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the sea is gray, vast, beckoning. it calls and jeongguk goes, pulled by the invisible force that draws waves to the shore.
he can hear the rest of them—his hyungs, laughing, talking—mutedly, as he steps onto the bridge, old wood creaking beneath his feet. steady, unsteady, trusts it to hold. steady, unsteady.
waves crash against rocky shore and jeongguk finds himself perched on the edge of the great wooden bridge. he swings his feet into empty air, counts—one, two, three, one.
one—
he feels more than sees yoongi sit next to him, a slow, silent presence. jeongguk’s always liked that about him.
(once, jeongguk had whispered to him, you’re my favorite hyung. once, yoongi had smiled, such a quiet, elusive thing, better keep that between you and me).
“the others are over there,” his voice has gotten deeper, throatier. from smoking, probably, even though jeongguk scolds him for it, “wanna go join them?”
jeongguk shrugs.
yoongi’s wearing a black jacket. it looks new but it probably isn’t. under, and sloppily buttoned, the blue-yellow flannel that yoongi’s loved to death, and then a little bit more. he plays with the ragged edges, tugs loosely at the hem—undone.
the sea is still gray and vast and it still beckons. jeongguk looks at the churning mass of it and thinks, a long way down.
yoongi’s arm comes up, up, up, onto jeongguk’s shoulder. hesitates, a second, and stays. when yoongi’s not looking, jeongguk sneaks a glance at him—mint hair and pale skin and red flannel.
(the curl of his eyelashes / the mole on his right cheek / the quiet, unassuming set of his shoulders / the nervous nails stubs that poke out from beneath his sleeves / the star-shaped scar between knuckles / a burn, he knows / he knows too much / he knows too little.)
yoongi looks back. smiles, just slight, just barely. jeongguk sees. looks away. smiles.
(just slight, just barely.)
and if yoongi sees, jeongguk doesn’t notice. to himself, he thinks, a long way down.
---
late afternoon and a hideaway classroom. dust motes and watery sunlight. in the corner of the room, a brown piano.
yoongi’s draped over a table, two desks pushed together. he fits, barely, ratty sneakers tipping off the edge. he’s wearing a red flannel today, red, but there are so many patches that jeongguk thinks he’s wearing the whole rainbow. yoongi’s eyes are closed but his breathing is light and jeongguk knows he’s still awake when he calls his name.
“hmm?” the reply is delayed.
“need help with my homework,” jeongguk twirls his pen.
yoongi cracks an eye open, “don'tcha think you should be asking joon?”
jeongguk shrugs.
“alright,” yoongi closes his eyes again, “what is it?”
“just one question,” jeongguk studies yoongi’s face, searches for a reaction, “what are your dreams?”
yoongi’s mouth twitches. he doesn’t say anything for a while and jeongguk thinks he’s searching for some sort of smartass response, the way he does when he’s asked a question he doesn’t know the answer to.
“don’t have one,” yoongi mumbles, then, “don’t have any. i’ll just go where the world takes me.”
“oh.” jeongguk says after a moment, “that—that makes sense. i guess.”
yoongi gets up, stretches, “what—this for a paper or something?”
“yeah. ’m working on it right now,” looks down at his math homework, “thanks, hyung.”
yoongi nods. takes a seat on the piano bench. sometime since jeongguk got here, he started playing again.
lifts his hands—
—pauses.
“y’know, kid,” pauses. chews on his words, “ain’t nothing wrong with not having a dream.”
jeongguk looks down. sitting on a desk, his sneakers dangle just above the floor—concrete—and he kicks his feet, tries to touch the ground, “yeah,” he says.
yoongi nods without turning back. lifts his hands to play, and this time he doesn’t pause.
it’s not like jeongguk meant to lie. he was really going to ask yoongi for math help, but then that question had slipped out instead—what are your dreams?
it’s alright not to have a dream, yoongi had said, and jeongguk had heard him say it before, too, but jeongguk wants one. he wants to talk about the future the way his classmates do, light, hopeful, like it’s waiting for them. some old friend they’ve never once met.
for jeongguk, the future is a stranger, ash-palmed and dead-eyed—what is it that you’re living for, it asks, long fingers carding through his hair, what is it that you’re running towards?
and jeongguk, breath stolen from his lungs, will reply to empty air, i don’t know. i don’t know.
so he hadn’t meant to lie. but yoongi—don’t have one—wasn’t that a lie too? seeing him at the piano, playing like the world could end right then and there but what did it matter—wasn’t that a lie?
everybody lies, yoongi had said once, everyone, everyone, everyone.
(“have you ever lied, hyung?”
“what do you think?” a laugh.
then, “have you ever lied to me?”
a pause. too long. too short.
barely, “what do you think?”
maybe: what do you want to believe?)
——
there’s a fire pit underneath the highway.
jeongguk doesn’t think anyone else comes out here. it’s a barren place, a long stretch of stone that serves no purpose besides that of being lonely.
there’s a fire pit underneath the highway.
jeongguk doesn’t know who found it first. he asked, once, and his hyungs had laughed, joked around the answer until they forgot the question. jeongguk still remembered but he didn’t ask again.
there’s a fire pit underneath the highway.
jeongguk doesn’t really know why he and his hyungs hang out around here, lounging on secondhand sofas picked up off of street corners. it’s dark and smells like petrol and echoes, echoes, echoes. maybe, though, it’s for all the reasons that they hate it that they love it so much.
there’s a fire pit underneath the highway.
“so,” jimin is drunk, “summer break, where’re we goin?”
jeongguk tries to respond, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth and he can’t dredge up the energy to say anything.
“sea,” namjoon mumbles, half asleep, “let’s go to—to the sea.”
jimin and namjoon are sharing a sofa, stretched out in opposite directions. it’s almost comical, the way jimin’s feet barely reach namjoon’s chest, where namjoon’s ankles are crossed past his head.
jimin’s hair is orange and namjoon’s is pink. lying together, they look like a sunset.
“we’ve been,” taehyung is perhaps the only one of them who isn’t drunk. he doesn’t drink, never, “been there. lots.”
“yeah,” yoongi agrees, and jeongguk can feel his chest rumble when he speaks, “but why not again?”
yoongi and jeongguk are sitting on a couple of tossed car seats—hoseok’s find, as he likes to flaunt. they’re leaning on each other, jeongguk half-pulled into yoongi’s chest. yoongi’s arm is swung loosely around his shoulder and jeongguk thinks he could get used to the warmth.
“don’t like it there,” taehyung says. he has a bruise on his cheek—faded, yellow. when he raises his arm to scratch at his left ear, jeongguk sees another one beneath the cuff of his sleeve. purple. new, “‘ts cold there.”
even half-conscious, they all know it’s an excuse. jeongguk doesn’t know what taehyung has against the sea, but the thing is that he doesn’t have to know. none of them have to know.
jeongguk gets curious sometimes. why taehyung’s skin is never without scars and why hoseok is always taking medication for diseases jeongguk has never heard of. why jimin is always sick and why namjoon flinches at the sound of police sirens and why seokjin always carries a camera around.
really, the person he’s closest with is yoongi, and even then, he understands so little that it scares him a little. scares him that there is so, so much that he doesn’t know, maybe will never know as long as yoongi keeps quiet.
“let’s go somewhere else, then,” seokjin suggests cheerfully. doesn’t linger. doesn’t ask because they never fucking ask.
moves on.
---
jeongguk used to sleep on street corners and doorsteps. at bus stops and on park benches. everywhere and anywhere he could until someone would chase him off.
this is the life of a runaway.
jeongguk doesn’t know why he ran away from home. some people do it because they have something to chase, but jeongguk, jeongguk has nothing. wonders why he’s running, running, running, after something he can’t even see.
he doesn’t remember how or when he met yoongi. he just remembers that yoongi took a liking to him, and after three weeks, jeongguk never sleeps on the sidewalk again.
he remembers this much—that yoongi doesn’t ask. he doesn’t ask how jeongguk ends up here, or why he chose to end up here. in turn, jeongguk doesn’t ask him why he has a piano no one plays and why he chooses to smoke his life away when he doesn’t even like the taste of cigarettes.
it’s destructive. it must be. but neither of them make a move to change it, because the only thing more terrifying than all this is change.
(jeongguk still feels like he’s running).
---
jeongguk has only seen yoongi truly happy a handful of times.
the first time he remembers to count, they’re at the fire pit. underneath the highway. yoongi is wearing a green flannel, loose around his waist. he’s playing with his lighter, trying to light a spark for the cigarettes jeongguk made him leave at home.
sometimes, jeongguk will look at yoongi and see that he’s staring at the fire. it’s always big, bright, because yoongi’s too good at starting them. he stares at the fire like there is something to see there. jeongguk looks—sees warmth, light, liveliness.
wonders what yoongi sees.
there is nothing much special about that day. nothing’s changed from the last time they’d been there, or the time before that, but yoongi is happier today. laughs louder. smiles wider. jeongguk wonders what it is.
this is a while ago.
“you look happier today, hyung.” he says softly, just loud enough for yoongi to hear. they have the sofa today. over the course of the night, yoongi’s tipped into jeongguk’s lap, sleepy, soft-edged. he’s drunk, but not too much.
“am i?” he sounds amused.
“a little,” jeongguk doesn’t know why he’s whispering, “what’s different?”
yoongi shrugs. closes his eyes. thinking.
“nothing,” smiles, “everything’s the same.”
he’s right. nothing’s changed. nothing’s different. yoongi is yoongi and jeongguk is jeongguk and everything’s the same.
just the way yoongi likes it.
---
jeongguk’s chest is burning.
it’s his fault, sort of.
he hadn’t meant to piss off those street thugs, but what was he supposed to do while they tormented that poor mother and her son?
seoul is a cruel place, and jeongguk should be used to this.
but he’s not, he’s not, never will be, and now there are three guys in black chasing him down the street.
jeongguk’s chest is burning.
he knows the streets well, at least. knows which alleys have dead ends and which streets have enough distractions to keep his pursuers at a safe distance.
jeongguk is a good runner, but even good runners trip. mess up.
his chest is burning and his knees are skinned and jeongguk, jeongguk can’t run anymore. he’s stuck in an alley, empty except for one closed store, and fuck, he’s screwed.
he closes his eyes, tries to blend into the mess of garbage pails and plastic bottles. knows it’s a lost cause.
“aw, there’s the little fucker.”
jeongguk’s eyelids flutter at the sound, but he doesn’t really feel like opening his eyes.
“fuckin’ tripped and scraped your knees, did you?”
jeongguk’s tired.
“tough luck, brat. but if you get on those fuckin’ knees and beg, maybe we’ll let you off easy.”
tired.
“hey! open your eyes, shithead.”
too tired.
“open your eyes, you—”
jeongguk hears a thud. oddly, he doesn’t feel any pain.
opens his eyes.
he’s never seen yoongi fight before. didn’t know he could fight, to be completely honest.
for all his thin, frail appearance, yoongi can throw one hell of a punch. jeongguk’s thankful that he’s not on the receiving end of it.
the nameless street thugs get a few hits in on yoongi, but for all their bravado, the three of them can barely hold a candle to him. yoongi lets them go, watches them scurry out of the alley before turning to jeongguk.
“i don’t want to know,” he says, and helps him up. yoongi’s hand is cold and there’s blood on his knuckles. his skin is still pale.
jeongguk doesn’t want to know either, so he nods.
yoongi lights a cigarette. jeongguk’s chest burns.
they walk home in silence.
---
jeongguk spends the last day of school in the hideaway classroom with yoongi.
he has no homework with him this time. yoongi never does his homework.
the piano is still there. it looks older, somehow. jeongguk wonders if anyone’s been here since the last time he and yoongi came.
jeongguk lies across the desks, the way yoongi does sometimes. he needs three.
“you’re getting taller,” yoongi tells him.
jeongguk shrugs.
yoongi lights a cigarette. today, jeongguk says nothing.
“jeongguk,” his voice is rough, ashy, “don’t ever smoke.”
“i know, hyung.”
“mmm.” yoongi throws his cigarette on the floor, stubs it out. it’s only half-smoked, not burnt to the filter, the way yoongi likes it.
he’s wearing a blue flannel today. his skin is still pale.
yoongi sits at the piano bench. sits, and then moves to the left. looks back at jeongguk. an invitation.
they sit close, shoulders touching. yoongi had offered to teach jeongguk how to play, once, but jeongguk’s hands were too big and clumsy and it had been hopeless from the beginning.
they try again anyway.
jeongguk’s hands are still clumsy and yoongi’s are still agile. jeongguk’s skin, summer-sun golden, and yoongi’s, winter-moon pale. the ivory-ebony of piano keys—a contrast. vivid. terrifying.
yoongi sees it, jeongguk knows.
but—
“jeongguk,” don’t ever smoke, “don’t ever—ever,” shakes his head, “don’t ever be like me.”
jeongguk wants to ask him what exactly this means. why he says this. why in this moment. why in this place. why here, why now, why ever.
he doesn’t know why, a lot of the time. especially when it comes to yoongi.
maybe it’s because he never asks. none of them ever fucking ask.
so jeongguk says nothing and yoongi says nothing. they keep playing.
the music goes on. keeps flowing, on and again, over and into itself. a river, endless, endless.
(jeongguk thinks he could drown in it).
---
“let’s go on a trip,” namjoon says.
the break has started, but the weather is still far too agreeable to match the infuriating heat that really marks the beginning of summer.
“where?” jeongguk hears the lollipop candy clack on yoongi’s teeth when he speaks, “it’s gonna get too fucking hot to leave the house soon.”
“that’s why we should go now,” jimin reasons, “any ideas?”
he looks around. jeongguk shrugs.
“the sea is always cool,” taehyung says.
jeongguk doesn’t realize he’s staring until yoongi flicks him on the shoulder.
---
namjoon owns a black pickup truck. he’s poor as fuck and works at a gas station. no one asks where he got it from.
the seven of them fit neatly. namjoon, hoseok, yoongi and seokjin sit up front—the privilege of old age, seokjin calls it. jeongguk doesn’t mind—the wind is nice back here, offers a sort or freedom he’s never really felt before.
seokjin drives. none of them know where they’re going. it’s the most fun jeongguk’s had in a long time.
sometimes yoongi will look back, through the little car window. he’ll smile, like seokjin told a ridiculously corny joke or namjoon did something stupid, and even though jeongguk doesn’t know what it is, he’ll smile too. it’s a pocket of happiness, wordless, but jeongguk will take whatever yoongi is willing to share.
every time yoongi turns around, jeongguk’s chest burns. a good burn, feels less like cigarette smoke and more like hot chocolate. jeongguk wonders what it means.
---
the first day is for letting loose. fucking around, making fools out of themselves, anything that wipes the last traces of school from their skin.
seokjin stops the truck by the side of the road and they scramble out. every second is summer, not to be wasted, let slip between hands that can hold the skies.
the forest is deep, lush, green. jeongguk stands there for a moment, feels sunlight on his skin, salt in the breeze, smiles. a pocket of happiness.
taehyung runs ahead, dirty bomber flashing between trees, tripping over logs. he runs, runs, runs, doesn’t turn back. if jeongguk squints hard enough, he’ll disappear, just another speck of green in the woods that go on a distance further than neverending.
there’s a clearing, small but there. a pit, concrete, overgrown. rectangular, like a swimming pool, only too shallow and too large. maybe not like a swimming pool.
it’s half painted over and faded, blue that starts and stops and starts. graffiti lines the short walls, smudged over—weeds grow between cracks in concrete, and jeongguk likes to think that they’re the first people to come here in a long time. likes to think that this place—whatever, wherever it is—is happy to see them.
there’s a mattress in the middle of it, and taehyung lies there, on his back, face to the sun. he’s looking at his hands.
there’s a silver ring on his index finger. jeongguk doesn’t remember it.
“hey,” namjoon, running to him, pulling him up, “get off the mattress, assmonkey.”
taehyung wrinkles his nose at the term, because namjoon’s made it his job to find the most creative ways of saying ‘dumbass’, but he gets up, brushes himself off. he still gets shoved by jimin, (“we’re sharing the car, asshole, i don’t give a fuck if you get fleas, but you’re not dragging me down with you.”). playful, as people of the same age tend to be.
and there’s seokjin, with his camera. jimin, swinging sticks like they’re swords, like they could be. hoseok, dancing, not alone for the first time in too long. namjoon, laughing, amused, as taehyung traces him over, red, in spray paint—don’t move!
and yoongi, jeongguk pushes him down the length of the not-swimming-pool in a trolley—abandoned, like most things. yoongi’s light, and as jeongguk runs him down, feels every bump and fissure beneath his boots, he wonders what it’s like to fly.
yoongi’s laughing, a bright sound that jeongguk promises himself not to forget. they’re getting close to the end now, and jeongguk’s running fast, faster before he has to slow down. his heart beats butterfly wings against his chest, and yoongi turns, looks at him—
(the car window—remember it)
—smiles. a pocket of happiness.
jeongguk smiles back / slows / heart thrumming rain against ribcage / feels something bloom.
---
jeongguk’s favorite place in the world, he decides, is in the middle of nowhere.
it’s an umbrella term, he supposes, for all this, the lonely and the forgotten, the barren and abandoned. there’s a level of comfort, here, in a place he stands at eye-level with, different than seoul whose scenery never stops reaching, reaching reaching for higher, higher, higher when it’s all jeongguk can do to just hold on.
ten o’clock and the sun’s just set and this is why he loves summer. yoongi makes a fire, more for light than warmth, more out of obligation than stipulation.
they’d been lucky enough to find an abandoned parking lot, empty except for the building that reminds jeongguk of the portable classrooms he used to fall asleep in during afternoon classes. it’s small, squat, metal walls dilapidated with rust that’s collected over indifference. jeongguk wonders if anyone’s ever been in there. where they’ve gone.
hoseok, as usual, is the one who finds the good stuff. a couple of used sofas, shoved behind the back of the portable. they’re worn to death, scratched and faded, and jeongguk figures it’s no better than taehyung lying on that mattress a couple of hours ago, but with exhaustion comes desperation comes laxity and they pile over the things.
seokjin’s showing hoseok the photos he’s taken, polaroids that he clutches like 50 000 won bills. hoseok listens, head propped up against his hand. sleepy. smiling.
jimin and namjoon share drinks, passing between them 99 cent soda and drugstore beer, which really, they shouldn’t be drinking this close to the fire. flammable, something in jeongguk’s sleep-dulled mind reminds him, fire.
taehyung sits alone. he’s still looking at his hands.
yoongi and jeongguk share a sofa, of course they do. it’s brown and ugly and just about swallows them up. jeongguk can’t find a single thing wrong with it.
jeongguk’s splayed sideways across the couch, head half-in yoongi’s lap. he’s drifting, between sleep and consciousness, today and tomorrow and yesterday.
yoongi plays with his lighter. flicks—on, off, flame, gone.
he’s staring at the fire with glassy eyes. thinking. about what, jeongguk won’t ask. can’t ask.
on, off, flame, gone.
on, off. spark. stays. stays.
jeongguk leans over his lap. blows it out.
---
dawn, hazy. jeongguk shouldn’t be awake.
but the spot next to him is empty and yoongi is missing, and even though summer mornings feel the coldest, jeongguk gets up, throwing his frayed blanket back onto the ugly brown couch.
everyone else is asleep, too. jeongguk tugs hoseok’s blanket back over his shoulder, where it’s slipped, and whispers to no one, i’ll be back soon.
yoongi’s not too hard to find. jeongguk might not know him, exactly, but he knows him, the parts of him that slip out without his assent. the front door of the portable-classroom-thing is also open, which offers a clue.
yoongi’s sitting inside. and—jeongguk realizes, as he steps inside, it’s really not a classroom after all.
it’s a house.
a kitchen, sitting small in the corner. a sitting area, dusted with throw pillows and hand-knitted rugs. bookshelves. photos, on the walls, above the mantle. a table for two.
and yet it’s empty, and jeongguk wonders if this is what it’s like to be a ghost town.
yoongi’s sitting on a rug, legs half-crossed. he looks tired.
“hyung.”
turns his head. beckons, come here.
(jeongguk goes. with the invisible force that pulls waves to shore, he goes).
“‘gguk,” voice hazy. dawn. jeongguk shouldn’t be awake, “you’re here.”
“yeah,” jeongguk sits down, and yoongi slumps over him, head tucked in the crook of his neck. jeongguk swallows, “everything okay, hyung?”
“ah. i’m tired.”
“didn’t sleep?”
“couldn’t.”
jeongguk almost bites his tongue, almost, but it’s early, and with the haze of dawn comes forgetfulness, and he opens his mouth, asks, “why?”
yoongi looks up, “was thinking.”
jeongguk forgets, “about what?”
yoongi shrugs. jeongguk thinks he’s not going to answer, but he does, “about a lotta things. like me. and you.” closes his eyes, “and you.”
“and me?” an question and an answer, comes out slow, dumb.
yoongi opens his eyes and jeongguk can’t breathe. black holes, he thinks, wonders if they could be red. blue. purple. wonders if they could be things they are and aren’t.
“yeah,” closer, now, more than ever before. a long way down—
—and jeongguk thinks he might jump.
leans in closer, pretty, pretty, pretty.
closer, closer, and jeongguk can hear his heartbeat again, loud, loud, loud in his chest.
there’s a fire pit underneath the highway.
“you’re my favorite hyung,” jeongguk whispers, in the gap before their lips meet, “you—you know that?”
yoongi stares back, ash and fire and things they’re too afraid to name, “yeah,” he breathes, and closes it.
he tastes like an inferno.
---
this sea is different than the gray waters that jeongguk knows.
it’s golden sand, stretching on for miles on end. white foam cresting over green-blue waves. something further from lonely and closer to dreamlike.
and still, jeongguk’s eyes keep floating to the loneliest thing here.
yoongi’s wearing that blue-yellow flannel again, looped around his waist. he’s wearing suspenders, which jeongguk had justly teased him for, and despite his exhaustion a couple hours ago, he looks a bright thing under the summer sun.
the wind is fierce in the back, puffing up the sleeves of jeongguk’s t-shirt and blowing his hair every which way. jimin whoops, running a hand through his own hair and only exacerbating the absolute bird’s nest of it.
as soon as the car is parked, they’re hurtling themselves off of it, sneakers meeting sand meeting sea. car doors fly open and stay open, because no one has time to hang back when freedom’s finally just across the corner.
the water is cold and wet, and rivers seep between his toes like half-melted ice. jeongguk only walks as far in as his ankles, because he doesn’t want to be walking around half-soaked and asking for hypothermia, but hoseok and taehyung trudge in up to their stomachs in some ridiculous show of pride before seokjin yells at them to come back.
seokjin films them with his shitty iphone camera, videos that they’ll probably look back on years from now and scoff at fondly. jimin takes over when namjoon challenges seokjin to a race (and loses) and yoongi just floats between things. he’s like a ghost, almost, a pale thing slipping between smiles and tripping into laughter. he’s here, in this frame, and gone in the next, and jeongguk gives up on trying to pin him down.
he sits with hoseok and taehyung, perched on the back of the truck as they wait for their clothes to sun-dry. there’s a sort of entertainment to watching the sun slide between clouds, cheering when it comes out and groaning when it goes back into hiding.
when the sun comes out for the fifth time, it catches the silver of taehyung’s ring, and in the levity of the moment, jeongguk asks to see it. the ring taehyung hasn’t taken off since they first clambered into the stolen truck some few days ago.
against all odds, taehyung slips it off his finger. hands it to him.
it’s intricate, a silver band carved with patterns that curl around and around, a thousand times over. when jeongguk runs his fingers across it, they feel like scales. there’s rust buried in the ridges of it, engraved deep enough that they become part of the ring itself.
“s’it old?” he asks, biting into the skin of his cheek when the sun slips beneath another cloud.
taehyung shrugs, “hell if i know. why?”
“there’s a little bit of rust, that’s all,” jeongguk turns it over again, “‘ts pretty though.”
wind whistles across the shore, carries grains of sand with it. taehyung doesn’t reply and jeongguk looks back up to the sky, wonders when the sun will come out again.
then, mostly to himself, taehyung says, “‘ts not rust.”
quiet, but jeongguk still hears, and before taehyung grabs it back, sun catches the metal, and oh.
he’s right. it’s not rust.
(it’s blood).
---
they sleep in the truck that night, next to the sea.
yoongi’s been unusually quiet, and because jeongguk knows him, but only this much, he doesn’t touch on it. leaves him to his own musings. doesn’t ask.
still remembers the taste of him.
there’s a sort of tower-like thing by the water. it’s thin metal rods and shaky square platforms, tape ribbons wind-robbed of their adhesive fluttering from the poles. jeongguk thinks that a strong gust of wind could blow it over, but it stays standing. against all odds, it stays standing.
they all watch the sunset together that day. it settles over the waves, gently, a old thing laid down to rest and rise, again, again, again, and jeongguk can’t look away. he does, eventually, tears his eyes from the sight.
his hyungs look happy, and it makes jeongguk’s chest feel warm. maybe, in this moment, there is nothing to ask.
but taehyung. he’s not looking at the sunset, but past it, at that lanky tower by the sea, and jeongguk almost doesn’t notice at first. because his face is set so far at peace that it slips through. but then he’s twisting the ring on this finger, grimacing, and jeongguk looks away.
his eyes catch on yoongi’s frame, then, and he forgets this. because yoongi is looking right at him, expression unreadable, lips still silent, and jeongguk remembers—about me?
something else. hunger, almost. there, and then gone, flame on the tip of his lighter.
jeongguk looks back to the sun. the sky is bleeding.
---
the sun hasn’t even risen when yoongi shakes seokjin by the shoulder, says, we should head back.
they’re not in a rush. summer—it’s a slow, lazy, thing, and no one’s ever really in a rush. but seokjin has known yoongi the longest, and he recognizes the look in his eyes—panic, or something like it—and slowly, slowly, the truck pulls away from shore, away from sand and sea and back into the burnt-out world they know.
they stop at a gas station on the way. the four of them—namjoon, hoseok, yoongi, seokjin—pile the rest of the linty cash they have buried in their pockets and hoseok heads into the convenience store to buy snacks.
and while namjoon fills the car up with gas, yoongi unbuckles his seatbelt, leans up front. says, “i fucked up, hyung.”
seokjin says nothing, lets the silence prompt explanation.
“jeongguk,” yoongi says, name falling out in a half-whisper, raw at the edges, “i shouldn’t have… god, hyung, i fucked up so bad.”
seokjin, previously staring blankly at the console, looks up, meets yoongi’s eyes in the mirror, and yoongi knows he doesn’t have to continue. seokjin knows. maybe he’s always known.
namjoon raps on the window, then, and seokjin rolls it down.
“you got 5 000 won?”
seokjin finds some money in the glove compartment, which namjoon feeds into the machine. “thanks,” frowns, takes the lollipop out of his mouth, “by the way, you two look fucking miserable. hyung, pass me the camera.”
yoongi snorts as seokjin hands it through the window, “you’re gonna take a photo of us looking miserable?”
“nah, it’ll force you guys to smile,” namjoon winks, “can’t waste polaroid film, hyung. okay, on three!”
so yoongi smiles for the camera, adds a peace sign for good measure. namjoon shows the photo, half developed, as he slides into the car.
“where should i put it?”
seokjin shrugs, “just in the glove department, maybe. here, put this one in, too.”
he hands namjoon a polaroid. fully developed. taken a few hours ago.
it’s yoongi. in the picture, eyes closed, face tilted to the sun. it looks natural, like yoongi wasn’t aware of the photo being taken, but well-timed enough that the photographer must’ve watched him for a long time, waited for the right moment for the perfect shot.
namjoon tucks it in the compartment. when yoongi’s not looking, he mouths to seokjin, who took it?
seokjin shrugs, who else.
---
jeongguk still doesn’t know why he did it.
when he was a kid, all shades of hopeful, he promised himself that his first kiss would be with someone he loved.
jeongguk doesn’t know if he loves yoongi.
rather, he doesn’t know if yoongi loves him back.
being with yoongi in this way is not the same as being with yoongi in the way he’s used to. before, before, it was all gentle things, golden-edged pianos and hands on shoulders, i’m here. a gentle reminder of each others’ presences, i’m here, alone together, i’m here.
being with yoongi, now. like every fire ever lit within them had burst into flames at once. heat-steeped skin, kindling for fingers. rough, because a fire is never terribly gentle in the way that it chooses to burn.
yoongi will press hot fingers to his chest / where something blooms beneath / jeongguk will think, closer, but gentler / gentler, please / even if it’s my fault for playing with fire.
yoongi will touch him / white hot where skin meets skin / and jeongguk will count the seconds ‘til they burn / only a matter of time / time / time.
yoongi will kiss him / and jeongguk will think / make it feel real / hold me like it’s real / like we’re real.
like we’re real.
fire / ash / inferno / how can you have all these things / and lose the spark?
---
fire pit under the highway. cars thundering above their heads—a place to go, somewhere to get to.
jimin’s talking. about next year, next summer, as if this one were already drawing to a close, hourglass long overturned.
jeongguk, lying sideways halfway across yoongi’s lap. this should feel like any other time, but then why doesn’t it feel like it?
he turns his mind to other things. namjoon’s talking about his shitty job at the shitty gas station, about the rude customers that come with the burden of taking the graveyard shift. talking about the snippets of phone calls he catches between customers, someone’s son got accepted into some foreign university, someone’s daughter had an affair with an older man. too many stories from too many lives, all of them more important than jeongguk’s.
jeongguk scoots closer, a little closer. because he and yoongi have always only been halves. only just barely—arms swung around shoulders and bodies half-pulled into hugs—and why not more?
(jeongguk used to be scared of fire. of getting too close. he thinks, now, that even if he turns to ash in yoongi’s arms, at least it would mean something. at least he would be something.)
he pulls closer and yoongi moves further, out of reach, always out of reach.
hold me / jeongguk almost says / hold me like you fucking mean it.
please.
but almost will always be almost / never will always be never / and jeongguk says nothing.
---
farther away / why are you always getting farther away?
if i asked you to stay / would you?
tell me that it’s real / say it / real / unreal / please?
don’t lie.
---
maybe they were asking for it.
living too happily. living too unhappily. living the way they were.
starts like this:
jeongguk is wearing a blue-white-red flannel. it’s yoongi’s, but he’s never minded sharing clothes.
it’s just him and yoongi, sitting on the floor of the living room. jeongguk’s telling yoongi about a lady he saw at the grocery store and yoongi’s stroking callused hands through his hair—and it’s good. almost like before.
(almost will always be almost)
when he’s finished talking, he sits back with a pleasant hum, enjoying the feeling of yoongi’s fingers in his hair. a steady rhythm, the softest yoongi has touched him in a while.
and it’s so much like before. maybe it’s jeongguk’s fault, a little, because he believes in it. the almost.
“i love you, hyung.”
it’s only until yoongi’s hands stop moving and silence start thickening in his lungs that jeongguk realizes what he’d said. and he would take it back, but how do you? how do you take back something that’s already been said, how do you take back the truth?
slowly, jeongguk turns his head, tries to see yoongi’s expression, gauge his reaction. but he’s not fast enough, hands are twisting, turning in his hair, pulling, pulling, pulling, and jeongguk feels tears spring to his eyes, it hurts.
“ouch, hyung, please! hyung, it hurts, hurts, yoongi hyung!”
the hands still again, and then they’re gone, like jeongguk’s hair burned to touch. yoongi’s on his feet, swaying, and when jeongguk turns to look at him, he’s staring at his hands like they’re the claws of a monster.
(but they’re not, jeongguk almost says. they’re your hands—the burn between knuckles, do you remember it?)
“hyung,” on his feet, tugging at the fabric of yoongi’s shirt, “i’m sorry, please—”
“no. no no no, i—” jeongguk has never seen this kind of fear in yoongi’s eyes before, “i, i’m not, stop, no, no, no, please, you—”
(talking to himself, jeongguk realizes. he’s talking to himself).
“yoongi-hyung—”
and yoongi bolts for the door, so fast that jeongguk almost misses him. but he can’t keep running, they can’t keep running, not when there’s nothing to run towards. not when there’s nothing to run from.
hands wrapped around his chest. like a back hug, almost, only there’s no hug in it, “hyung, stop, please, can we just—”
yoongi turns to look at him, eyes wide, and jeongguk doesn’t know what he sees. what he saw.
“let go, jeongguk,” it’s more of a plead than a command—raspy, breathless, fearful, “let go.”
(maybe it’s jeongguk’s fault. for staying. for holding on).
because yoongi does something he’s never done to jeongguk before.
he punches him.
the shock hits harder than the impact, for the both of them. jeongguk stumbles backwards, face stinging, and dazedly, remembers the street punks yoongi had beat up for him once. remembers thinking how lucky he was to not be on the receiving end of that hit. chest burning, remembers thinking, somewhat pridefully, yoongi’s a good fighter.
the irony hits harder than anything.
jeongguk doesn’t know why he does it.
because it feels bad. because it feels good. because he’s scared.
he punches him back.
feels the warmth of yoongi’s skin under his knuckles, inferno.
and they’re acting out of fear now, throwing punches like there’s some sort of twisted prize for winning. like there can be a winner when it hurts more to hit than be hit.
both their hands are stained with blood, thick, dripping to the wooden floor in rivulets. yoongi has blood smeared across his left cheek.
jeongguk’s pushed against the wall, feels his teeth rattle, and he can’t do this for much longer now. he’s starting to feel his injuries, pain bleeding through the numbness, and it’s only the rush of adrenaline—sick, twisted, adrenaline—that keeps him swaying on his feet.
so he kicks off, and yoongi’s braced himself for a punch.
jeongguk doesn’t throw one.
he pulls yoongi tight to his chest / hold me / hold me like you fucking mean it / because maybe this is what it’s like to feel whole.
it’s warm. like sitting around a fire instead of walking into it.
it’s that last grain of sand in the hourglass / the stroke before midnight / the moment before glass shatters on concrete.
for that moment, however small, jeongguk feels yoongi relax against him, allows himself to be carried in by the gentle waves of the sea. in that moment, neither of them are burning or drowning or hurting. they’re just. them. jeongguk and yoongi. existing.
and then it’s over. they walk through the fire and it’s over. yoongi shoves jeongguk onto the floor, breathing hard. he still looks scared.
(not of jeongguk. never of jeongguk).
so he runs.
and if the stitch in his side didn’t hurt so much, jeongguk would have laughed. there’s nothing chasing you, hyung, and nothing to run towards. run as far as you want / however far you go / just know / you can’t run away / from yourself.
---
when jeongguk summons enough energy to pick himself off the living room floor, he heads out into the city and doesn’t come back.
he’s used to be a runaway. he can live like this again. even if the term seems to have taken on a new meaning.
he wanders around, hands shoved into the pockets of his black hoodie. fishes for change, comes up with enough to buy one shitty meal. jeongguk thinks he’ll save it.
the city is bustling, life, activity, importance, and jeongguk slinks through it, a black shadow in the face of this neon metropolis. no one stops to look or care, even though he’s got blood caked on his face and dried on his hands and soaked through his sneakers. he keeps his head down, and then he’s no different.
he finds residence in an alley, metal doors on all sides, all spray painted bright, tacky colours. he sits against one of these, wonders if the paint will rub off on his back.
falls asleep.
it’s not so much as dreaming as reminiscing, because dreams aren’t really dreams if they’re all just memories, are they? memories—grounded, anchored to this wretched earth, to this wretched city, to jeongguk and yoongi, sad, wretched souls.
so more than anything, he remembers.
remembers. remembers shuttered classrooms and fire pits. remembers blue-yellow flannels and bomber jackets. remembers seas and pianos and the wind on the back of the pickup truck.
remembers cigarettes. ash. lies, love, kisses—real, unreal—
remembers falling apart.
---
a thursday when it happens.
jeongguk’s asleep—pretending to be asleep. three days since their fight, and his injuries aren’t healing too well. if he keeps his eyes open, then he’ll catch them—the stares of pity that burn into his skin, fizzle away as people move on with their lives, because look at all the runaways on the streets of seoul, so many, all the same. look at all the ones sleeping on doorsteps and at bus stops and street corners, look at them.
are you running, too?
eyes closed, and he doesn’t see it coming until he’s sprawled across concrete, taste of copper rising in his throat.
opens his eyes.
it’s them again. the fucking street thugs that yoongi had beat up once, for jeongguk. happy i wasn’t on the receiving end of his fists, jeongguk laughs, half-delirious.
“knew it was him…”
“what should we…”
“little fucker…”
jeongguk doesn’t really catch what they’re saying. to himself, thinks, irony, and so be it.
bruised all over, and a little more now, wasn’t that love?
body shoved against metal, wasn’t that a lie?
concrete, jeongguk spits blood, is this what it feels like to burn?
taste of copper, deep red, drips thick, inferno.
in the distance, fire sirens.
somehow. somehow, he knows.
they say anger gives you strength. maybe that’s true, because jeongguk is getting his ass beat by three very angry thugs.
they say desperation gives you strength. jeongguk thinks this is true, because three very angry thugs are getting their asses beat by jeongguk. desperate.
they say revenge is a dish best served cold. jeongguk does not know if this is true, because he’s off running before the ice-cold feeling of it has yet to seep into his burning skin.
he knows these streets, even through the pained haze of his mind—right here, shortcut through this alley, left now, don’t stop.
closer now, fire sirens. they feel wrong.
running, running, running. numbness slips away somewhere between the intersection of we fucked up and maybe it’s our fault, and every step burns pain somewhere deeper. running, running, running.
and here, yoongi’s house, burning.
flame licks at the walls, smoke pours through the windows, ash drifts through the rafters. and for one terrifying moment, jeongguk just stops and stares, paralyzed. even as his world burns to pieces, he stops and stares.
and then, bones brittle as ice, he runs inside.
nothing is recognizable. flame has taken its residence over this place, and for the first jolting time, jeongguk sees the ugliness in fire. wonders if, all the times yoongi was staring into the fire pit, this is what he was seeing.
walls shrink and lengthen. jeongguk can’t breathe. what is salvageable? the air feels too thick.
think.
a question. a memory.
if your house were on fire, jeongguk takes off, and you could only save one thing, down the hallway—
what would it be?
the bedroom is on fire. wallpaper peeled back, jeongguk sees all the things they’d written on there when they were drunk, better times.
and it’s the worst in here, the room half flame-eaten, but it only takes jeongguk a second to spot what it is he needs. what it is that he has to save.
yoongi’s passed out on the bed, and jeongguk tugs at him desperately. there’s no time no time notime--no time for assurances, apologies, regrets, but jeongguk can’t stop the words from bubbling up in his chest.
“hyung,” jeongguk says. “hyung! hyung. hyung.”
they taste of blood and bile, ash and iron, and jeongguk feels empty as they peel from his lips. this is all i am, he thinks, and all i can give. this is all we are. all we can ever be.
he takes yoongi by the arms, and the way he falls so slack in jeongguk’s arms makes him want to cry, now. but he doesn’t; he just looks down, one last time, at the face of the boy he’s loved for so long he’s forgotten how to do it.
and even as jeongguk drags him through the house, blood and sweat beading on his forehead, yoongi doesn’t wake up. the doorway is far, so far, but jeongguk gets there, and then he doesn’t turn back.
---
the hospital is white. bleach-white, a little terrifying.
jeongguk, bruised and battered, a stain in this otherwise spotless tapestry. sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair. waiting.
he had ended up calling namjoon, who picked them up in his black truck shortly after the whole ordeal. after they arrived and yoongi was taken away to be treated—nothing too serious, jeongguk reminds himself, nothing too serious, wonders if the doctors were lying—they had offered to patch jeongguk up, too, which he refused. he must be quite a sight, all bloodied and burned, and still missing the hospital bracelet that’s given to patients.
he remembers yoongi’s number. 0429. here, a new name.
in the dead-ended silence, an interruption. seokjin and hoseok and jimin and taehyung, all at once, shattering the quiet—is he okay? will he be alright?—as if jeongguk would know.
as if, when it comes to yoongi, jeongguk ever really knew anything.
“hey,” and it’s taehyung, tugging at the sleeve of jeongguk’s flannel. yoongi’s, really. it smells like smoke, “can we talk?”
jeongguk shrugs. you can talk, he almost says, you can talk. and i’ll pretend to listen.
so taehyung sits next to him, “you remember that day we went to the sea? like, two weeks ago, remember it?”
jeongguk just looks at him. i remember.
“that day,” taehyung’s voice is hoarse, from what, jeongguk can only guess, “at the sea. i was… gonna do it. jump off the tower—you remember it, right? i was gonna jump, i was gonna...”
jeongguk is glad he doesn’t finish his sentence.
“but i think,” swallows, and still his voice comes out pinched, “i think yoongi-hyung knew, ‘cause he took me by the arm and he, he said,”
jeongguk closes his eyes. doesn’t know if he wants to hear it.
“that it shouldn’t have been me. that i shouldn’t have been the one, the one to—”
and here, taehyung collapses into himself, shaking, shaking, shaking, and jeongguk barely has the energy to pat him on the back, with hands that tremble just as violently.
“oh god,” taehyung gasps, voice thick with tears, “please say he’s okay, please, please—”
(they went to the sea seeking freedom, jeongguk remembers. thinks, taehyung was seeking a different kind of freedom).
jeongguk sits with him until taehyung’s stopped trembling. sits with him until his breaths even out, and jeongguk counts them—one, two, three, one.
then, quietly. out of the hospital that smells like copper and salt. like life, but also death. hope within sickness, despair within survival. everything that we hold onto and everything we have to let go of.
the night is quiet, for seoul. cars, in the distance, and jeongguk wonders if any of them are passing over their highway, with its kicked-in fire pit and its secondhand sofas. wonders, and then thinks that it doesn’t fucking matter, because they’ll never know anyways.
will anyone ever know, he wonders, will anyone ever care? will anyone ever listen, and this is what it comes down to, loving everything he hates about this neon-bled metropolis, loving everything he hates about this moment—real, unreal.
even through his tears, jeongguk laughs, a hollow thing in a night that listens with its ears shut, will they ever know?
---
“can we see him now?”
the doctor nods, “he should be stable. one at a time, though, please.”
jeongguk, jimin and taehyung are asleep, having cried themselves to exhaustion, and namjoon gestures for seokjin to go first. besides jeongguk, seokjin knows him best.
yoongi is sitting up when seokjin enters, looking the other way, out the window. he looks smaller than seokjin remembers, somehow.
“yoongi-chi,” he tries, tries friendly, “how’re you feeling?”
yoongi turns, slowly. tired, more so than seokjin’s ever seen him. doesn’t say anything.
“we were all really worried,” tries caring, “but you’re okay, right?”
yoongi shrugs.
“hey, uh,” tries considerate, “you wanna talk to someone else?”
jeongguk. he means jeongguk.
yoongi looks away again.
seokjin sighs. gives up. 24-over hours awake, 5 waiting in the emergency ward, anxious, anxious, anxious, and he can’t do it anymore.
“why would you do that, yoongi?” seokjin hates the way his voice sounds. thin and tapery in the silence, loud and harsh in the quiet, “why—how, i don’t understand—”
“i wasn’t trying to die!” yoongi interrupts, and seokjin recoils at the sound of his voice, scratchy, mangled, pain, pain, pain, “i wasn’t—i wasn’t, i mean—”
swipes hands over his face, “i just—i needed—i didn’t—didn’t,” slumps, “couldn’t stay if he was—couldn’t make him stay if i was—”
and seokjin doesn’t understand, “but don’t you—don’t you know? didn’t you know how much you fucking meant to him?”
him. like they’re afraid to say his name.
and yoongi’s the one in the hospital bed. yoongi’s the one hooked up to machines, registered as the patient—#0429, banded on his wrist—but seokjin feels so helpless in this moment. grasping for someone who escapes just as easily as clouds from the sky, water from cupped hands. a ghost.
laughing, laughing, without laughter, “‘course i fucking knew, hyung. ‘course i did, it’s why i had to do it, hyung,”
and yoongi turns to him, and seokjin wonders why he didn’t see it before. why he shut his eyes to all the signs, refused to listen when yoongi was screaming into silence. because i never fucking asked, he thinks, soul hardening in his stomach, because i should have fucking asked.
“‘cause i couldn’t let him know that he was in love with a monster.”
---
are you doing better now?
even after yoongi’s released from the hospital, they keep a watchful eye on him. it’s only expected, despite what yoongi says about it being an accident.
jeongguk asks namjoon to keep an eye on taehyung, too. says, i’m worried about him, says, i’m worried for all of us, kind of.
namjoon says, that’s okay. says, we’ll figure it out together.
jeongguk lets himself believe him.
it’s awkward between them, now. them—jeongguk and yoongi—and it’s not like jeongguk hadn’t expected it. maybe he just hadn’t anticipated they’d go from almost-lovers to almost-strangers so quickly.
life is funny in that way.
because the next time they sit under that great big highway with its hidden fire pit, they sit with different people. because after visiting what remains of yoongi’s house, they live with different people. because the next time they drive around the city in that stolen black truck, they share no pockets of happiness.
but through it all, jeongguk finds some value in living. in living, dreamless, but living.
maybe he doesn’t have a dream. maybe he doesn’t have something to reach for, something to run towards.
but then he can stop running. stop reaching. enjoy what’s here beside him, his six hyungs and their fire pit underneath the highway.
maybe it’s not happiness. maybe it’s not success. maybe it’s not glory.
but maybe it’s the wind on the back of a stolen pickup truck, stomach half empty, soul half full. maybe it’s the wind on the back of a stolen pickup truck, wind that tastes like salt and sea, sand and stories. maybe it’s the wind on the back of a stolen pickup truck.
(maybe it’s freedom).
---
how do you get better from something like this?
the sea is cold today. autumn is coming.
it’s the same gray. the same bridge. jeongguk sits down on the edge of it and lets his legs dangle in empty air.
one, two, three, one.
waits.
again.
one, two, three, one.
one—
slow, silent presence. bridge beneath his feet. quiet but jeongguk can feel his heartbeat. human.
jeongguk moves right. an invitation.
sea roars beneath them. maybe there is no piano. maybe there is music.
jeongguk looks when he’s ready.
yoongi is less pale these days. the mint is fading out of his hair, and jeongguk wonders if he’ll dye it again. he’s wearing his blue and yellow flannel, because some things haven’t changed.
the world flips on its axis and yoongi will still be yoongi.
jeongguk doesn’t feel like hiding anymore. he says, “you’re my favorite hyung.”
a hitch in breath. jeongguk almost doesn’t catch it, between the pull-push-pull of the waves. then, “still?”
jeongguk thinks about it. the sun in late afternoon, the sun by the seaside. the fire underneath the highway, the fire in their house. the wind in the back of the pickup truck. the moment before glass shatters on concrete. whole.
thinks about it. shrugs, “always.”
amidst noise, quiet.
yoongi’s arm—up, up, up—slowly. careful, some things break under touch. hesitates, a second, loops over jeongguk’s shoulder.
maybe this is enough. maybe never is enough.
jeongguk wonders if never always has to mean never.
thinks about this moment, all of floating and falling at once. thinks about this moment, where do things begin, anyway. thinks about this moment, because we are alive like this.
jeongguk rests his hand on his lap. palm up. an invitation.
yoongi takes it.
fingers, bruised, callused, burned between knuckles. interlacing, galaxies colliding, hourglass shattering, ocean spilling.
jeongguk breathes it in / this moment / steady / unsteady
trusts it to hold.