Chapter Text
That Saturday morning Jungkook wakes up earlier than he normally would on a weekend, jolted awake by a nightmare of Seokjin trying to run him over with his huge ass muscle car in the supermarket parking lot. The terror of it stays with him even as the memory of the dream recedes into his subconscious where he cannot recall it, his palms –sweaty, cold- shake with terror as his heart palpitates. He stares at the off-white of his bedroom ceiling as his sweat soaks into his bed sheets.
Nothing about this whole fiasco should inspire fear this strong within him, he isn’t the problem, yet here he is, panting like he just ran a 10k.
Normally, when he feels himself slipping into his Other- the part of him he can’t control- he reaches for his music, hides away from the world for a little bit until he can rationalize and solve whatever problem he has. He does so now, reaching for his phone that lay charging on his bedside table.
There are a few notifications, he had been added to the swimming team group chat and there’s about twenty messages from that. Tae also had sent him an image sometime during the night. He sees a text from Jimin and startles because Jimin normally doesn’t text him; he doesn’t look at it though. He draws his security pattern and goes straight to his music.
This is a part of him so private. Hidden away so carefully, password protected, because it exposes him, shows who he really is, how he feels, it shouldn’t be that deep but it is. Even Tae doesn’t know what he listens to, though she still sends him links to songs she thinks he would love (most of the time he does). He can’t imagine showing any of it to his parents. That would be the day he dies. The idea of spreading himself so open for the people who have so far shown him that he has to fit the mold of the perfect son they had envisioned, has to behave a certain way? Suicide, that’s what it is.
He reaches for his headphones, plugs them in before muffling his ears and tapping play on his nerves play list. The first song is Chop Suey and he lets himself sink into the chaos.
When he goes down for breakfast an hour later, pumped full of endorphins, throat raw from silently yelling he feels more powerful than he has in a while. Sometimes he just forgets that he can make a choice. He could let his mother fend for herself if he wanted, he could say no.
He can say no.
It’s such a small word but for him it feels like something powerful, the Thunderbolt of Zeus, Excalibur. He hadn’t realized that he could choose to do things until a few years ago. With his parents it had always felt like do or die. It still did sometimes, but now that he had the knowledge that he could refuse he felt… safer.
All traces of his father are gone, his nice leather loafers are missing from the shoe rack at the door and he wonders how in hell his mother had managed to pull off that one. Usually his father slept until ten in the morning and then woke up to have a late breakfast and then the whole day he would catch up on games he had missed during the week, or he went over to Tae’s house to hang out with her dad, sometimes they came here. Their fathers were best friends and because of the frequency with which they saw each other he and Taehee had become best friends too. It helped that Tae was easy to like; her incorporation into his life had felt seamless, plus she was great company.
His mother still looks worn but she smiles at him when she sees him coming down the stairs.
“Good morning, Kookie,” she greets him, voice rough.
“Good morning,” he responds as he shuffles over to grab a bowl. He makes himself some cereal, pouting when he notices that it’s almost over. He informs his mother and she hums, busy washing the few dishes in the sink. He sits down and watches her work, the fluid movement of her pale arms as she scrubs away the remains of coffee. She starts to hum, it’s some old song he’s heard her play a few times around the house as she works, one of her favorites that talked about stars and love. When he was younger he had wanted to bring those very stars to her, to weave their light in her hair. He’d worshipped her. In his childish mind she could do no wrong; her word was law- absolute. Every bit a god in the way she talked to him, wise and all knowing, benevolent. And then he’d grown up.
She is but flesh, he thinks as he watches her flit around the kitchen, a bundle of nervous energy. Nothing but flesh and blood and conscious thought woven by the world around her. She was mortal like him. It still stuns him sometimes when he thinks about it, when he watches her.
“Are you almost done?” she turns to face him, hands behind her on the counter supporting her weight. The remains of a smile are still on her lips.
Jungkook nods. He places his bowl in the sink and she ruffles his hair. He flinches away, body shocked by the cool wetness that coats his scalp and his hair strands. She chuckles before turning back to the sink and Jungkook slips away quietly.
He assumes that they’ll have lunch in their home, he knows his mother well enough now to understand that she would feel much safer in her own territory. He showers quick and dresses in a black long-sleeved shirt. The material it is made of light enough that he doesn’t feel too warm. He picks a random pair of shorts. He doesn’t wear socks because the heat of summer isn’t gone yet. He looks at himself in the mirror, turns this way and that and thinks I am Jeon Jungkook.
He sits in his room answering texts and chatting with his team mates when at quarter to one he hears the rumble of an engine in the driveway. His stomach swoops low and his heart feels like it stops before it starts at a pace so fast Jungkook fears he is dying. Scared to death, literally.
He wipes the sweat off his palms on his duvet and pushes himself to stand. He’s already outside his door by the time his mother yells for him to come down and meet his brother.
His brother.
It still feels strange to refer to him as such. He’s been an only child for so long and then a few weeks ago he found out that he wasn’t the only body to pop out of his mother.
Seokjin stands in their doorway, looming over his mother and Jungkook himself. He’s wearing a pink button down, a few buttons left open to expose his clavicles, and a pair of jean shorts. Jungkook is shocked. Somehow, in his mind he’d expected the same leather jacket to be hanging off his shoulders, in his mind he struggles to reconcile Big Bad Seokjin from his nightmare with this smiling man who waves at him and says “Hi.”
It doesn’t mean he’s any less dangerous.
His mother shifts to look at him when he doesn’t reply. The power of her glare jolts him and he smiles shakily and replies. Seokjin, under the mask of mild-timidity looks amused. He chuckles and then slides off his sandals. His mother closes the door behind him and for a few seconds they slip into awkward silence as everybody watches each other, waiting for hostility. Seokjin breaks the awkward moment by asking where his father is.
“He’s gone to work,” his mother replies. She’s still standing at the door, watching her son with unconcealed wonder, maybe terror- anyway she’s wide-eyed.
“He couldn’t handle being in the same room with your dirty little secret?” he lifts one eyebrow and his expression is so condescending that Jungkook feels the sting of it in his chest. Oddly enough, he really looks a lot like his mother when he does that. It’s fascinating.
His mother is startled into silence. Seokjin lets out a wry little chuckle and then shifts his attention to Jungkook.
Jungkook won’t lie, he’s terrified of Seokjin. This strange man who is able to cut deep into his mother’s insecurities and shut her up with a statement. The slayer of the lion becomes the king of the jungle and all power is relinquished to them, stronger than the strongest threat. His breath leaves him in shallow spurts as he struggles not to hyperventilate.
“Hey, little man. My bro. How are you?”
“F-fine,”
Seokjin laughs. “Why are you so scared?” he says through it. And then his laughter stops suddenly, expression shifting from amusement to awe as he stares at his mother. “Did you even tell them I was coming?” No answer. “You want to tell me that your husband doesn’t even know that I’m here?”
She doesn’t look at him. Seokjin claps his hand as he laughs.
“That’s rich.”
“Seokjin please,” it comes from his mother, eyes shiny with tears. Seokjin looks amazed.
“You want me-“ he points to himself, “ to pity you and pretend-” he sighs frustrated. “Okay then. You know what? You invited me for lunch in your home. So let’s do lunch.”
Jungkook wants to die.
He wants to sink into the tiles and become one with them, forever removed from this situation that is Seokjin making hard eye contact with his mother, watching her squirm with discomfort. It’s so uncomfortable, borderline unnatural. She looks up once or twice and when she notices that he is still watching her, even as he slurps his soup or takes a sip of his water, her eyes dart back to the cherry wood of the dining table. He hasn’t said a thing once, not even the phrase ‘pass me the-‘ because his arms are so bloody long that everything is within easy reach.
It’s only been ten minutes.
Seokjin must notice that Jungkook is barely eating because he asks, eyes still on the woman sat opposite him, “Jungkook, don’t you like the food?”
Jungkook doesn’t mean to, but Seokjin’s sudden inquiry makes him drop his spoon, and in his rush to collect it from the ground he somehow upsets the pitcher of water close to him. He watches the liquid flow down the table with poorly concealed terror, unable to move as it quickly covers surface area, soaking into the cute little mats that they are using, covering his chopsticks that lie unused in front of his plate.
Seokjin moves to grab the pitcher before it falls to the ground and breaks, and with as much grace as can possibly be managed he sweeps the water back into it with his palm so that all of it doesn’t go on the floor. It’s the only time during their entire duration of their lunch that he has taken his eyes off their mother.
Speaking of, she jolts out of whatever intimidated act she had going on and gets up to get paper towels. Jungkook isn’t moving, his motor skills halted by his embarrassment and fear. When Seokjin is done he places the pitcher back on the table and huffs out a little laugh, looking at Jungkook .
“You’re, like, wound so tight my dude. Do I scare you? Also unclench your jaw before you break it,”
He hadn’t even realized he was grinding his teeth down. He looks down at the little patches of water that remain on the wood. “I’m- I’m really sorry,” he chokes out.
“Hey. It’s okay, chill. Accidents happen.” He takes his seat just as their mother walks into the room and begins to wipe down what’s left of the water. She dumps the wet tissues in the bin before taking her seat herself.
“You need to be more careful, Kookie.” Her voice is gentle, she doesn’t even look mad. Jungkook feels thoroughly chastised all the same. He bows his head in shame.
They sit in quiet for a few minutes, broken only by the sounds of eating and chewing. Jungkook eats his food though to him it doesn’t taste like anything anymore.
Someone kicks his foot under the table, and when he looks up Seokjin is giving him a close-lipped smile. His cheeks puff up and he looks almost too soft to be the same sharp-edged man that shook their mother to her roots on the regular.
He says, “So how is high school for you Kookie- can I call you that?”
And Jungkook could say no, you freak me the fuck out but he nods and swallows his food so that he can answer.
“It’s okay. Our teachers are good,” He doesn’t know why he elaborates. He doesn’t even know how he managed to speak so steadily. Seokjin looks proud.
“My teachers were shit,” his mother visibly stiffens at the curse word but she doesn’t say anything. “Your mom told me you’re really smart,”
Jungkook doesn’t know how to agree without sounding arrogant, so he nods once. “I could have skipped a couple of grades if I wanted to,” he says. Where are these words coming from?
(The need to please, to seem cool and intelligent. To show Seokjin that they are on the same level, to show him that he is not the inferior son, but an equal. She had you and you are beautiful, she had me and I am smart. He doesn’t realize it at the moment but it is the beginning and the end simultaneously.)
Seokjin is fully grinning, and Jungkook smiles back. And though the fear of him isn’t completely gone in the moment it feels like his brother doesn’t want to come for his neck.
“Has to be those Jeon- genes,” he says, nodding, and the illusion is shattered. His mother gets up and throws her napkin on the table. She covers her face and sighs before walking out of the room to cool off.
Jungkook himself doesn’t even know where the insult is but he knows there’s a joke waiting to be made somewhere, a punchline he just can’t see. They hear sobbing and Jungkook stiffens, alarmed, but Seokjin carries on eating, unbothered.
“Could you pass me the salt, Kookie,” he says.
Jungkook doesn’t know what to do. And then something in him snaps and he’s passing Seokjin the salt, he’s settling down and shoving japchae into his mouth to the backing soundtrack of his mother’s crying.
Seokjin kicks his foot again and when Jungkook looks at him he is smiling.
++++
Monday morning arrives and with it comes another sound of conflict. This time it seems that his parents don’t care because when his mother bangs his door open to wake him up she’s still shrieking at the hulking figure that is his father. He’s speaking softly, trying to whisper but she backs into his room like an injured animal with all the desperate ferocity of the need to survive. It’s jarring, to see that kind of thing the first moment you wake up when throughout your life you’ve been living in some sort of quiet peace. (Is it really peace though, when all disagreements are swept under the metaphorical carpet?) They hid their fights from him but Jungkook already knew, he observed and he learned, and his father’s apology when he notices Jungkook awake is void in its intention.
“Honey please-“ his father starts but his mother is already there, snapping.
“Don’t fucking honey me!”
And it is so absurd, the idea of them fighting that Jungkook giggles. They don’t notice, Jungkook’s mother is drawing the curtains of his room, his father has his face shoved into his hands like he is trying to wipe away the tired.
They are all just tired.
Somehow, Jimin made it so that she, Jungkook and Tae and sit within the same radius. Sometime that girl scares him with how efficient she is. On this morning she had arrived before him and he finds her sat at her desk reading her notes in their homeroom. A bunch over other kids that also take the bus walk into class and the silence of the morning is broken. It’s officially a new school day. When Jungkook sits down she smiles and greets him hello before focusing on her books once more. Her hands disappear out of site before her right hand comes back up and she hands him half a blue berry muffin.
“You aren’t going for morning practice today?” she asks as he takes his first bite.
“Mmmmh- thank you. Also, no. I’m too late. I’ll just talk to coach during break.”
“You aren’t taking it seriously,” she says. Her eyes are sharp.
“I am! I just- I couldn’t get a ride in the morning with my dad,”
He feels bad saying it, or maybe it’s the person he’s admitting it to. Perfect Jimin, who is in school by 6:30am, who works hard and consequently is the best student the school has admitted this year, after him. She’d told him once that if it wasn’t for his gift he’d probably be the last one in their grade- words born from anger and jealousy from one time they’d fought. She had apologized, but they would stay with him forever.
“Why? What happened?” she gives him this concerned look and he can’t meet it’s intensity so he looks away.
“My mum and dad had an argument. He didn’t stay for breakfast, he left without me,” and he doesn’t want to make it seem like he wants her pity but that’s how it comes out anyway.
Jimin, thankfully, is nice about it. She coos and pulls him in for a hug and the other students snicker when they notice, he would curl away from her but she smells so good, and she hugs tight.
She gives him the other half of her muffin. “They’ll be fine, don’t worry. My parents argue all the time, but by evening they’re good. Given that’s it’s normally over dumb shit anyway like which lane to use or where the remote-“
“Friends!”
Tae lands heavily in her chair beside Jimin and smiles at them both.
“Oh, hi Tae!” Jimin changes into this, this beam of sunshine in an instant. It’s fascinating, how she has different personalities with different people. Jungkook had taken the time to observe her in order to better understand how to not set her off- he had noticed that she normally switched into something other whenever they hung out with Tae. Bubbly and light and fun.
“Why does Jungkook look like a kicked puppy?”
“His parents had an argument-“
“Hey!” he tries to stop Jimin from spreading his pity-party but she’s already rattling off. Tae makes this sound, the same one she makes when she sees something cute on tv.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Kookie.” He doesn’t respond, choosing to turn forward and root through his bags for a book to keep him busy. “Is wittle Kookie embarrassed? He doesn’t want his wittle parents to fight?”
He knows he looks like a stop sign. He can feel the heat under his skin.
“Fuck off, Tae.”
“Oh no! Wittle Kookie used a no-no word!” Jimin is cackling on the side, the rest of the class watching in amusement or curiosity. Tae breaks into laughter. “People fight, Kook. It really isn’t that deep.”
“You’re supposed to stand by me!” he says. He holds his expression of anger for about three seconds before he laughs too. “It’s chill. I know that. I just wanted to mooch that muffin off Jiminie here.”
Jimin smacks his arm, and through the pain he thinks that he is really glad that he has his friends.
School is a blur, and Jungkook finds himself exhausted every day. Training at 6am every day then classes then training then homework then bed. And then he wakes up and does it all over again. Nothing stimulates his mind. The joy of learning is sucked out when you already know half of the syllabus. He even rejects Jimin’s offer to do his History homework just so that he can have something more to do. He still helps her with calculus, and those moments serve as fun little hangouts when he can take the time to know her. Sometimes he gets the feeling that she’s hiding behind this wall, choosing to show people what they want to see.
If Tae had noticed she hadn’t said anything, which is strange because ever since they were seven they had told each other everything. Well, maybe not everything but enough so that they knew each other better than anybody else. Plus Tae just saw through people. Young as she was she understood what people are and their intentions. Jungkook had no idea how he managed to make it on the list of people she would fight a zombie for, but he is glad.
Jimin is nice to him. She brings him food and she laughs when he says something clever but it still feels like there’s this veneer.
He gives up and goes to Tae.
“Yeah,” she says.
“What? You knew?”
“Yeah. I think that…if she chooses to be that then she is, you know. Besides, what really makes us us? I was watching this thing and this guy was talking about how we are all a product of our environment and the people that surround us. So what part of what we present to people makes us truly us, you know?”
No Jungkook does not know. He nods and feigns understanding.
“Stupid. Any way, if this is how Jimin chooses to be, it’s okay. We aren’t entitled to anybody Kook. You can do shit you want.” And that’s that.
He sees Hoseok in the halls on Wednesday.
He walks around with his shoulders tense, he skirts along the edges of the hallway like he’s scared of taking up too much space. It feels wrong. Hoseok who smiles at Jungkook wide and kind, glowing in the summer sun, cannot be the same noodly looking boy who walks with his head bowed, afraid of making eye contact.
He doesn’t get the chance to talk to him in the morning, but at lunch time he forgoes his normal routine to scope him out. He finds him sitting behind the labs in the grass, rough and dry, pulling blades out of the soil. He’s chewing on one as he stares out at the field, so deep in thought that he doesn’t register Jungkook until he is sat right next to him.
He leaps ten feet in the sky before holding a hand over his chest. “What the fuck you spooky gremlin,”
Jungkook just smiles until Hoseok smiles back. He tries not to stare at the shadows under his eyes, the overall limpness of his greasy hair as he rakes a hand through it. His skin is breaking out on his forehead.
He doesn’t think about it when he roots through his bag and pulls out his brown bag that holds his lunch. It’s two sandwiches , a green apple, banana and a bottle of water. Hoseok watches him with suspicion, and when he begins to pick up the first sandwich to pass it to him he holds his wrist to stop him.
“No, Kook.”
“I can’t eat it all by myself,”
“Yes you can, I know you.” His gaze is piercing, borderline hostile but Jungkook has fought with the boss that is his mother, Hoseok isn’t a problem.
“I want to share my lunch with my friend,” he widens his eyes the way he knows makes him look super childish and young, innocent, and Hoseok can only stand his ground for two seconds before the power of cuteness overwhelms him.
“Why ‘re your eyes so fucking huge,” he complains as Jungkook hands him the healthier looking sandwich and the banana. “Fuckin’ bambi eyes. Huge as Jupiter,”
Jungkook pretends that he doesn’t notice the way Hoseok greedily attacks his sandwich. He watches the students that cross the field, some sat up in the bleachers. A group of friends settles down near them and Hoseok gives them the stink eye.
“Let’s move,”
Jungkook packs up his half-eaten sandwich and his apple and Hoseok’s banana and Hoseok grabs the bottle of water and his bag. He finishes the last bite before crumpling the cling wrap and leads them away.
He takes Jungkook to a spot behind the bleachers where there’s cool shade. Jungkook is glad to be in the shade again when they sit down. He hands Hoseok his banana and get’s to his sandwich.
“I heard that you’re in the ol’ swim team,”
“Yeah, who told you?”
“Nams,”
“Namjoon?”
“The one and only,” Hoseok giggles. “He said you’re really good. Apparently you showed that poor excuse of a coach what swimming really is,”
And Jungkook is touched, really touched, considering that it came from Namjoon himself but he’s more curious about how Namjoon and Hoseok are friends. He asks and Hoseok hums, thinking about it before he says, “When we were younger we used to play together all the time in the park. Dawon would take me on play dates at the park on the weekend and Nams and his mom would be waiting there.” He grins, but it is tapered with sadness. He chuckles, silent as- Jungkook assumes- the memories come back to him.
“Why am I unloading my problems to a foetus-“
“Hey-“
“A baby,” he grabs Jungkook and puts him in a headlock. Jungkook can feel his ribs against his ear, his heart beating thump thump thump and he lays there and takes it as Hoseok ruffles his hair. He smells like mint, like car grease and cigarettes, like grass and hard work. His frame is wiry but strong, Jungkook can feel that now. He relaxes into him, until it’s just him lying in his lap, Hoseok running a distracted hand through his hair.
“You’re my friend,” he says after a while.
Hoseok sighs and Jungkook tilts his head up to see his face. His jaw line is sharp, his lips are in a smile as he says, “How did I get so unlucky,”
“Anyway we were playmates, and then Dawon left and life happened and we drifted apart ‘til high school. He’s helped me a couple of times,” he scratches the fuzz on his jaw and Jungkook thinks he’s about to continue but he falls silent.
“How are Tae and Jimin?”
“Come find out for yourself. Lunchtime we sit in the hall at the back,” he can’t help it if he looks hopeful. Hoseok tamps it down real quick.
“Nope. No. I ain’t ever setting foot in that pit of sharks again,” he says it with so much venom Jungkook sits up, startled.
“Why? What happened?” he asks but the older boy’s earlier bout of anger is simmering down to sadness. He watches Jungkook and finally says, “The world is kind to you.”
Jungkook won’t lie, it kind of pisses him off that people have this idea that life is easy for him because he’s a genius and his dad is rich, and he doesn’t mean to sound pitiful but he has problems like everybody else, and though he might have never had some experience with some things he can fucking empathize. He is not above basic human empathy. He understands. And Hoseok must understand too, the kind of damage that his words have caused because he sighs and punches Jungkook’s shoulder in a bro-way.
“Hey, don’t be mad, ‘msorry,”
“You don’t have to be sorry, Its just-“ how do you put it into words “I care okay, and I might not have the hardest life out here but I care and I-“
Hoseok pulls him into his side, giving him a side hug. “I get it.”
Jungkook sniffs.
“My bro, my friend. My little foetus,”
“Hey!”