Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Do you think it’ll hurt?”

Jeongguk meets Jimin’s eyes as he asks the question, so sure yet fragile in its impossibility. He looks at him, the boy sat on the hood of his car, brunet and beautiful and all blue denim on chipped cherry paintwork, and thinks, I love him. I love this boy with everything in me. How terrible and great for us.

There’s not enough time left to spiral down thoughts like that, so Jeongguk tears his eyes away, and pulls the glass bottle from the car’s backseat. They’d rolled the windows down all the way, tearing down the roads. Nobody had stopped them. Why would they?

“No,” Jeongguk says, and the effort of the word is a heave, tugging at his chest. “They said it wouldn’t.”

Jimin nods, and something in his eyes settles, some final jagged edge that had been tearing at the tiptoe line of his inner peace. Jeongguk knows then that the lie of his certainty was worth it.

If the only time he lies to Jimin is this, then so be it. Words themselves have been kind of meaningless, since the broadcast last night. Jimin had been there, standing between him and the television like a futile shield, before Jeongguk could shake himself enough to stand from the couch. Jimin had slid a hand along his cheek, and held Jeongguk's face to his chest as he wept.

Then, the time for tears had been over, and they had slept together on the couch, with the residual dregs of normality in the soft, human details of Jeongguk’s apartment: the plants in their cracked pots, and the stack of anime DVDs by the bookshelf, and the familiar weight of Jimin’s body pressed against his as they faded in and out.

But, he supposes, Jimin is no longer part of that gentle humanity. None of them are. They will be gone with the plants, the couch, the broken snow globe on the shelf— there will be nothing left to remember them.

He sets the bottle down on the hood, glass clinking on the metal. They both stare at it.

“Who gave it to us?” Jimin asks, “Hobi? Or—”

“It’s from Tae,” Jeongguk says, quietly. “We got the champagne from Tae. Hobi gave us the whisky we drank at Christmas.”

“Oh,” Jimin blinks, and a smile traces at the corner of his mouth. Jeongguk knows why, can taste the laughter and the hot burn of that memory, drinking it all with Jimin on their balcony in the freezing cold, wrapped in blankets, then lying in bed while the city turned from its evening grey to nighttime orange around them—

The memories are maybe the worst part of it all. The things that they’re made of, that they will lose all at once and irrevocably. Jimin’s smile is gone as soon as it appeared, and Jeongguk grieves for it momentarily. Gift-giving, and alcohol, and friends, laughter; tangible lines drawing up their reality. About to be cut loose.

Jeongguk feels like a madman, when Jimin isn’t looking at him and he can pretend that none of this is real.

"Come sit," Jimin says quietly. "We have an hour."

"All the time in the world."

Jimin's laugh is bright as cold sunshine, all of a sudden and surprised. It cuts through the warm evening.

Jeongguk sits, the car hood sun-warmed from the heat of the day. An hour. He's had so many hours. There's been so much, in the short twenty-two years of his life, and now— all for nothing. His existence will be void.

He reaches across Jimin's lap, and takes his hand, the one that fits so perfectly in his. He holds on like a ship sinking holds to its anchor. They're doomed, but— together. He squeezes, and Jimin squeezes back.

From where they're parked, in the little lay-by off the highway that winds up and over the mountains surrounding the city like a ribbon, the metropolis unfurls underneath them. It's a scene made of paper and glitter; the tiny lights of every window and streetlamp stain the stern lines of buildings and civilisation a gentle gold. From here, it looks warm, familiar, and the sadness of it all is immovable.

All of it, gone, Jeongguk thinks. He can't imagine it. But, he supposes, he doesn't have to.

The night around them is gentle, warm. Jimin leans back on the hood, palms against the metal, and gazes out at the city below. Jeongguk watches him, caught by the last dregs of sunlight, and feels something he can't quite define: huge, unbearable, and gentle in the same way as the moon watching her tossing tides.

When Jeongguk opens the champagne, it pops. The cork flies and rolls, lost somewhere in the bushes at the side of the car.

"Remember New Years'?" Jimin asks. "Your first one at college. I still thought you weren't interested."

"I thought you were too beautiful to even look at me," Jeongguk says ruefully. "I still do."

Jimin sighs, his heart in it. "You were drunk—"

"—not drunk—“

"—drunk," Jimin says, voice touching laughter gently, "Namjoon was looking after you. Jin was talking to me and I kept looking over to you on the couch. I didn't even notice when Jin gave up on me to go kiss Yoongi."

Jeongguk drinks, and the champagne is sunlight in his throat. He feels Jimin's eyes on him, warm and gentle. Adoration, he thinks, hopes; knows. This is the best kind of love, familiar and worn to a gentleness that spreads over both of them, moulded to their intricacies.

"Maybe I loved you then." Jimin speaks not like he's confessing, but realising. "I try and find a place where I started but— I can't remember a time before it."

Jeongguk passes him the bottle. In the dim light, Jimin is ethereal, cast in shadow. His hair is back to its natural brown after years of blond, and it makes Jeongguk think of the time before this love became what it is now, the time of playing video games at Taehyung's dorm in the hope of seeing Jimin for even just five minutes, of running into him outside the dance studio and the one smile he'd get lighting up his whole day, of half-drunk New Years' parties where he wished he was brave enough to find Jimin at midnight and ask if maybe he'd like to kiss.

The golden sky slides to velvet blue, slowly and all at once above them, and they wait for obliteration like that: drinking in the quiet of the evening, with the sound of the city's muted hum and the chirping of the summertime crickets filling in the silence.

Jeongguk can't tell how much time passes. He doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to be scared.

"We never got a dog," Jimin says suddenly. The words breach a chasm, opening up like a wound. The truth that is so unknowable, yet approaching them fast. "We always said we would."

Jeongguk holds on to his hand, and closes his eyes against the night, just for a moment.

"It's okay," Jimin murmurs. "Maybe in another universe Jeongguk and Jimin will get a dog."

Jeongguk laughs, pushing the sob fighting up his throat back down, and burying it. "They'll take it for walks on Songjeong beach."

"It'll chase all the surfers," Jimin whispers.

"It's okay," Jeongguk says; it's okay, again and again, because it feels like there's nothing else to say. "The surfers would be fine."

Suddenly, it's Jimin's hand clinging to his. Or maybe they're both stranded things, holding on to one another. Jeongguk breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth.

"They're good," Jimin says, but it sounds like he's asking, like he's pleading. "Jeongguk and Jimin. All the other ones."

"They're good," Jeongguk says, and it's an answer. They're at an equilibrium, giving and taking. Push-pull, dividing the work of the last hour between them. "I hope I find you in every universe."

Jimin does a little shuddering gasp, like something just rocked his pull of gravity and now he's all off-centre. He turns his face into Jeongguk's neck; Jeongguk feels the tiny, world-shattering shake of his shoulders, and something deep inside him unravels. He thinks that maybe it won't ever repair itself, but. Ever is now coming to its close.

Jimin's hair is soft against his cheek. He smells like the soft vanilla of Jeongguk's shampoo that he keeps — kept — stealing.

“I’m scared,” Jimin whispers, his breath warm against the curve of Jeongguk’s jaw. “I’m so scared, Gguk, and I didn’t want to be, I just wanted to be happy, and I wanted to be with you, and—”

“And you are,” Jeongguk murmurs, and his heart stutters for a moment before levelling out. There is something deeper and older than stone and earth in his bones, bones that will soon be ash. And yet— “You’re here. I’m here. We’re together.”

“Yeah,” Jimin says, and he squeezes Jeongguk’s hand hard. His grip is warm, and Jeongguk thinks, how perfect and awful it is, that it will end when I have found the hand that fits in mine. “I love you.”

Jeongguk exhales into Jimin’s hair, breathing in the vanilla-laundry detergent-sunscreen of Jimin’s skin and live, vibrant being. He’d put on sunscreen, and that thought hooks into Jeongguk’s mind like a ragged snare.

“But I’m angry,” Jimin says. “I’m so fucking angry. I wanted to— see everything with you. Have, not everything, but enough. Wanted to,” he gasps, and Jeongguk can feel the rise and fall of his chest. Jimin’s always been a little more slender, a little less broad, but now he is spilling and Jeongguk cannot calm the sea. All he can do is hold it close, and close his eyes against how the salt burns. “Wanted to love you, a bit longer. We had so little time.”

There are no words that can halt a supernova, or a meteor, or make it all okay. Jeongguk is infallible and small, and just as doomed as everything he has ever loved.

“We had no time,” Jimin repeats. The echo of the words aches unbearably.

Far off in the distance, down below them in the labyrinth of the city, somebody sets off fireworks. They screech across the sky, and the shower of red and blue sparks sets Jeongguk’s vision ablaze. It's dark, now, and the flash lights them up for a moment. Maybe the last moment; any of these seconds could be their last.

Nobody had ever told him the end would be like this: small, and sad, and beautiful, with nothing to lose and everything lost. Doomed before it began.

“I’m glad we got this,” Jeongguk whispers. “I’m so glad I got you.”

Jimin’s nose is cold as he presses his face into Jeongguk’s neck. The smallness of that makes something at the back of Jeongguk’s throat ache.

“Wanted to stay with you forever,” Jeongguk says. The words burn and fizzle like sparklers. “Now forever is a lot shorter than I thought. But— we got it.”

Jimin raises his head, and his eyes are unspilt moons. When he leans in and kisses Jeongguk, it tastes of champagne, and salt, like a thunderstorm in summer. Fizzing and unbearable, caught in the air. Like ash will follow. Jeongguk clutches at Jimin’s waist, his hip, and learns the shape of his mouth and his ribs and his tiny, hitching sobs that he quietens against Jeongguk’s mouth.

Jeongguk pulls him closer. Jimin slides into his lap, pressed against him with his hands threading into his hair and kissing him like he's grieving, like the only way he can breathe is by never letting go. The city is gone, then, blocked from his sight by Jimin, and altogether unimportant. The world away from this, Jimin's skin and flesh and breath against his own, and this car, on this mountain, is inconsequential.

It's Jeongguk who breaks away, heaves in a breath, their foreheads pressed together.

"In every universe," he whispers, "I love you."

Jimin's hand is warm at his cheek. When he speaks, his breath washes hot over Jeongguk's face. "I know. I know I love you too."

When the end comes, he has Jimin in his arms. Their bodies, pressed close on the hood of his car, like time is a rolling spool of golden film and a replay button, and not damnation. His eyes are closed. That is the world in its final frame: Jimin under his palms, under his skin, their existences merged like galaxies colliding: a destruction and rebirth in half a moment.

Jimin tastes of champagne. There is a lifetime between them, short and shot through with stars.

Jeongguk thinks: there is no other way I would have wanted it to end.

Jeongguk thinks, as the world flashes bright somewhere distant behind his eyelids and beyond their beings, and he knows that this moment is their last: in every universe, I love you—

and Jimin says it back, in all of them.