Chapter Text
“If we don’t leave this town, we might never make it out.”
The sharp pain that pricks at the backs of Yoongi’s eyes and at the deepest parts of his temples is excruciating to say the least, yet he almost doesn’t even feel it. He’s become too used to the pain, too used to the permanent constriction around his throat, around his lungs.
He’s numb.
He’s numb, and all-feeling at the same time.
People’s faces pass, come and go, all of them wearing the same pitying expression. Some he knows well, some are barely familiar, some he avoids because of the pain that comes with seeing their familiar faces. He fucking hates it. Fucking hates how it takes someone close to him being taken to see half the people who he once called friends, family.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” They all say the same empty words. They’re bitter in the back of Yoongi’s throat, choking him to the point where he can barely breathe, catching himself gasping, loosening his tie roughly with one hand with each person who approaches.
He hugs them each in turn, half-assed and loose. He doesn’t want their pity, not when it means absolutely nothing. Yoongi wants to scream, feels like if he gave in to the urge, that no one would even look up, pay him no mind. The numbness intensifies at the realization.
His suit feels suffocatingly tight.
“Hey, hyung.”
Yoongi jolts at the touch of a warm, large hand grasping gently at his elbow. He spins, startled. It’s Jungkook. Yoongi nearly loses his composure right then and there at the warm, yet sad smile Jungkook offers him. He’s always been fond of Jungkook, and a little bit of the tightness in Yoongi’s chest loosens at the sight of him. They had gone to high school together, Jungkook as a Freshman and Yoongi as a Junior, played on the same basketball team even. They’d ended up working at the same movie theater concession, bouncing song ideas off one another ad-lib style, Jungkook’s melodious voice mixing with Yoongi and Namjoon’s rougher rap styles nicely. They’d planned a few songs, played around with different melodies in Yoongi’s makeshift studio in his parent’s basement. It wasn’t anything serious, but Jungkook was always soft, kind. A good listener. He liked having Jungkook around.
He and Namjoon never paid mind to Yoongi’s hard, sometimes abrasive exterior, treated him with just the same kindness as he treated everyone with even though sometimes Yoongi was less than kind in return. Yoongi admired him for it.
The memory burns bittersweet in the back of his mind. Yoongi chokes down the urge to be sick.
“Oh. Hey, kid,” he says, voice cracking around the edges, running a hand through his inky hair, not meeting Jungkook’s eyes. He probably looks like hell, suddenly self conscious. He can’t remember the last time he checked himself in a mirror. He could practically feel the redness in his eyes, the grey pallor to his skin.
“You look like hell.” Of course, Jungkook is as blunt as ever. But his tone is light, teasing, disarming.
Yoongi scoffs at his words, scrubbing a hand over his face, one knuckle lingering on his left eye a little longer to rub. “Yeah. I’m aware of that.” His voice sounds dead to his own ears.
Jungkook smiles a tiny smile, but it doesn’t touch his eyes.
“How have you been holding up? I know you’ve probably been asked this a thousand times already but I knew him too, not quite like you, but I-”
Yoongi shakes his head quickly, cutting him off. “No, no. It’s- it’s okay. You’re okay, I mean, you care more than- than half these people here and I-” He sighs, long and soft and shaking, and he feels more tears pricking at his eyes and he swallows harshly around the lump in his throat, attempting to stave off the wave of emotions hitting him all of a sudden. “You’re the only one who- who even attempted to lighten things up…even if it was disguised as an insult.”
A pointed stare through his bangs. Jungkook clears his throat.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not a liar, hyung.”
Jungkook offers to get him something to drink. Yoongi accepts, though he really doesn’t want it. He just accepts for Jungkook’s sake. A few minutes later and they’re sitting in a quiet corner on rickety metal folding chairs, scuffed up brown, with small, clear plastic cups of water and the god awful floral pattern of the carpeting beneath Yoongi’s dress shoes staring up at him. A bead of condensation rolls down the side of Yoongi’s finger from where he’s holding the cup.
Jungkook tries to talk to him, distract him probably (he’d always been better with grief than Yoongi), his broad palm soothing circles into Yoongi’s thigh, but he can tell Yoongi just doesn’t have his heart in it. And Jungkook understands, he really does. Who couldn’t? How is one supposed to act when they lost their best friend, their brother?
So Jungkook gets it. He understands.
“Hyung I’m...I think I’m gonna just go. I know this is extremely hard for you and I can tell you just want to be alone right now.”
He stands, and Yoongi finds himself standing with him, legs jolting him upright suddenly, eyes wide and glassy, boring into Jungkook’s. He wants to speak, say anything to get Jungkook to stay, but the words are caught in his throat, the numb, constricting feeling returning.
Jungkook steadies him with a firm grip on his shoulder, sad eyes meeting even sadder eyes. He looks like he wants to say something and Yoongi begs him with his eyes, his throat not cooperating, and god he just wants him to speak.
Jungkook purses his lips and pulls him into the softest yet most firm hug, one arm under Yoongi’s, the other above his shoulder, one that Yoongi can feel down to his very core that he means it and tears start to bubble up in his throat again, moisture brimming his waterline. Yoongi swallows thickly as they fall, spilling over his cheeks and soaking into the fabric of Jungkook’s suit jacket.
Jungkook takes a deep, shaking breath and clears his throat. Yoongi almost sags in his arms with relief.
“Listen, hyung,” he murmurs, slow and apprehensive. “What if- what if we just...get out of here?” He pulls away enough to meet Yoongi’s eyes, his own flicking watery back and forth between them, searching, almost gauging a reaction. “If we don’t leave now, we might never make it out.” The words are a shaky whisper, Jungkook’s eyebrows pulled together slightly.
In any other circumstance, Yoongi would find the words ridiculous. But in his fragile state, they hold so much weight.
Yoongi’s face crumples slightly, and he can feel prying eyes on him as he backs away, out of Jungkook’s arms. He glances around through blurry vision around at everything, eyes landing on all the food laid out on a long table with a cheap, plastic table cloth, clusters of people around chatting quietly, the ugly wallpaper of the funeral home.
It all seems so miserably ground shattering.
His eyes land last on the small, round table at the front of the room. There are clusters of flowers there, small gifts, letters. The largest item being a candid portrait of Namjoon, perched on a dark wooden easel. He’s smiling as he always was, dimples peaking out on his cheeks on either side of his mouth wearing a loose, half black half white hoodie that was one of his favorites - from Yoongi. He looks so happy, so carefree.
Yoongi crumples a little further into himself as he falls back onto the shitty metal folding chair, head collapsing into his hands, breaths coming in shallow shudders.
When he raises his head to meet Jungkook’s eyes, to apologize, to say anything, he’s nowhere to be found.
Yoongi’s heart jumps and drops into his stomach in the same beat. He’s nearly sick right then and there. In an instant he’s out of his seat, acting on instinct, on impulse, darting into the next room.
He’s frantic, head whipping back and forth as more tears fall. “Wait! Jungkook, wait!” He's sobbing, rough breaths coming and going as he frantically searches.
Yoongi can feel eyes on him, but he doesn’t care.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a figure that resembles Jungkook’s out the front window, about to hop into the cab that pulls up just as Yoongi is throwing the door open and running outside.
“Wait!”
Jungkook spins around just in time to get an arm full of Yoongi, one long sob escaping from his throat. Jungkook steadies him in his arms, holding him just far enough away so he can meet Yoongi’s eyes, startled concern filling his deep brown pools.
“Please wait, Jungkook, I- I’m sorry. Can- let’s just-” Yoongi sighs, eyes pleading. “Can we go?”
For the first time in a month, maybe longer, Yoongi doesn’t know; he smiles. It’s watery, and shaky, and his face is swollen with tears, and he’s breathing hard from holding back sobs, but he’s never been so sure about anything in his entire life. Never has anyone given him an out like Jungkook just did and he- he almost let it go, almost gave into his own pain and drowned.
Yoongi doesn’t necessarily mean to when he leans in and presses his lips to Jungkook’s, soft and wet with salty tears.
When he pulls away, Jungkook is mildly surprised, but meets Yoongi’s soft, shy smile with one of his own, his hand coming up to caress Yoongi’s cheek gently, wiping at the wet trails his tears had left.
“Yeah. Yeah, hyung. We can go. Let’s go.”
Jungkook lets Yoongi rest his head on his chest in the back of that cab, his thumb rubbing circles into the back of Yoongi’s hand wrapped in his own with his arm slung around Yoongi’s smaller frame, holding him close, the windows rolled down, blowing their hair around everywhere.
But Yoongi couldn’t care less.
~