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In his dreams he’d still see a blurred figure that looked too much like Yoongi. He was far away and unreachable just like how it was for their entire relationship emotionally. He never thought farther than “oh I really like him and how should I accommodate myself to our current situation now?” He was never one to speak up nor was he ever one to be in a relationship like this. It was originally just a stupid crush, but to his surprise his crush returned his feelings. Perhaps he has rushed this relationship too fast.
Perfect relationships don’t exist. In Jungkook's case all he wanted was a perfect relationship. It wasn’t possible. when he became Yoongi’s boyfriend, it was crystal clear to him that Yoongi had another side that he would never show to anyone, besides Jungkook. And he accepted it, not knowing how much it would come back to haunt him in the end. He thinks he could handle it but he was only barely seventeen years of age. For someone like Yoongi who’s already in college preparing to form contracts with big music companies, Jungkook felt left behind.
He put his all in his schoolwork, and does all he can to earn extra cash. and yoongi does the same. they were in an indefinite loop. a series of events where everything starts, ends, and repeats.
But now those days are over.
After a few days, the warm winter seemed to have gone a bit slumpy. The soft winter rain pitter-pattered against the dirty windows, drowning jungkook into a deep slumber. the soft linen encased his entire body, with his dark mop of head peeking out of the covers. Little gusts of warmth shoot out from the tiny heater. It was unusually cold this winter, plus Yoongi was probably working his life away in the studio, which makes this cold night even harder to bear. Not that he was thinking about him again, but he couldn’t help it.
Jungkook clocked out from the cafe a few hours ago, somewhat excited to finally be spending time with his boyfriend again, only to be reminded that he didn’t have one.
In the rush hours of the morning, Jungkook makes a small cup of spicy ramen, enjoying it twice as less now because he usually spends his morning time with him. Jungkook's apartment became all kinds of distorted shapes and figures after Yoongi had everything moved to his new apartment, allowing Jungkook to take over the apartment lease and paid all the extra fees during the process. The apartment was hollow, with a few miscellaneous kitchen tools and a simple bedroom and living room set, it barely looked like he had lived here for three years.
After the morning classes, Jungkook meets up with old high school acquaintances and gets to know them. Jungkook makes small talk with a couple of them. He easily accommodates his life with his new friends, and his friends do the same. It has been a long time since Jungkook has felt this sense of fullness in his heart. All he did was accommodate himself to yoongi and yoongi does the same back. But it wasn’t the same.
This new friends thing - yeah Jungkook has experienced it. But since yoongi came in he did not have the chance - or rather, he didn’t want to give himself the chance. This friends system was more than an equal dull give and take. This system overflows and undergives. It gets unbalanced but fixed itself when needed, much like how the universe balances itself on the good and bad. Jungkook felt no pressure nor felt the guilty sense of needing permission to give or accept.
There was much more to the world than just mourning about how much you missed the three years you wasted. Jungkook resumes his old daily routines at the gym, resumes the daily little sketches and doodles he’d make near the lake after taking a small little pit stop with his dog.
Perhaps if one of them were brave enough to speak up and place the blame, he may still have been sharing this empty space with Yoongi. He had no one to blame for this mess he had contributed in creating, for the only ones at fault were he and Yoongi.
Even if he felt a dull sense of regret, even if it may have taken them so long to bring the subject up, these days were over now. He’s on his own, he pays his own bills, he continues trudging his way up to the art world and graduates, he makes ramen for himself and plays with his little bichon for hours.
He does stupid things with his friends. after the stupid hour long graduation full of singing choirs and boredom, he’d hit his graduating friends up and meets at his apartment, and introduces his dog and his dog-sitter. He celebrates holidays with his friends and for himself. He does what he wants to do. He’s on his own, and he’s content and full.
(Often, he wonders what yoongi’s doing.)
/
At first Jungkook became immensely stressed from the mountain pile of work to study for his finals next week. He had almost no time to spend with Yoongi, unless they were being intimate under the bed sheets - no they haven’t shared a single good kiss or peck. A casual good morning or good night lip on lip would be nice. On the other hand, Yoongi was also very busy. His boss has been pressing him to work overtime to prepare for an idol group’s comeback; very inconsiderate of his employee’s sleeping life, Jungkook always thought.
At first , Jungkook figures yoongi might have had too much coffee that week, because the moment he came back he immediately knocked himself out onto the sofa, and stayed glued on the leather upholstery until the next afternoon.
It was a few months later when both of them came home at the same time, snapped at the same time for different reasons, work and school. And everything spiraled into an uncommunicative mess.
“Maybe if we met during college and not before, maybe we could’ve figured something out. Now everything’s so confusing. We never know what we want for each other. We kept thinking that yeah, eventually we’ll find out. but - it’s been what? Three years. And we still don’t know what to expect from each other. I - can’t - do this to you anymore.” Jungkook hears Yoongi’s voice crack as he spat out those words, regretfully.
Jungkook's throat felt parched, but it wasn't the thirsty for water type. After so long, he had long wanted Yoongi to just call all of this off, call this whole relationship off, to end both of their suffering, to his own selfishness. But Yoongi never does, and Jungkook concludes it was better if he doesn’t either. Both of them were too much of a coward to mention anything close to separating. The fact that they have done everything together for years in ways that formed a strict dependence on each other yet somewhere along the road, both of them started branching out and walked on two separate paths close to each other, but always parallel.
They both know each other so intimately well, yet both never found the strength to reach out for each other. It was like an awkward high school relationship formed too fast. Except this time they’re adults now, stupid ones.
The atmosphere in the apartment became such a dense and tangible force jungkook swears he could gather it into a ball and slice in half for dinner.
Jungkook sat on the bed perfectly still, slouching forwards with his hands clapped together for his head to rest on. Little droplets of water were still visible from his strands of hair. The droplets run excruciatingly slow, just like how this conversation is going on for the two.
After wetting his lips a few times (though his tongue was just as dry as his lip’s), jungkook finally raised his head.
“Yep.” Jungkook started.
“Yeah?”
“All we do is let each other down. Someones, we get what we want.” Jungkook pauses and clears his throat. As if his throat wasn’t already so dry, he clears it again. it hurted a little bit this time. “Too much downs, yeah?” Jungkook let out a finishing sigh as he stood up from the plain mattress.
Jungkook trots over to the kitchen and came back with two cups of hot milk and a mini jar of honey. The sweet honey was a gift from Yoongi back then, but he never opened it.
“It’s been a long day, hyung. We ought to really slow down.”
“You don’t call me yoongi anymore. not ever since we started fighting.” Yoongi mutters as he sat down, accepting the spoonful of honey from the boy.
“‘s weird.” Jungkook caps the new jar of honey shut, and stirs his milk dutifully, as if he has to avoid eye contact with yoongi somehow.
“How weird?”
“We always time things wrong. i clock out of work early for you and you had to stay behind. You clock out early but I have exams. And….. we both—what happened ?” He squeaks.
Jungkook makes little swirls in the cup of milk with his spoon tainted with the faint smell of honey still lingering, grasping onto the metal utensil for its life. The only sound audible was the consistent little drops of tap water falling out of the sink, creating a minimalist background audio easing out their yet another awkward encounter.
It wasn’t like this: not knowing what to say because they kept questioning if it was alright to question each other, to console each other. At first they were open to each other, they shared genuine laughs, cries, and other complex feelings with each other. somehow over time, the colors they once had mixed together became grey.
“I can't even get mad at you. but it just feels so dull inside - ” Jungkook placed his palms on his chest, and gripped the soft cotton shirt painfully. “ - Whether you’re here or not. It’s blank but murky at the same time and I despise it.”
Jungkook stares at Yoongi, who’s currently covering his face with his large hands, possibly regrouping his thoughts. He then rests his hands on the hot glass cup. Yoongi started, “The feeling’s mutual.”
Yoongi chucks out a sarcastic self deprecating laugh. “None of this would have happened if these stupid awkward moments were called out. none of this would have happened if one of us - ”
“ - Were brave enough to speak up about it, I know.” Jungkook finishes the sentence for him and sips the milk with honey. He knows Yoongi more than anyone else, yet they didn’t work. The cup of milk calms him down a little.
“This is it, huh?” Jungkook announced.
“Over?” Yoongi presses on.
“We wasted so many years. Repeating this same thing over and over again. With the repeating up and down events we had, nothing broke us out of this loop. until - we both came home, both stressed and wanting to strangle something,” Jungkook lets out a wry smile and stares at the milk pitifully.
“I can't even get mad at you.” Jungkook says again, laughing at the situation they’re in. Yoongi responds with a tired smile, his fingers unknowingly fiddling with the cup’s handle. They exchanged a few final words before finishing the milk with honey, and washed it all down with a night of sleep, waiting for tomorrow.
/
The morning of the month after turned relatively warm unlike the days before, like it was formally welcoming a new beginning and an end.
“Are you sure you didn’t forget anything? did you remember to - ”
“You know you’re acting an awful lot like my boyfriend.” Yoongi nudges Jungkook as they walked down the newly polished cobblestone stairs.
“As if you weren’t doing that to me earlier,” Jungkook teases lightheartedly. “And no, I just didn’t want anything left of you in my apartment now.” Jungkook says without hesitation as he helps move a few boxes to the truck. Yoongi smiles.
They rechecked the apartment for any items that may have been forgotten, and yoongi starts the truck. The wheels begin to move and tiny gravels and rocks stir loudly from being crunched under the heavy weight.
“Yoongi?” Jungkook says one last time.
“Yeah?” Yoongi straps on the seat belt and adjusts the car seat. “What’s up, Jungkook?”
“Just answer me truthfully. Have you ever pitied me?”
Yoongi replies silently with a sincere smile and a small shake of his head, and waved a goodbye to Jungkook from the rearview mirror one last time on the fast accelerating truck.