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There should be many, many better ways for Jungkook to spend his time.
The basketball courts are deserted - it's late, after all. Club activities are over. Jungkook had watched the team filter out, laughing and punching each other, sweat pouring down their faces, all so much taller and larger than anyone should be, and the ideal example of sporty teenage kids. None of them had seen him lurking around. Or they had and said nothing.
He dribbles the ball experimentally. It's terribly loud in the silence, but there's no fear of getting caught. No one stays here this late.
He slowly raises it above his head and shoots into the hoop, missing spectacularly. Which is what he'd expected. He doesn't really play basketball.
He tries again. Fails the same way.
It never looks very hard. The large kids on the basketball team make everything look so easy, so glorious. Jungkook's been watching them every day, thinking he'll learn something from it, but it's never easy for him to learn anything alone. Which sucks, because Jungkook is like the definition of alone.
He tosses the ball for an hour, just to practice. That should be all there is to it, right? Practice, practice, and then join the basketball team.
Jungkook doesn't really have friends.
There's the kid who sits next to him in class, Park Jimin, who shares his notes with him sometimes and wished him a happy birthday on his birthday. And there's Kim Namjoon, two years his senior, who lives on the same street and lends him his old text books. Then there's a couple of people he smiles at in the hallways, one or two who wouldn't mind him sitting with them during lunch, but those aren't friends. Those are just people who wouldn't completely overlook his death.
The point is, that Jungkook doesn't have any one he can practice with. Jimin is the only possibility, but from what Jungkook can tell he's on the student council and in the theatre club and is juggling being top of their class as well, so Jungkook doesn't think he'd have time for him. He doesn't even ask.
Instead, he goes alone, skulking by the courts until everyone is gone, and then digging out a ball and practicing until the janitor comes and chases him away. His mom asks him why he gets home so late, and Jungkook says he's playing basketball, and his mom is so overjoyed that he's making friends and hanging out that Jungkook doesn't have the heart to correct her.
Or maybe he doesn't want her to pity him for doing this alone. That's there too.
His throws are getting better, his dribbling less awkward. Sometimes he shoots and cheers for himself, and it's only when he hears his voice ringing out that he realizes how pathetic that is.
Today isn't the best of days. His shots are going in, but barely. Drills are messy and uncoordinated. He's too distracted, still thinking about that test that he bombed and his teacher's nasty expression, when a voice startles him from behind.
"Your posture is all wrong."
Jungkook drops the ball midway.
He's never seen the boy before. He isn't in the school uniform, dressed in shorts and a t shirt (unlike Jungkook who's sweating in his uniform and should really consider bringing an extra pair of clothes). He's skinny, pale, and overall doesn't look like he's good at sports at all.
The boy picks up the ball that's starting to roll away, standing next to Jungkook to demonstrate. "See?" he says. "When you toss, you push using your fingers, not your entire arm." He tosses, and the ball falls in cleanly.
"Oh," Jungkook says, still wondering who the hell he is.
"But regardless," the boy says, "this isn't the kind of sport you practice alone. You can be freaking perfect at free throws and it won't matter when the buffoons on the opposite team come and barrel you into the ground."
"Foul," Jungkook says, because surely it must be. He's ashamed to admit it, but he still doesn't understand all the rules of basketball. So much for trying so hard.
The boy doesn't comment. "Come on," he says, dribbling the ball a few times and tossing it to Jungkook. "I'll help you practice. I'm Yoongi, by the way."
Jungkook catches the ball awkwardly. "I'm Jungkook."
"Go on. Toss again."
Yoongi doesn't just know how to play basketball - he's a freaking expert. He also apparently has nothing to do in his life, because he turns up every day after their first meeting.
"Aren't you busy?" Jungkook asks, every single day. Yoongi says he's a third year, which is Namjoon's year, and Namjoon sure as hell doesn't have free time like this.
"Nah," Yoongi says. "Finished my homework years ago."
Jungkook makes a face at the exaggeration and doesn't question it. Of course, in addition to playing basketball like the devil and just being overall cool, Yoongi had to be a freaking genius as well.
He runs Jungkook ragged but barely breaks a sweat himself, shouting instructions that are often too tightly wound in his sarcasm for someone like Jungkook to tell the difference, like -
"Yes, run backwards when the line is about a foot away - "
"Oh, really?"
"No, you fool, I'm saying you're stupid."
"Ohhh."
So yes, they don't make the best of partners, but Jungkook isn't complaining. Won't complain. Yoongi is more incredible than all of the team regulars put together. He asks Yoongi over and over why he isn't on the team, because with a player like Yoongi their school might actually qualify for the regionals.
"I'm not allowed to join," Yoongi says, and doesn't elaborate on it. Jungkook doesn't press, because he's honestly a bit scared to, but he does ask Namjoon. Namjoon doesn't even know who Yoongi is - the sad facts of having too many students in a year - but he assures Jungkook that it couldn't have been anything too big or scandalous.
"If it was a big issue we'd all know who he was," Namjoon says. He doesn't have much time to talk, Jungkook has caught him between classes. "I'll tell you if I find out."
Jimin says something similar, and admits that while skinny pale guy who looks like a vampire certainly sounds familiar, he doesn't know names and might be talking about someone else.
That day, when he reaches the courts, Yoongi greets him with a ball to his head.
"Ow, what was that for?"
"Going behind my back," Yoongi scowls. "Now get up and start drills."
Jungkook gapes at him. Does he have eyes everywhere? Jungkook thought he'd been discreet about it; he'd asked Jimin in class and Namjoon in the corridor...
...with, like, the entire school there with them...
"I was almost right behind you," Yoongi says, deadpan. "You don't know how to be secretive, do you?"
"...sorry?"
Yoongi dribbles the ball by himself. "Drills," he repeats.
Sometimes the regulars play for longer than usual, and Jungkook doesn't have time to sneak in his own practice before the janitor arrives. On these days he sinks next to the fence, fitting his fingers through the wires, and stares openly as the regulars battle it out.
He doesn't particularly like basketball. Not any more than he likes other sports, at least. He actually finds tennis the most fascinating to watch, but tennis is so lonely. It's why he never tries playing. Why feel lonely playing a sport when you can feel just as lonely without?
The thing about the school basketball team, that makes it unlike all the other sports, is how much the regulars seem to like each other. The sort of easy camaraderie that only comes with the kind of gruelling practices and tough matches that they've been subjected to. To Jungkook it's always seemed like...an instant way to make friends. A sort of guaranteed kinship. Join the basketball team, and suddenly all his problems would be solved.
The problem was the joining. He's improved a lot, thanks to Yoongi, but he's nowhere close to good enough to be on the team. He can't compare to kids who've been doing this their whole lives.
He's surprised, today, when Yoongi comes and sits with him. He usually never turns up until all the regulars are gone, which Jungkook puts down to a paranoia of being seen. At this point, his favourite theory is either a) that Yoongi betrayed them all dramatically and left to join the mafia or b) the team betrayed him dramatically and left him with no choice but to join the mafia.
"You're here early, hyung."
Yoongi shrugs, leaning back to rest his weight on his palms. Jungkook has never caught him in his school uniform yet, he isn't sure what Yoongi does after class that warrants changing. Besides, you know, mafia stuff. "They won't see me back here," he says. "They don't often look away from their own faces."
"And if they do?"
"Well, then you'll be very entertained."
It's...remarkably easy to talk to Yoongi, considering that Jungkook has never experienced proper conversation in his life. While Jimin is sweet, he isn't usually around, and talking to Namjoon is usually a bit like getting life lessons from a wise old man. Yoongi is...different. Jungkook isn't scared he'll judge him because he knows he's always judging him, and that it doesn't change anything. Yoongi shouts at him, and calls him names sometimes, and sometimes looks like he doesn't even know how Jungkook exists, but at the end of the day he's content to sit with him. With him.
"This is a stupid plan," Yoongi says, but there's no bite in his voice. "There are so many better ways to make friends, Jungkook."
"Nothing else has worked, hyung." He tries to sound light hearted, but it comes out more hollow. "People don't...they don't like talking to me."
Yoongi is quiet for a moment. "You found me, didn't you?" he says, voice low. "People like us always find each other, kid. You just have to wait for it."
Does that mean we're friends? Jungkook wants to ask, absurdly, because of course they're friends, why else would Yoongi teach him every single day? He holds the question back, but there's a warm feeling in his chest. Like he's been noticed for the very first time.
He searches for Yoongi between classes sometimes, since he never has anything else to do. Yoongi refuses to tell him which class he's in, because he gets some sort of sick pleasure watching Jungkook run around campus, too stubborn to give up and too scared to actually ask his seniors about Yoongi. He wanders by the third year classrooms so often that Namjoon is starting to get suspicious of him, and he's probably covered every potential lunch spot on campus, but he never spots Yoongi.
Which is...completely unfair, because Yoongi always, invariably, spots him, and rubs it in his face at the end of the day.
"Fell down the stairs, didn't you," he snickers, on a particularly bad day. It hadn't been Jungkook's fault. He couldn't see where he was going behind all the books he had to carry.
"You could've helped me up if you'd been there," Jungkook grumbles.
"But I didn't need to, did I?" Yoongi says, half teasing, but his eyes are brighter than usual. And it's true, he didn't need to, because a friendly senior got to him first, and now Jungkook has two people he wants to stalk, if only because the friendly senior had the brightest smile in the world.
"That was Hoseok," Yoongi says, still looking like he wants to burst out laughing. "In case you were wondering."
Jungkook starts. "You know him?"
Yoongi's smile turns the smallest bit sadder. "Yeah," he says. "I do."
He wonders what that means. If they had a fight or something. But then Yoongi starts to tell him about Hoseok, about all the things they did together in middle school (run a lemonade stand, break into their own houses, and almost burn down the chemistry lab, for starters), and he sounds so wistful, so content.
"We don't talk anymore," Yoongi says at last, quiet in the darkness.
And Jungkook tries, hesitant, "Why not?"
Yoongi shrugs. He doesn't seem upset, exactly, just...tired. A quiet sort of longing. "We can't."
Jungkook doesn't have the heart to press. He reaches a hand out - to comfort, to fix something, he isn't quite sure. Yoongi snorts and throws an arm around his shoulders, pulling him to lean against him.
They sit like that for a while, behind the fence, where the basketball players never spot them, or really don't care.
The trouble starts when Jungkook realizes that Yoongi is going to graduate.
Yoongi doesn't care as much. "Who knows," he says dryly. "Maybe I'll fail and stay here forever." But Jungkook knows the words are empty - Yoongi is a freaking genius. Geniuses don't fail.
"Don't worry about it," Yoongi tries, when his eternal failure tactic doesn't work. "You'll find new friends, Kook-ah. What about that kid who hangs out with Jimin?"
But it's not new friends that he wants, it's what he has now. And it makes him a bit more desperate, outright running through campus to find him (which Yoongi laughs over later), dragging on basketball sessions for as long as possible, asking Yoongi to please meet him on weekends, come over to his house, something, somewhere.
Yoongi deals with it all with the same patience he uses to put up with Jungkook's basketball skills, but he draws the line at meeting off campus. "I'm not the sort of person you want to be seen with."
"How would you know," Jungkook snaps.
Yoongi doesn't get irritated. "Past experience," he says shortly. They both have a small staring contest, which is somewhat pointless, because Yoongi isn't going to give in no matter what. He's even more stubborn than Jungkook is.
"Fine," Jungkook says. "Fine."
"Don't cry."
"I'm not crying." And really, he isn't. He blinks a few times to make sure it stays that way. Why is he getting so emotional.
Yoongi sighs heavily. "Jungkook. Kid. I promise I'm not leaving you after graduation. It might not be like how it is now but I'll still be there. Okay?"
Jungkook nods. Blinks harder.
"Good." Yoongi shoves the ball at him. "Now get on with it."
After practice that night, Jungkook tries to follow him home. To find out just what Yoongi is hiding, where he goes, why no one should be seen with him and why he's so secretive about everything. Jungkook makes a big deal of waving goodbye and leaving the gates, but he skulks around the corner, waiting for Yoongi to go by.
Yoongi comes out, eventually, and Jungkook flattens himself against the wall, trying not to breathe. With luck, Yoongi won't turn the corner - he'll cross the street and be gone. Jungkook can follow him then.
Yoongi's footsteps, always so quiet, suddenly stop. Jungkook waits. Nothing happens.
Slowly, slowly, he inches towards the turning, and peeks around the wall, and Yoongi is already gone.
When Jungkook makes it to the basketball courts the next day, Yoongi is waiting for him.
"You tried to follow me yesterday," he says, low and angry.
Jungkook stands quietly, head hung low. Ashamed.
Yoongi doesn't scold him, which is somehow worse. He just stares at him, seething, hands shaking a bit from contained anger. Jungkook tries to say he's sorry, that he was just curious, that he never meant anything by it, but Yoongi won't hear it.
He walks away. Jungkook calls for him to wait, that he's sorry, for god's sake he's sorry. Yoongi doesn't stop.
He doesn't come back the next day. It's killing Jungkook.
Everyone notices that something is wrong. Meaning, Jimin notices that something is wrong. He offers him half of his candy bar and tells him to cheer up, the worst is yet to come, as some sort of joke, but it doesn't make Jungkook feel any better because it's true. Things only ever get worse for him. He was upset he'd lose Yoongi after graduation and chased him away well before it.
He doesn't come back the next day, either.
Jungkook doesn't even realise that he's pacing through the corridors, outside the third year classrooms, desperate to catch sight of him at least once - until he almost crashes into someone.
"Whoa," the person says, grabbing him by the shoulders. Jungkook's throat goes dry.
"H-Hoseok-ssi."
Hoseok brightens. "You know me?"
For week's together Jungkook had been hoping for this moment, to finally meet the guy with the smile again, but now that it's happened, all Jungkook can think about is that he was Yoongi's friend. The only person Jungkook knows who'll know about him.
He wants to say everything at once - who is he, where is he, is there something wrong with him, does he hate me - but before he gets a word out he catches sight of Yoongi himself, alone at the end of the corridor, holding a finger to his lips.
"Yoongi hyung," he says, in a mixture of awe and relief.
Hoseok's eyes widen. "What?"
Yoongi looks so sad, so done with his life as he gestures for Jungkook to follow him. Jungkook glances between him and Hoseok - who looks like Jungkook just pulled the floor out from under him, and back at Yoongi.
Yoongi disappears around the corner, and Jungkook stutters out an apology to Hoseok before making a mad dash after him. He expects Yoongi to actually disappear, to just be teasing him again, but he never goes completely out of sight. Always a few meters out of reach, always a bit faster than Jungkook, but still there. Jungkook chases him out of the building, behind the classrooms - and then finally Yoongi stops. Jungkook stops too.
Yoongi sinks against the wall, pulling his knees up comfortably. He pats the ground next to him for Jungkook to sit. Jungkook doesn't.
"I'm sorry," he says again.
Yoongi makes a face. "I forgot about it," he says dryly. "You forget it too." He pats the ground again. This time Jungkook joins him.
He has a class in about three minutes, but no part of him wants to leave. He'll skip all his classes if it means he can stay here. He'll never poke his nose into Yoongi's business again, he'll never say anything rude, he'll make a supreme effort to actually make sense of the mess that is basketball -
He falls asleep to Yoongi's fingers in his hair, and dreams about everything being constant, everything staying forever, and nothing ever leaving him.
Things go easier after that. Jungkook is still a bit desperate to stay on Yoongi's good side, but Yoongi is good at making him forget things. He drills him at practice, spends time with him after. Talks shit about everyone on the basketball team. And when everything is over they lie on the grass together, staring at the stars, while Jungkook points out constellations that he makes up on the spot and Yoongi pretends to see them, no matter how ridiculous they get.
It' s Namjoon who gets suspicious first. "I never walk you home anymore," he says, like that's something he used to do every day. It's happened, like, five times. In the entire year.
"I play basketball with Yoongi hyung," Jungkook says. "It takes a while."
Namjoon frowns. "Still don't know who he is. I feel like he's a bit...shady?"
He is shady, Namjoon is right about that. There's definitely something off about Yoongi. But if Namjoon thinks so, then his mom is going to think so (it's the problem with having neighbours, they like to talk), so he needs to show Namjoon that Yoongi is completely trustworthy as soon as possible.
"He's nice," he says, which doesn't sound convincing at all. Namjoon raises his eyebrows. "I mean. You could meet him, I guess? Then you'll see."
Namjoon considers it. "Okay. Basketball courts, right? I'll come by today."
He sticks to his word, and, to Jungkook's surprise, is waiting for him outside when the last bell rings. "You might have to wait a bit," Jungkook tells him on the way, nervous and on edge. "Sometimes he only turns up later, like, after the sun sets, so you might have to - oh. He's here."
Yoongi is sitting by the fence, staring absently at the empty courts. He looks up when Jungkook approaches, and then his eyes flicker to Namjoon. For a moment he just stares, motionless.
"Yoongi hyung," Jungkook starts, "This is Namjoon hyung."
Namjoon gives him a weird look. He looks where Yoongi is sitting, and then back at Jungkook, and then back to Yoongi. "...is this a joke?"
"Jungkook," Yoongi says quietly. He looks so dismayed. So tired.
He doesn't get why they're looking at each other like that. Or why they're looking at him like that. Like something's going horribly, horribly wrong, and Jungkook is the centre of it.
"I'm not amused," Namjoon says. "Like, really."
Yoongi stands up, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I'm sorry, kid."
"...what?"
"Is he not coming?" Namjoon asks. "Is he scared of me or something?"
Jungkook stares at him. "...hyung, this is Yoongi hyung."
Namjoon looks at him for a moment, really looks at him, and his disbelief starts to turn into worry. "Jungkook, there's no one there."
"I'm sorry," Yoongi says again, running his fingers through Jungkook's hair. Messing it up, like it's the last time. "But he's right."
He never sees Yoongi again.
He doesn't give up. Yoongi and Namjoon can cook up whatever load of waffle they want - Jungkook isn't going to believe it. He goes back to the courts every day, waiting. He waits until Namjoon comes by and tries to drag him home. When he screams and kicks up a fuss, Jimin comes instead, tossing aside all of his student council duties, and lets Jungkook cry into his shoulder.
He searches for Yoongi between classes. He catches glimpses of him everywhere, telling him to follow him, to keep quiet, to run faster. He stalks the corridors near the third year classrooms for so long that Hoseok finds him again and asks him what's wrong, and Jungkook tells him that it's Yoongi, Yoongi who's wrong, who's missing, and where the hell did he go, did Jungkook annoy him? Is he mad?
It's Hoseok who tells him that Yoongi is gone. Dead. For three years now.
After that everything quiets down. He doesn't feel anything. He still goes to the courts, still plays by himself, still stares at the stars at night and points out constellations, because he knows Yoongi is still there. Maybe he can't see him, but he's still there. For sure.
I promise I'm not leaving you, he'd said.
It's one day, when he's hanging out by the courts late at night, almost asleep, that he hears the voice again.
"You shouldn't sleep here."
He jerks awake in an instant. "Hyung?"
He looks around frantically, but Yoongi isn't there. Isn't anywhere.
"You can't see me," his voice is low, just as it always is. "It's a miracle you heard this."
"Where are you?"
"Right in front of you, kid."
Jungkook reaches forward, hesitant, hand shaking. His fingers grasp at nothing.
"Yeah, that's me."
Jungkook keeps his hand in place, trembling all over.
"I didn't want you to find out," Yoongi's voice says. "That's why I was so secretive. The moment you realized I wasn't there you wouldn't be able to see me anymore."
"But I know you're there," Jungkook's voice cracks. He's crying, but he doesn't wipe his tears, doesn't dare move his hand from where Yoongi is. "I know, hyung."
"Yeah, but you also know I shouldn't be," Yoongi says, a bit of humour in his voice. It makes Jungkook cry harder. "Shit, don't cry. I'm not going anywhere."
"Why can't I see you?"
Yoongi is quiet. Jungkook thinks it's a pause in the conversation, that Yoongi is thinking, but a minute passes and he still hasn't spoken.
"Hyung?"
There's no response.
I'm not going anywhere, he'd said.
I promise I'm not leaving you.
It hurts, but Jungkook doesn't move his hand. Doesn't loosen his grasp on what seems like just air. He sits there for what might be hours, until his arm is sore, and Jimin comes to drag him away because it's late, Jungkookie, you can't be here.
But he isn't alone.