiles, and it’s the most genuine one jungkook has seen yet. “the best seats in the house.”

/

suga leads jungkook to the river around the castle. since they went early, they managed to get a small boat, both of them rowing away toward the middle. jungkook accidentally rowed backward, giving them a good five minute delay, but they make it on time. it’s quiet there, the twilight turning into night. all the lamps of the city have been turned off, and jungkook marvels at how dark it is there, not a single light to be seen.

he sits down in the boat cross legged, across from suga who is looking up at the sky. after a moment, without moving his gaze away, the brunette asks, “how are you feeling?”

“a little nervous,” jungkook fiddles with his fingers. “this is what i wanted for most of my life, you know? this is...” he swallows. “my mom gave me everything i wanted. anything i would ask for, she would give it to me. but when i asked to see the lights, she always said no. she called it the one thing i could never ask for again.”

“to see the lights in person?”

for some reason, jungkook’s smile comes out watery. “to go outside.”

suga stays quiet, lets jungkook find his words. after a moment, the younger looks down at his frayed clothing, his showing ankles. “i loved it in my tower, i really did. i came to love it because it was my home, everything familiar to me. but i wanted...to go outside so bad. when i was thirteen, i tried to find a way to leave, but i never could. somehow, after all that hoping, after all that trying...i just...gave up.” jungkook pushes the memories to the back of his mind. “i didn’t understand why i was trying to leave a place i loved. so i made myself not want to leave.”

in suga’s mind, the intense look of fear on jungkook’s face at the discovery of the door flashes by.

“and now i’m here,” he finishes, looking at his hands. “and i don’t know how to feel.”

suga won’t touch that just yet. jungkook looks like he might be on the verge of doing something that suga can’t handle, like crying, so he blurts out the first question that comes to mind: “why didn’t your mom want you to leave?” at first, he attributed it to a mad woman’s crazy mind, because he knows that the way jungkook’s mother treats him isn’t right, but now he’s curious.

jungkook looks up in surprise, startled out of his thoughts. he chews on that for a second, before shrugging. “she was always afraid i’d get kidnapped, or stolen.”

suga thinks back to how he took jungkook from the tower, the very thing his mother seems to fear. guess he was a real thief, after all. “yeah, but why would anyone want to kidnap a kid like you?”

jungkook stares him straight in the eye for a while, which is a little boggling, because the kid has a tendency to look away when people try to make eye contact with him. finally, he smiles and says with a little upward jerk of his chin, “i’ve made the decision to trust you.” he makes his voice sound as pomp as he can, which drives a snort out of suga.

“a horrible decision, really,” the elder replies, before he quiets down.

jungkook leans forward. “you might not believe me, but,” he looks around, as if anyone can hear them from their boat. “i have glowing magical hands.”

suga blankly looks down at his hands. they are most certainly not glowing.

jungkook laughs. “not now. when i sing. they - they heal, too.”

“really now,” suga deadpans, inching back a little.

“you don’t believe me,” jungkook states the obvious. then he moves forward. “here, give me your hand.”

suga doesn’t particularly want to, but jungkook takes his hand by surprise, and he’s suddenly got his knuckled and callused fingers in jungkook’s, palms that look like they’ve never seen a day of hard work despite knowing different. suga’s a little disoriented by it when jungkook quickly scrapes the palm of his hand with a piece of wood from the boat. the pain is sharp and sudden; suga jerks his hand back. “what the fuck - “

jungkook holds his hand down with a look. “sorry,” he says, before he puts his palm on top of suga’s, another on the bottom so he’s holding suga’s one palm between his. then he starts singing.

it’s a song in some language that he doesn’t recognize. suga vaguely realizes that he was right about jungkook’s singing voice - it’s beautiful, smooth and light, like a petal over floating water. he’s too distracted by the way jungkook’s hands indeed start to glow.

it’s nothing too harsh, just a soft light that encompasses both their hands all of a sudden. but it’s not just jungkook’s hands that are glowing - it starts from his fingertips, but it seems that the longer he sings, the more it travels. it goes from his wrists to his arms, to his elbows and shoulders, down his torso and up to his neck, until jungkook is bathed in warm light. suga feels something creeping on his hand, like there’s a hotpack against his palm, and it feels comforting. almost like someone is giving him a hug without actually touching him.

jungkook ends his song and the light immediately fades away, dissipating into the night, he pulls his hands away from suga’s, giving him a knowing pull of the lips. suga tries not to stare at his mouth before he looks down at his hand, turning it over slowly to see that there is - no blood. no cut. no pain. not even a scar.

“oh,” he says faintly.

jungkook brushes overly long bangs away from his eyes. “please don’t freak out.”

“i’m not freaking out,” suga continues, still kind of faint.

jungkook shrugs, looking a little bit helpless like, what can you do?  “my mother said i was born with this gift, and that people would want to take me and use me for it. so i stayed in the tower all my life to stay safe. i can only use it on other people, not myself, and - “ jungkook holds up both his palms, wiggling his fingers, “if i cut any part of my hands, even the tiniest papercut, the song doesn’t work anymore, and i have to wait until it heals.”

“huh,” suga says. still faint. he clears his throat to get his voice back. he doesn’t know what to think, exactly, but some things are starting to make sense. “that - i see.”

“please don’t tell anyone,” jungkook blurts out, nose flushing. “it’s my biggest secret.”

“promise i won’t,” suga says, but it looks like jungkook is regretting saying anything, and suga can’t have that - not when he’s supposed to be having the time of his life. “alright, how about this - i’ll tell you my biggest secret, okay?”

“you have a secret?” jungkook boggles, and suga resists the urge to smile.

“my name isn’t suga,” he admits. “it’s...min yoongi.”  the name has been buried to the back of his memory, and so it now feels foreign on his tongue. “i grew up in an orphanage when i was a kid. ran away when i was twelve to steal on the streets, and i guess...i’ve just been doing it since then. met those guys you saw earlier; every single last one of them are thieves as well, but we’ve all been thrown away to the streets at some point, and now we just made it alive like this.”

jungkook, for his part, doesn’t seem too bothered by the fact that suga just admitted he’s some type of criminal, even though that was what he was worrying about the most. in fact, he’s more concerned about something else. “min yoongi?” he repeats. “that’s your real name?”

“yeah.”

“why would you change it?”

suga shrugs, feeling too vulnerable and open. the way jungkook says his name makes it seem like something precious, when it’s just something he just threw away. “i hated who i was. how weak i was, how slow...how helpless. so i changed myself, and my name. suga is - strong, quick, and takes no prisoners. he doesn’t care about people enough to let them in. yoongi is...” the brunette shrugs. “yoongi isn’t worth it.”

there’s quiet silence on their boat. in the distance, suga can hear people getting ready, their voices a mild chatter quietened by meters across the boardwalk. he doesn’t dare look at jungkook, afraid of the expression he’d see there.

jungkook takes his hands then, his movements jerky and unsure, threading their fingers together in a more intimate way than he did before. “i think,” he starts a little shyly, like he always does when he’s saying something about himself, “that i like yoongi more.”

suga snorts, unable to help the redness that’s probably climbing up his ears.

“i’m serious,” jungkook insists. his hands are warm. suga thinks he might have healing powers even when he doesn’t sing. “i think it was yoongi who brought me along, and yoongi who showed me around the city, and yoongi who helped me walk when i couldn’t. i think he’s worth it.” and jungkook smiles at him, eyes crinkling.

suga, in his embarrassment, finds his voice cracking when he asks, “you think so?”

“yeah, i do, yoongi hyung.”

they’re interrupted by someone yelling; jungkook startles and looks up, and yoongi finds himself clutching onto his fingers a little tighter so he won’t let go. the first lantern has already been lit, floating in the sky.

“wow,” jungkook whispers, following the pinprick of light with wondrous eyes. he feels a tug on his hand.

“just wait,” yoongi says, giving him a lopsided, gummy smile. he points up toward the horizon, and slowly but sure, a thousand lights start to follow after. they begin from the top of the castle, spiraling downward like a snake, all these lights burning bright and taking to the sky. there are ships, too, that are around - as well as other small boats like theirs - that release their own lanterns. jungkook is in awe of it all, breath taken away. he doesn’t even realize that yoongi has pulled away from him until the elder is clearing his throat.

in his hands are two small lanterns themselves, the rice paper parchment of them decorated with inked designs. yoongi’s has a curved suga written on it, while jungkook’s has his own name there, followed by a tiny sun. they’re both lit up, flickering in yoongi’s hands.

“how’d you get these,” jungkook scrambles over to hold one, the light from it illuminating the shadows of his face.

“jimin and taehyung made ‘em and stuffed them in my pocket when i saw them in the square,” yoongi says dryly. “this one is for you.”

“one, two, three,” jungkook whispers, before they both release the lanterns and they go up in the air. looking around, he understands why this is the best seat, like yoongi said.

the lights reflect off of the water, making it seem like they’re surrounded by lanterns everywhere. they flicker like fireflies. jungkook feels breathless. there is quiet everywhere, a silent moment for the lost prince, and jungkook has never experienced anything like it before.

“how is it?” yoongi asks.

“everything i thought it would be,” he answers, because it is. he feels - happy. content. settled. like he doesn’t want to leave.

the realization is harrowing. jungkook covers it up with a childish impulse to curl up next to the older, smaller man, hunching in and laying his head on yoongi’s shoulder. the other simply puts a hand around jungkook, fingers pressed against his side. jungkook wonders if this is what the books were talking about when they described love.

/

when they get back to shore and slyly hold hands, thinking that if neither of them point it out it won’t be noticed,  they don’t realize a third gaze resting on their interlocked fingers.

/

jungkook is sleepy when they return, and yoongi can barely keep him upright. he’s put on the couch in the lounge area immediately, where seokjin puts a blanket over him and a pillow underneath his head. he still looks pink faced and happy, mouth slightly open as he breathes in and out. yoongi, unable to help himself, reaches over and brushes his too long bangs out of his eyes. he could have sworn that a day or two ago he could see jungkook’s eyes perfectly fine, but now the lashes of his eyes touch the very fine ends of his dark hair.

jungkook is cute, yoongi thinks, because he’s still got a bit of baby fat on his cheeks. yoongi can already imagine his wide eyes looking left and right, taking everything in. unbidden, his eyes trail down to the curve of his plump lower lip. his mouth is uneven, the top lip thinner than the bottom, with a bow’s curve. how had yoongi never noticed that before?

“if you’re done with your creeping, i think we’d like your presence over there,” jimin’s amused voice floats behind him. yoongi jerks away, not realizing his thumb had been tracing the lines of jungkook’s face.

“yeah, i’m coming,” he replies a bit awkwardly, ignoring jimin’s shit eating grin and his red ears.

“i got him,” jimin announces as they enter the bar area. the place is pretty quiet; everyone has gone home after the lantern festival, not daring to drink. yoongi scuffles the toe of his boot against the floor. everyone is there already, hoseok half asleep on namjoon’s shoulder, namjoon patting him awkwardly in between (he’s never gotten used to skinship).

taehyung is sitting on an actual table, fiddling with some spoons, running them across his knuckles. seokjin is yawning. “what did you want to tell us, hm?”

jimin flounces to taehyung’s side, light on his feet. “well, we wanted to congratulate suga-hyung.”

suga grimaces, already sensing that whatever those two are up to, it’s going to be awful. “why, exactly, are you congratulating me?”

“for being the greatest thief out of us all, of course,” jimin continues, voice innocent.

taehyung bats him aside. “get this: we went to the mural of on the eastern side of the palace wall today. we usually never go, right? but jungkookie wanted to know the name of the lost prince and it was nearby the lantern shop anyway, so we thought why not?”

jimin picks up where he left off, as if they were twins sharing the save wavelength. “and then we saw the people crowding around the mural like usual. waited our line in turn - “

“can you get on with it,” yoongi deadpans.

taehyung clears his throat. “it’s not a good story if we don’t tell it well, hyung!”

“anyway, we stood in line and then when we put our wreath down - we bought it, don’t worry - and offered prayers, we saw the prince’s name at the bottom of the mural, just along with the names of everyone else’s. i was looking forward to telling kookie about it, but he went to sleep...”

“isn’t it weird, hyung, that jungkook would be stuck in a tower for all those years, alone?” taehyung suddenly says, eyes wide.

yoongi knows the exact reason why, but he still shrugs uneasily because it’s true.

“his mom is protective, that’s what he told me.”

“maybe,” taehyung says quietly, “she’s protective because she stole him.”

yoongi pauses.

“what are you two talking about,” hoseok says blearily, having been listening in. meanwhile, namjoon’s face turns pale.

jimin clicks his tongue, this time actually looking a little bit annoyed - on whose part, yoongi isn’t sure - and a little bit sorry. “the name of the lost prince was jeon jungkook.”

“today is jungkook’s birthday, you told us,” taehyung continues quietly. “and everyone always assumed that the lost prince would be dead by now - it’s pretty much common knowledge, even if no one will say it to the face of the king and queen. after all, you said it yourself, hyung: how could someone be missing for eighteen years?”

unless they were locked up in a tower.

yoongi takes a step back. suddenly they’re all way in over their head.

“you’re trying to tell me that the kid in there,” yoongi points to the closed door to where jungkook is sleeping. “is a prince?”

“well yeah, he wouldn’t act like it if he’s never known all his life, wouldn’t he?” jimin points out. “and everything fits. the birthday, the name - isn’t it too much of a coincidence?”

yoongi shakes his head, but inwardly, he knows that he already believes it. it all makes sense - the reason why jungkook’s “mother” is so keen on keeping him in that tower. she knew if that he ever got out...well, someone would put together the pieces sooner or later. and they did.

“the crown prince is sleeping on my couch,” seokjin says blankly.

“he’s still jungkook,” yoongi snaps. “he hasn’t changed just because his parents are hotshots.” the power of jungkook’s - he said he was born with it, so his “mother” must have known about it, and wanted to harness it for herself somehow. she stole him out of his crib at just a month old, like the tragedy once went; but now, yoongi feels choked up with knowing the full breadth of how the true story, of how one woman’s greed forced her to keep someone in a cage all their life. forced loneliness.

yoongi hates those kind of people.

“he’s not going back,” yoongi says flatly, in between the sudden rise of chatter between their little ring of thieves. “i’m not letting him.”

“he wanted to go back?” namjoon asks, shocked.

yoongi only nods. before he can open his mouth to add more about jungkook’s mother, the door to seokjin’s pub starts banging. all of them quiet down. there’s a loud sound outside, like a whip cracking, before the door breaks down.

in comes a swarm of guards, all dressed in royal blue and white. yoongi doesn’t have any time to breathe before they’re pointing at him. “get him!” two men grab him from each side, while the other guards look all around for something else, knocking over everything in the process. seokjin is yelling out something and yoongi has no idea where the rest are. he’s flailing in their grasp when he notices from the corner of his eye a guard with his hand on jungkook’s bicep, dragging the sleepy boy out of the room. his face is curled in pain, and the sight of him trying to get the hand off his arm is enough to send yoongi into a full fledged rage.

“what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” he yells, pushing back against the guards that are holding him, hearing one of them grunt in pain. good, he thinks viciously. “let him go, he’s done nothing wrong! let him go, you fucking bastards - “

“oh, give it up, suga,” one of the guards sneer, jerking his arm to keep him still, “we have a witness that says she saw him acting as your little accomplice in a string of thefts around the city this afternoon.” disgusted, guard continues, “on the day of the lantern festival? how much lower can you get?”

“well your fuckin’ witness is lying!” yoongi tries to kick one of them. he hasn’t stolen anything since -

“sir,” another guard says, handing the guard in front of him yoongi’s bag. he opens it and out comes the crown - jungkook’s crown, yoongi thinks numbly.

“take them away,” the head guard orders, eyes like steel. yoongi whips his head around to see jungkook frightened beyond all belief, a hand over his mouth; he must have been screaming out or something. yoongi meets his eyes over the scuffle, especially as they’re led out the door.

i’m sorry, yoongi thinks, his mind running with revelations and regrets.

/

they’re led straight to the dungeons, walking the entire way. yoongi inwardly frets, because jungkook probably didn’t have a chance to rebind his feet before going out, and they probably hurt quite a bit. the other cells are fortunately filled with sleeping prisoners or unfit for use, so jungkook is put in the cell across from yoongi.

yoongi swears; how the hell did they find him? no one was supposed to be able to find him - the whole reason why he’s the best is because he’s practically untraceable. and that lie about him and jungkook stealing in the main square? what was that? how could anyone actually believe that?

all these thoughts are shoved out of yoongi’s mind as soon as he sees jungkook slump against the dirty, dark bars of his cell. he looks entirely out of place here. a bright thing like him doesn’t belong here, yoongi thinks. he belongs somewhere like he did today, out in front of people, smiling and laughing.

“what happened, hyung?” he asks, voice lost; he’s not crying, but his voice is a little hoarse from screaming. he looks too ruffled.

“did they hurt you?” yoongi asks instead, trying to peer through the darkness with the small rays of moonlight to see if there’s anything wrong.

“i just have a bruise from the guard holding me too roughly,” jungkook says unevenly. “but i’m okay. hyung - “

“someone falsely accused me of stealing something i didn’t,” yoongi cuts in. he tries not to think about what he did steal. “i didn’t - they brought you along with me, i’m sorry - “

“hyung, i saw them take out the crown from your bag,” jungkook whispers, eyes wide. “yoongi-hyung, what did you do?”

yoongi clenches his jaw. “it was a job, jungkook. i had to.”

“but it landed you here,” jungkook says, leaning against the bars now, almost trying to earnestly bargain with yoongi. “hyung, remember when you asked me if i wanted to go back - “

yoongi squeezes his eyes shut. he can’t think about this right now, not right now.

“ - well i don’t, okay, i don’t want to go back. i want to stay here with you and - and everyone else,” jungkook finishes, voice pleading. when yoongi looks at him, he looks like he’s shaking. “and i - i like you a lot, hyung.”

it’s something that yoongi didn’t even know he wanted to hear until now. the words fill him with warmth when the rest of him is cold and somewhat hurting.

“so please - please don’t steal again, okay? not when it’ll get you places like here - “

“oh, sweetheart, can’t you see that begging him won’t do any good?”

yoongi’s blood turns cold.

jungkook blinks, looking around for the familiar voice. he doesn’t know, exactly, how he got here - just that there’s been a misconception and now yoongi-hyung looks downright miserable, the lines of his face growing more and more by the second. jungkook couldn’t talk because the guard kept his mouth shut after he continuously yelled for yoongi earlier, so now the edges of his mouth burn for the leather gloves use to hold him down.

he’s in a dark room, and there’s no way to get out. it’s both terrifying and familiar at the same time. that is, all until he hears his mother’s voice.

she’s rushing toward them now, kneeling down in front of jungkook. jungkook sighs in relief, the tension slipping from his body. at the sight of her, he falls back into easy routines. his mother is aging now; it’s something they share. jungkook’s hair grows too fast, his mother ages all too quick. she puts a hand to his face and ‘tsks’.

“silly boy, how many times have i told you not to go out of your room? now look what’s happened to you,” she starts disapprovingly, and jungkook’s mind starts to go fuzzy, a little - a little rounded around at the edges. “you’re stuck behind bars, confessing love to a stranger? men like him, jungkook, care nothing about you.”

“shut up, you lying bitch,” yoongi spits out, and that’s what jars jungkook out of whatever trance he’s in. “you’re the one that stole him from his crib and used him for all these years - like you know shit about what it means to - “

jungkook watches as his mother rakes her nails down the edges of the bars, a screeching sound hurting both of their ears. jungkook cries out and holds his hands to his ears while yoongi swears.

“mother will get you out of here, my love,” his mother promises, her face worried. jungkook nods. “and then you will never, ever disobey me again.”

jungkook opens his mouth; he doesn’t want to go back, doesn’t his mother see? he’s much happier here, and they could have a better life with all the people around them. his mother cracks open the bars somehow, quick as a flash, and jungkook is so overcome with relief at just seeing his mother that he just hugs her close for a moment.

“i know, you were scared, sweetheart,” she strokes his hair for a moment. “come, now.” she lets go of him and tugs on his wrist, trying to get him to leave with her. yoongi snarls at the door, getting a hold of himself, and he’s yelling for once - jungkook has never seen him yell.

“don’t listen to that witch, jungkook!” yoongi looks desperate. “she’s been tricking you all your life, keeping you captive! she stole you from your real parents when you were a baby! eighteen years, jungkook - eighteen years - who else has been missing for eighteen years?”

“quiet, you,” his mother snarls, a streak of green lightning disappearing from her fingertips to hit yoongi straight in the chest. he falls back with a thump, the sound disappearing beneath jungkook’s cry of, “hyung!”

“come with mother, now,” his mom says, tugging him further. jungkook rips himself out of her grip, betrayed.

“mom, how could you do that?” he exclaims, rushing toward yoongi’s limp body groaning on the floor. “he was just trying to tell me - “

“he speaks lies,” his mother cuts in, voice smooth, before she laughs. it’s not a nice laugh, either. “come now, jungkook, what makes you think you’re a good judge of people? a naive, gullible boy like you, who has never left his room?”

jungkook shakes, the insults cutting deeper than he wants it to. “stop, mom.”

“a child,” his mother continues, voice strong and taunting like it always hints to, sometimes, “a peasant - “

“stop it!”

“- mannerless and boorish - “

“i’m not - “

“- without a lick of sense in his head - “

“stop it, mom!”

“ - and certainly no smarts to go with that,” his mother finishes, laughing wryly. “it’s a blessing that i’ve been raising you all these years like my own.”

like my own.

jungkook falls to the ground.

the abrupt silence piques his mother, too, because she stops her hurtful words, turning to him. like my own. as in, like her own child. as in, he’s not really her son. but then - whose son is he?

who else has been missing for eighteen years?

the prince has.

as soon as yoongi gets himself upright, jungkook takes in a deep breath. he feels like he’s suffocating. everything that jimin and taehyung and namjoon had told him filters through his brain - the stolen child, the grieving family, the lights - that’s him, that’s him, it’s him, isn’t it?

“it’s me,” jungkook starts, watching his own fingers tremble, “i’m the lost prince, aren’t i?”

“what nonsense are you on now,” his mother’s heels clack against the floor. “how many times have i told you not to mumble?”

“i’m the lost prince, aren’t i?” jungkook says louder, voice echoing. stolen in the middle of the night -

“you are,” yoongi’s groggy voice says behind him, just as he’s catching his breath once more.

his mother’s face is made of steel. she has no expression, no inflection.

“years, i have worked hard to keep you under my thumb,” she says softly. “i will not be failing now.” quick as a flash, she grabs his wrist. her grip is made of iron and bone, despite the thinness of her wrist - an almost supernatural strength. within one breath and the next, both she and jungkook are gone.

/

yoongi yells as soon as jungkook’s shadow isn’t lingering any longer in front of his cell. he wishes he can do anything, but the bolt of whatever that witch threw at him is still pulsing. although it’s not too terrible of a pain, it’s enough to be distracting. he doesn’t know how long he’s cringed over, trying to catch his breath until a familiar voice calls out, “hyung?”

“jimin,” yoongi starts, finding a strength to stand up. “oh god, hyung, you’re here! me and the rest of the crew are here to break you and jungkook out - i was going to do jungkook first, but i don’t see him anywhere - “

“he’s not here,” yoongi tells him grimly. “that witch he calls a mother took him away, probably to the tower. listen, jimin, you need to get me out of here - “

“i’ve been down here for nearly two hours, hyung, looking for you guys,” jimin says. his eyes are wide and worried, even when he’s picking the lock to yoongi’s door. “i’ll lead you to the horses, but - “

“that’s good enough,” yoongi nods. “just get me out, jungkook is - “

the lock breaks open, and jimin heaves the doors ajar with some hidden strength. yoongi helps him in that and they both run down the corridor toward the stairs; there are no guards, surprisingly, but yoongi supposes that the others are taking care of it. they’re not friends for nothing.

it takes a good ten minutes of running through the corridors to get to a small alcove outside, where taehyung is waiting with two horses. jimin is out of breath, panting beside him, waving away taehyung who is going, “where’s jungkookie?”

yoongi goes straight for the faster horse, the lean mare. he jumps on the saddle and forgets everything, everything except the time that’s passing by as jungkook is up in the tower and he’s still over here. that kid, even if things don’t work out between them, at least deserves a better life than that. anyone deserves a better life than that.

i like you a lot, hyung.

jungkook should have another chance to tell him that so yoongi can say, “yeah, i think i like you too, kid.”

the ride out of the city is messy, because it’s dark and yoongi is working on a lantern held tied at the edge of the saddle. he crashes into a lot of things but the mare knows her way around fairly well, leading them all the way to the bridge over the river. yoongi pleads the horse to go faster as they’re riding through the forest, ten minutes already gone.

it’s turning into morning now, the dawn rising with blues and pinks and reds. yoongi rushes through the forest, wincing at all the flora that hits him; there’s bound to be stuff in his hair. he’s starting to get tired, his legs aching - he’s not meant for this meant physical exercise unless it comes to running away from the scene of a crime. horses, definitely not.

by the time he breaks into the clearing, he’s thirsty and aching and sore all over, tired and banged up. the horse whines loudly and yoongi directs it to where he knows the door is.

jumping down, yoongi winces at the soreness of his thighs - those are going to burn later. he tries to open up the door that seemed to give in so easily just days before, when he was running from royal guards for stealing the crown. now, it takes him body slamming it a couple of times for the door to finally take. his shoulder hurts, but he rubs it a couple of times and runs up the stairs, cloaked in darkness. before, he wasn’t scared; now, his heart is beating out of his chest.

when he gets to the door at the top, he barges in unapologetically, knocking over a few pots and things. he runs into the main room and looks around at first, trying to see where jungkook could be; he reaches toward the window before a muffled noise becomes apparently to him. when he turns around, there’s jungkook with his wrists bound and chained to the floor, his mouth covered with a rag.

he’s wide-eyed and harried, staring pleadingly at yoongi, jerking his head to the side. yoongi, unsure of what he wants, steps toward him. “jungkook - “

a sharp pain ripples through him. yoongi stops, breath catching in his throat, and looks down to see a slender hand with it’s fingers wrapped around the hilt of a blade, right in his abdomen. when it pulls out with a slick sound, the blade is covered with blood and the pain is unbearable. yoongi drops to the floor, groaning, hands finding their way to the wound while jungkook continues to make those muffled noises of distress.

“that’s one nuisance done and over with,” the witch says, stepping over yoongi’s lax body with her nose wrinkled in disgust. “as for you,” she tugs on the chains linked to jungkook’s handcuffs, effectively keeping him down, “we’re going somewhere no one can find you ever again.”

yoongi curls over and pulls away his hand to see blood, using the other to press his shirt down against the wound to staunch the bleeding. there’s red staining the wood of the floor that he knows is his fault. when he looks toward jungkook, he sees tears in the other’s eyes, still fighting with all he’s got against his mother - it’s no use, the woman has some sort of unnatural strength in her bones.

he can probably get up, yoongi thinks, if he ignores the pain. there’s a shaky possibility that he can. he’s thinking over the ability of it when the rag over jungkook’s mouth slips and he yells, “no! no, please, please stop, i’ll go with you, i’ll go with you!”

the pulling ceases. the witch raises an eyebrow and jungkook continues, swallowing, “i’ll go with you if you let me heal him. please, just let me heal him and then i’ll go wherever you want, okay?”

the witch narrows her eyes. yoongi wants to say no, jungkook - don’t sell yourself out for me - but realizes that it’s better to have him near yoongi than near his mother at all.

“fine,” she says, uncuffing him with a snap of her fingers, “but you stop healing him when i tell you to, pet. only enough so he doesn’t bleed to death.”

“okay, okay,” jungkook agrees, scrambling over to his side.

yoongi looks up and sees big brown eyes staring at him in regret. “oh god, oh god hyung - yoongi hyung, there’s so much blood - “

“hey,” yoongi rasps out, reaching forward to cup a hand around jungkook’s cheek. his fingertips are stained with blood, but he wants to feel jungkook just...one last time. “it’s okay.”

“it’ll be okay once i heal you,” jungkook shakily puts his hands on the wound. “okay, i - “ he tries singing at first, but yoongi pulls his hands away. “no, no hyung - “

“don’t do this,” yoongi says, breathless. the world is a haze of pain. “don’t go back to her b’cause of me.”

“you’ll die,” jungkook replies weakly, fingers trailing over yoongi’s cheek. “you can’t die, hyung, not you.”

yoongi makes his choice then. he kisses the warm palm there before reaching for the knife that the witch dropped earlier. as quick as he can make it, yoongi slices across jungkook’s hand.

there’s a moment of silence before jungkook stares at his bloody palm, horrified. “hyung, what have you done - “

“you!” the witch snarls, coming forth with a blazing rage in her eyes, her features now older and her fingers bonier, as if someone had sucked the life out of them. she grips jungkooks wrist and tugs him up forcefully, bringing the hand to her sight. jungkook’s blood trickles down his palm - it’s a shallow cut that will need time to heal. “this is unacceptable!”

as her back is turned, yoongi shakily gets to his feet - it hurts a lot more than he’d admit, his spine whining for him to cease and desist, but yoongi uses whatever energy he has left to stab the knife in the witch’s back.

she screams, arching, hands releasing jungkook’s wrist now laden with fingerprint shaped bruises, and yoongi pushes her through the open window. she doesn’t have time to do more than screech, her heavy cloak bringing her down quicker with gravity, and he hazily hears jungkook yell, “mom!” as yoongi stumbles back.

jungkook tries to go to the window, but yoongi knows the  sight that will be there. he puts a slippery hand on jungkook’s neck and rasps, “don’t look.”

“yoongi,” jungkook’s attention is diverted when he sees yoongi’s state. after a moment, his legs can’t hold him out anymore, and yoongi collapses, bringing jungkook down with him.

“please stay awake,” jungkook pleads, hands fluttering over yoongi’s wound. “please, please, you can’t die - “

but yoongi knows that he is. he made his choice.

the sun is rising; he can see it from this angle over the window’s open ledge. jungkook’s face filters in an out before it’s the only thing he can see, eyes covered by his too long bangs.

yoongi reaches up to brush them aside, like he’s always wanted to do. “i think i like you too,” he says, before his eyes close to the image of jungkook against the rising sun.

“no,” jungkook feels an awful burning at the back of his eyes. “c’mon, hyung, no, please - “ he reaches for yoongi’s hand and desperately presses it against his own, singing the song that he’s been taught since birth, hoping for a light - a gleam of anything - to come from his palms, but there’s nothing, nothing, nothing. nothing but yoongi’s body on the cold floor and his blood staining the wood, on his fingers, on jungkook’s wrists.

jungkook puts his head to yoongi’s chest, but he can’t hear anything.

never has he truly felt more alone.

the tears come without him wanting them to. jungkook pushes the heels of his palm against his eyes, too aware of the stinging in his hands, wishing that yoongi hadn’t done this. he tries to wipe away the salty tears before they fall but stray ones fall anyway, running down the curve of his nose to his mouth, down toward his chin. he slumps against yoongi’s side and cries; for all that he’s been missing out on, for all the insults and backhanded words his mother ever told him, for the cold nights and the days he spent convincing himself he was okay. that this was fine. not talking to anybody - not knowing anyone like jimin or seokjin or taehyung or yoongi was completely fine. that he didn’t feel isolated and upset, secretly, wishing for a chance to touch the sky.

it’s kind of awful, he thinks, because he’s just found someone he’s come to care for and they’re ripped away from him in a second. is that the dangers of living outside of a box? is that what his mother was trying to protect him from? even though he knows she was keeping him for her own goals, now, jungkook can’t help but feel that he’d rather stay in his room for the rest of his life, oblivious, than to know this kind of pain again.

unknown to him, the hand he put casually over yoongi’s stomach as he slumped on the elder’s body begins to glow. just a little, but then it grows stronger and stronger and stronger until jungkook feels a tingle down his spine. he looks up, nose stuffy and eyes red, as the glow moves from his hand to yoongi’s body.

jungkook scrambles back, watching with a still beating heart as the glow covers yoongi head to toe. it lasts for a second before disappearing, like usual, but as soon as it happens, color returns to yoongi’s face. the elder takes in a deep breath before opening his eyes groggily. jungkook leans over and sees only smooth, unblemished skin where the wound once was.

the relief that overtakes him is staggering.

“wh’t...” yoongi mumbles out, leaning up against his elbows. jungkook jumps on him, his too tall body crashing hard against yoongi’s, throwing them both down to the floor. “oof,” he hears yoongi groan.

“you’re alive,” jungkook says, muffled into yoongi’s shirt. “i thought you were dead.”

“yeah, for a second there, i think i was,” yoongi admits, and jungkook huffs against his neck. he feels limp all of a sudden, from the entirety of the last few days.

“ow, get off me, you’re so heavy,” the brunette complains, pushing at jungkook’s shoulder. jungkook, who was on top of him at this point, leans back so he’s sitting on yoongi’s hips, hands twisted in the other man’s shirt.

“yoongi, i like you,” he says, something small blossoming in his chest.

yoongi reaches up and tugs him down by the hair, murmuring, “i like you too, kid,” just before their mouths slot together. jungkook tastes like sunshine and a little bit like happiness.

/