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On Planet X1001, they kiss on the mouth to say hello. Their cultural ambassador hands them a packet the size of Jungkook’s scuffed fist. Shorter, they assure, than the famous War and Peace by Xoalruy Foasia. This factoid has been post-it-noted on page 321.
Yet Jungkook doesn’t think anything about this until he’s standing on stage. Namjoon tries to greet the crowd, hyping them up through his mic and hand waves. Big Namjoon on the holographic screen projected over the sky does the same. The crowd, a mass of rippling waves and light sticks, murmur in confusion. Their tentacles turn violet, crossing over each other. He tries to look at their faces, memorizing the blinks of their ten eyes, when Jimin touches his bruised hand.
He turns. Jimin smiles, touching his chin fondly, and leans up to kiss him. It’s quick. It’s soft, his mouth pressed against him for the breadth of a heartbeat. When Jimin leans back, the crowd already recognizes the sign, waving their tentacles and flapping their banners. To put this in a timely context, because time and space were relative, this was after the engine failure in the Idas-Marpessa Galaxy, so Jungkook still felt odd. He tries not to think about it, though, even when he straps on his hoverboots for his solo performance. He spins in the air, around and around, singing and staring at the auditorium full of stars that beam through the light sticks until they blur around him.
At the ending, Jimin takes his healing hand. Jungkook tries to recall the document, flipping through his mind to find any significance of handholding. When he looks across the stage, though, none of the other members have held each other’s hands, just waving to the crowd.
--
“They think you two are married,” Yoongi says. “Fascinating.” Their spaceship hurtles through hyperspace, the familiar blue lines flying beyond their window. The artificial gravity hub has been activated in the main room and the gym, where Taehyung no longer has to battle loose globs of water to towel into his hair. Jin and Namjoon have disappeared into the captain’s room, discussing about plotting some course or fixing the pitch of their mics for the song sensitivity range of Planet S!2101. Hoseok naps in his room, not bothering with the artificial gravity. The heavy door has been parted open, forgotten, while Hoseok’s head lolls from where he’s strapped to the wall in the burrito-like bag.
“Who?” Jungkook and Jimin are eating, though not quite together. Jimin sits further away, struggling to open the foil of their food. He’s used to the anti-grav lifestyle, looking up when the bag has been slit, then back down at his plate.
“S?2101. No, S!2101.” Yoongi frowns. “The next planet.”
“Married? Why?”
“They saw a picture of your kiss.” Yoongi pushes around his food, his notes already taken over the table.
“Do we have to do anything?” Jungkook worries he’ll have to do something dramatic, like hold Jimin’s hand. He doesn’t know what look he would have on his face.
“Not really.” Yoongi smirks. “It’s just funny.”
“Maybe we can feed each other,” Jimin says, darting another glance up when he opens the next packet. “Though not this stuff. Do you think this is good?”
“I like it.” Jungkook does miss authentic Neo-Korean food, though.
“It’s because you weren’t born on Earth.” Jimin finally adapts to gravity, mixing his lunch and leaning back on the tethered couch. “Anti-grav hydroponics is all you’ve known. But you don’t grow authentic cabbages that way. It’s the dirt. It needs real sunlight, real air.”
“We’re almost the same age.”
“You’re younger.” Jimin dismisses the argument with a sniff of his food. For his complaints, he seems to enjoy the space lunch, closing his eyes with brief reprieve. “Do you know what was the best food on Earth?”
Jungkook used to feel impatient that they all referenced that he was the only member not born on Earth. The difference was slight and nigh incomprehensible. Jin was even technically born on a space hospital that orbited Earth in contrast to Jungkook who was born on the moon hospital after Earth’s scheduled isolation. He had never felt like anything was missing from his life. He was impatient and itchy to grow, to explore the galaxies, to sing his songs. But he still found himself leaning on the table, watching Jimin chew through the freeze-dried ramen.
“My mom’s kimchi.” Jimin rests his fingers on the gold-gilded chopsticks. “My favorite food in the entire galaxy. All the galaxies. Made with cabbages grown in Earth dirt.”
“Those are expensive,” Yoongi says.
“But not impossible to find.”
“No, they’re impossible to find. They grow every hundred years.”
“They’re improbable to find.”
Jungkook tunes them out, pretending to study phonemes. The little frog opens its mouth, emitting the sound with its beige spiked probiscis. His glasses hide his pupils, enough that he finds himself gazing at Jimin’s mouth with impunity. Jimin laughs, smiles, pouts, argues, and licks his lips with the tip of his tongue.
--
On Planet S!2101, Jimin kisses him again. This time, Jungkook is almost prepared. He sees Jimin’s small hands yielding towards him, pulling him close. He finds himself standing still like a statue when Jimin kisses him, soft and kind, again. The crowd approves, neither energized nor upset, simply taking the kiss as the norm. Jungkook wonders if he should have kissed back. By the time he’s peering at the monitor, watching Jimin float above the crowd in the bubble, he thinks he should have.
“Why do you think he keeps kissing me?” Jungkook’s hand has almost healed, the bruises fading. He plays with the last mending cut, eyes still glued to Jimin’s performance on the monitor.
“Why are you asking me?” Jin closes his eyes in front of the mirror, the stylist applying the stardust around his cheeks. “Correction, why now? I’m busy.”
“He didn’t kiss Taehyung.” Jungkook watches the bubble drift upward on the screen. “You would think he’d kiss Taehyung.”
“I’m getting ready for my performance. Have you heard of headspace? I need headspace.”
“Do you think he’s being mean? Or he’s trying to make me feel better since I’m mad at him?”
“You’re mad at him?”
“Yeah.” After the Idas-Marpessa Galaxy, where Jimin had put him to bed like he was a child. “I didn’t want him to know I’m mad, though.”
“Then what’s the point of being mad!”
Jungkook didn’t have the answer to that. Camera Three panned down the excited crowd. Camera Seven caught more of the backstage area, where he could see the row of their glittery costumes being vacuumed into bags, condensed, and placed into the hovertrolley. The ship for the members, still a new model, was self-manned and driven by their AI captain, the Cassandra Matrix. The staff usually traveled ahead in larger ships, expected to land on the planet before them and have the platforms ready for use. The entire fleet of spaceships had been parked on a nearby asteroid. They would take a private train off the planet, which meant everybody was already packing after they staggered off-stage.
“I don’t have time for this.” Jin changes the angle of the mirror with the small lever on his chair.
“Okay.”
“Where are you going? Continue.”
“Okay.” Jungkook grins, which fades in thought. “What do you think Jimin thinks about me?”
“What is this, grade school?”
“I was born after Earth,” Jungkook employs, “so I don’t know these things.” He tilts his head with big eyes, mimicking the stumbling fawns his robot teacher had showed him. Jin clicks his tongue, dissatisfied, but still visibly melts at the technique.
“I don’t know,” Jin says. “He’s especially fond of you, but it’s hard to tell. He’s nice to everybody. He’s just a nice person.”
“No.”
“What do you mean no! I’m giving you advice! Listen to my wisdom! I’m using my precious time to oh this color please,” Jin told the stylist, hovering over the silver sparkles.
Jimin had descended from his bubble, now performing on the smooth interlocked platform. An expert, as always, he avoided the slots where the other members would rise into the air. He danced with his face, his body, his feet. Every movement always had the right detail, the thought carried through to even the angle of his finger. Jimin always demanded technical perfection of himself, his swaying dance conveying the emotions through his wispy arches, power through the stomp of his foot and the straight angles of his arms and legs. He sang with longing, an ache, a rawness. With the light upon him, his entire face possesses an angelic, rapturous glow.
“He’s not nice,” Jungkook says. “He’s the cruelest person I know.”
--
As the train lifts from the platform, the antiquated digital clocks blinking farewell at them below, the clouds rain down glass. They patter against the shields, breaking into small glinting splinters. Jimin rests on the opposite seat, his Ramyeon cooling down while he watches the glass fall and shatter against the trademark rusty red arches of the train station. A large white storm cloud gathers on the horizon. The monitor in the next room reveals that the storm covers a quarter of the planet, still growing and pulling up the water vapors.
“Pretty,” Jimin says. “I’ve been thinking, it’s the sea salt, too.”
“Here?” Jungkook hadn’t thought Planet S!2101 had oceans, but he wasn’t the best at geography. He remembered when they performed on a planet that was only ocean, the sea dwellers with their iridescent fins beating against the raucous waves. He had smelled like water for days after a crashing wave splashed onto their hover platform. Fortunately, they hadn’t gotten too sea-sick during their performance, though a few back-up dancers ended up sitting out in the backstage.
“When you make kimchi, you can use sea salt.” Jimin touches the cool window, though the glass strikes far beyond to where the shields vibrate.
As they emerge from the burning atmosphere and into the cold of space, Jungkook sees his reflection in the window more than the stars that glow beyond them. He sees Jimin, too, who looks with fascination. His entire body leans forward, like he had never seen stars and he wanted to imprint them into his eyes.
“I’ve seen seas.” Jungkook turns back to his trimonitor. Jimin had suggested that Jungkook take on the duty to arrange a small thank you video to their fans in time for their award ceremony on Planet XIAIW. The producers had given him access to the livecams in their main room, but he had mostly used the other members’ footage. Hoseok had the most. Jimin had the most of Jungkook, accompanied by soft giggles and laughs in the background.
“Me too.” When the pitted asteroid comes into view, their sleek spaceship with the purple design, Jimin finally turns his attention towards Jungkook. Looking across from him does not appease him. He abandons his food and nestles to share the train seat with Jungkook, tossing his leg over Jungkook’s knee and curling his elbow over Jungkook’s neck.
Jimin feels soft in his sweatshirt and tired by the lean against Jungkook’s back. They are alone in the cabin. Taehyung has taken a booth, Hoseok and Yoongi at the front. They’re likely eager to climb back into their hyperbolic cryo chambers. The chambers only offered light sleep by default, making their use more medical than any preservation against aging. Their ship would take a few days before reaching the portal point, where the quick hyperspace jump would take them to their next performance hub, where maybe Jimin would kiss him again. Nobody seemed surprised that Jimin kisses him. Namjoon had even said thank you to Jimin after their first time, relieved that the crowd had only been waiting for the entrance, not belligerent about their existence. Just like how nobody seemed surprised that Jimin would stay out and play with Jungkook when he didn’t want to use the cryo chambers during shorter jumps, even though Taehyung had said that in school, Jimin used to be the first in pajamas.
Jimin isn’t quite asleep. He totters on the brink, eyes closing longer with every blink. Like a teething baby, his hands curl and uncurl. He catches his fingers through Jungkook’s hair, running through the strands with the soft pads of his fingertips.
--
Some rooms had been locked off for security. Their escape pods, for example, Jungkook had only seen on the tour. The slender pods rested behind a sealed doorway near the bridge. They did have several other rooms for their leisure hours. A telecommunications room, a gym, a holographic room where Jungkook would sometimes play games or pull up the atlases to cover the walls, a garden. The garden connected to the oxygen tanks. Lines of troughs crossed the giant room, weak tendrils gathering in the silicone and glass dirt. Jimin and Namjoon sit there, below the white lily-of-the-valleys that grew on the ceiling trellises. The trickling water rushes through the tubes.
“Jungkook,” Jimin says, eyes lighting up. “The staff gave me a new hand lotion that doesn’t have a strong smell. Do you want to try it?”
“It’s okay, I—”
“I’ll get it.” Jimin scrambles from where he’d been sitting, trotting towards the door. The silver doors slide close behind him, leaving Jungkook standing in the artificial sunlight.
“Was I interrupting?” he asks Namjoon.
“No, of course not.” Namjoon welcomes him with a smile. Jungkook takes the seat where Jimin had been sitting, the fake brick still warm to the touch.
“Does Jimin kiss you?”
“Hm? Does Jimin fish me?” Namjoon scratches his ear. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Kiss. Kiss-u.”
“I know,” Namjoon says. “I’m just not good at what you’re going to ask.”
“You know everything. You were the top of your cohort pod.”
“That was for the easy things,” Namjoon says. “Calculus, chemistry, agriculture, navigation. Not feelings.” Jungkook had only been at the middling in his pod, not significant in anything except art. He still remembers his robot teacher fondly, sitting in the white egg pod and pressing the scratched-up buttons. He had done well enough until he reached the emotional intelligence portion. Numbers, he could understand. Trying to figure out what to do when the robot teacher flashed a sad face with digital tears made him wish all the tests were multiple choice, where he could guess the answer right. He had hoped that Namjoon would have aced those tests, too, but he already knew who held the highest score in their group.
That person had already run off for hand lotion.
“Why don’t you just ask Jimin?” Namjoon asks.
“I’m mad at him.”
“Really? About the kiss?”
“No, something else.” Jungkook broods. “But don’t tell him.”
“They really didn’t teach this in class.” Namjoon stares down at where he had his notebook in his lap. “If you don’t like what he does, you can tell him.”
“I don’t hate it.” Jungkook just didn’t understand. Neither did Namjoon, apparently, who looms over the line of seedlings. He stares at the walls, the projection of a forest swept in the wind. The forest would transition through seasons, adjusting to spring blossoms, beaming summers, crisp red autumns, blustering blankets of winter.
“He dotes on you more. He likes you, a lot. But I don’t know what he thinks about you.” Namjoon struggles, words slow and short. “If you’re asking whether he considers you platonically or romantically, or something in between, that’s a concept only he would understand. If you’re asking me what you feel about him, then it’s something only you’d know.”
“I don’t know what I’m asking,” Jungkook admits. He sometimes feels a bit freer to express himself around Namjoon, who had taught him so much. When he first entered the space race, the world had been filled with light and darkness, gravity and distortion. Hyperspace made him queasy, cryo sleep filled his mouth with a metallic tinge, like how he would imagine gallium would taste on the tongue. Namjoon had been there, penning their songs.
And Jimin, smiling beside him.
“He might be overwhelming to you,” Namjoon says, “but I think it’s because he loves all of us a lot. He’s very innocent.”
“He isn’t,” Jungkook murmurs. “And you know that, too.” The doors slide open again, familiar footsteps trotting over the low hum of the engine. He pretends to study the seedlings, the pale green growth, while Jimin kneels before him. He’d been running down the hallways, though they’d been told against that. His hair had the tell-tale sweep, though, pinned back by a quick run of his hand. The hand lotion comes in the shape of his partner mascot, a pink rabbit that held their own performances on intergalactic TV spots.
“Here,” Jimin says, breathless. He parts Jungkook’s hands, squirting the lotion onto his palms. He caps the bottle into his lap, fingers massaging the lotion over the lines of his palms and over his long fingers. If Jungkook looks up, he’s certain he’d see Namjoon staring at him with some askance. He doesn’t know. He really doesn’t know. In his mind, he sees the tests that his robot teacher had given him, where he watches people play a ball game without him, the flashing tears that fall in comical arches from the crying digital face.
Jimin smiling up at him, holding his hands like delicate glass.
--
On the third day, he tries out his outfit for XIAIW. His jacket covered most of the see-through chiffon, but Jimin ducks by and touches his chest with admiration. Jungkook laughs, and then squirms away when the touch becomes too delicate, brushing down his sternum and towards his abs. Jimin laughs, too, and wanders away to where Taehyung tries out a spiked collar with too much approval for his nervous stylist.
On the fifth day, he plays alone in the holographic room before Player Two joins, flashing on the walls. Jimin’s not good at the game. He’s worse when Hoseok joins, too, and they flop against the walls while Jungkook dodges the lasers and hops over railings. When he wins the game, though, they hug together as if they all took part of the victory, Jimin’s hand lingering at the small of Jungkook’s back as Jimin congratulates Hoseok on his triple accidental somersault.
On the seventh night, he’s woken up from his chamber by Jimin unlatching his tether.
“Shh,” Jimin whispers. “They’ll get mad if they know we’re up.” The artificial gravity turns off after fake dusk, giving the engine more power to bend through the wormholes. Their familiar workspace transforms into a true spaceship at fake night, when only dim lights lined the steel hallways with their geometric sealed doors. The lights remind Jungkook of old lightbulbs he’d seen in films, even if these have been inset to the rectangular corners.
Jimin drifts forward, pulling himself by the handles. Jungkook follows, though he knows where they’re going. The first time Jimin had done this, Jungkook still had his eyes half-shut in sleep when Jimin punched in the code for the door. He still remembers the soft hiss as the pressure released, the shape of Taehyung and Hoseok turning towards him. They had looked at the planetary alignment for hours.
This time, the observatory deck had been shuttered closed. Upon closer inspection, Jungkook pulling himself towards the buttons, the deck had been filtered for bright lights outside. Jimin plays with the tint until the deck flashes a green light, the safety range approved, and the filter adjusts to the view outside. Jungkook isn’t sure what he’s seeing, gas and dust and stars. The tint gives the clouds a red intensity, grenadine mixing with a pewter blue, a faint white with an aurora green. Folding his hand against the glass, he can see the fiery licks spilling out from the stars.
“A stellar nursery,” Jimin says. “We’re not passing through it, but we still get a good view.”
“Baby stars?”
“Yeah. Cute, right?” Jimin steadies himself into a chair seat, though he doesn’t bother with the loose tethers. Jungkook swims his way towards him, flipping in a somersault to land in the accompanying seat. He can feel something against his side.
“Where are the others?”
“They’re all in the globule,” Jimin says. “I think it looks like a swan.”
“The other members.”
“Oh. Sleeping?”
Jungkook looks at the distant sight. He looks at the stars the same way he drinks his tea, trying to soak in the sight and absorb them into his bones. He wants to close his eyes and remember this moment with vividness, the hues that compose the space around them, the filaments that curl like the crook of a swan’s neck, the hollow lightness of its body. All he can feel, though, is Jimin’s hand almost crushed against him, bent from Jungkook had sat down, but unmoving from where he’s pinned against the points of Jungkook’s ribs. He knows he should adjust, allowing Jimin’s hand to drift and escape, but he wants to see if Jimin would try to free this on his own.
“They’re all young,” Jungkook says about the stars.
“We’re all young to someone.” Jimin smiles, abstract. “They said they were surprised with our first contact with aliens. Our hundreds of years of technology were considered baby toys.”
“When Earth was still here.”
“Yeah. I think we’re actually close to the original Milky Way, now.”
Earth had been isolated and gated, though not by alien invasion. They had requested to use alien technology. Planet AR-555, to be exact, whose entire hierarchy had been built on mining technology. Jungkook still recalls the picture of their queen, the long snout accompanied by poisonous spikes that had arranged themselves like a ballgown. The decision had been difficult, but the pollution no longer made the planet habitable and the new advancements in gravity pushed the decision. The Moon, for historic purposes, had been towed through the wormhole to occupy an honorary space.
“Do you pity me because I’ve never been on Earth?” He can feel Jimin’s hand against him, the thorn in the lion’s paw. Jimin gazes at the nursery, the stars swaddled in the blankets of gas.
“No,” Jimin says. “Most beings haven’t lived on Earth.”
“Then.” Jungkook hesitates. The observation deck, by design, had the most soundproof walls. Even the ignition of their engines, which ripples through the air, doesn’t make a dent. It is him and Jimin, sitting in the dark, empty chairs surrounding them.
“When I see something sublime,” Jimin says, “that’s divine, and it makes me feel so happy, then I have to show someone. I want this to be your comfort, too.”
But he’s still crushing Jimin’s hand. If he jabs his elbow back, grinds the small bones of his hand, then Jimin might withdraw. Shout, scold him, a pseudo-aggressive front. If it was only weight, then Jimin would only keep quiet, staring out the wall-to-wall window. Jungkook is unhappy. Repulsed. The gas cloud resembles a swan with one wing stretched out, as if shielding the nascent stars from the shattering rainfall of meteors and comets.
--
XIAIW wasn’t a habitable planet. However, it did have spectacular natural crystalline structures. When the wind blew through the white crystals, which protruded like solemn towers, the planet would sing. XIAIW nowadays had been retrofitted as an award show planet, the initial terraforming now housing the operas and the theaters. They still called them red carpet events, though the red carpet had been replaced with the celebrities descending upon twirling platforms.
Jungkook closes his eyes on the balcony. The weather, temperate and cool, contrasts against the bustle of the interior ballroom. The Bismuth Hall had a dizzying, oil-slick array of rectangles, jagged edges pulled out from the earth like microchips. In the distance, he can hear the planet’s song. This reminds him of a whale song that he heard in his egg pod, small hands gripping the used headphones. A deep bellow that erupted from the core of the earth turned to a higher whistling from the crystal’s resonance. He loves singing and he loves songs.
“Keep your eyes closed.” Something cold touches his lips. He eats, obedient, with his teeth delicate over the tines of the fork.
“Sushi?”
“From the fish of Planet Aries-Havershord,” Jimin says. “We’re close to the original colonies.” His award show outfit combines swept hair with a dark jacket, thin white shirt that doesn’t do much against the chill. He doesn’t shiver, though, balancing the plate of sushi on a hand. He finishes off the sushi piece from Jungkook, chewing through the sliver of pink atop hard rice.
“Everyone says your video was very good,” Jimin adds, slipping his sunglasses onto his shirt. Without them, his face looks more open and innocent.
“Thanks,” Jungkook murmurs, vaguely shy. He had spent hours sorting through the footage, splicing them together while sitting cross-legged in front of the screen. He swiped plenty of clips into the trash, buttressed by his pillow fort. Others, he kept on his personal drive. In his room, he watched the zooming in and zooming out, the laughter, the memories of discomfort, their concerts to their fans. The way he sometimes caught Jimin looking at him. The expression he had on his face when he looked at Jimin.
“Namjoon says they might use some for Planet 111213,” Jimin says. A high honor that makes Jungkook swallow. The residents of 111213 only lived one rotation of their sun, but they had a repository of short clips and films to peruse during their lifetime.
“Weren’t you talking to someone inside?” Jungkook tilts his head towards the crowd. They dazzle him, sometimes, full of personable words and wide smiles. The bionic arms with glittering inset gems that act as transistors, the dresses that froth like sea foam. He had thought, near the buffet table, Jimin had been leaning against the pillar and laughing at something a handsome young man was saying, his Babel earpiece flashing orange.
“He’s part of an agricultural cohort,” Jimin says. “I don’t think it’s impossible to get cabbages. Just not very possible. There’s a difference.” He insists the last part with a whine. Jungkook doesn’t know how to say the rest of what he wants to say. That he had seen Jimin laughing in his charming, flirting way. That he doesn’t know what to think about that. Inside, the chandelier casts a lovely light over the dragon fruit centerpiece and the laughing, glittering people.
“Did you meet him at the ceremony?”
“He’s just a fan of old movies.” Jimin thinks. “Old space movies. You’d know more about that, though.”
“I’ve watched a few.” Jungkook likes old movies. He wouldn’t say he liked old space movies, though, since his taste varies. He likes the cinema, going with Jimin to sit and grab fistfuls of popcorn. Action-adventure, exciting movies, he likes. The old movies where the space mission goes awry, where people float away, lost forever amongst the stars, the horrific accidents before they developed better safety measures for spaceship repair. He doesn’t like that part. He had even recently tried to re-watch Superman but turned off his screen when they send the baby from Krypton, the planet collapsing inward by catastrophic destruction.
“Do you want to see the Throne?” Jimin asks, finishing his plate. The robot dispenser comes alive, twin lights blinking for eyes and extending its arms to accept the empty dish. This was a newer model, displaying a smiley face while the dish rolled down the robotic belt and into the awaiting chest plate. Jungkook’s robot teacher had only recently received the emotion package upgrade.
“Is it okay to leave?”
“The ceremony is over.” Jimin shrugs. “We’ll be back before Namjoon notices, it’s not far.”
Jungkook thinks they’ll take two separate hovercrafts, but Jimin hops behind him and hugs his waist. The terraform hadn’t taken into the planet, the grass replaced by crystals soon enough. The decorations of the amethysts and rose quartz, moonstone and night sky sapphires, blend together like the lines in warp drive. Jungkook likes riding down the worn pathway, Jimin pressed against his back. The Throne refers to a small arrangement of crystals not too far from the ballroom, grown against each other to resemble a large seat of clear crystals. Jimin climbs up the well-worn pathway, Jungkook sometimes hopping up to climb a few steps with his hands.
From the top, the planet sings with sincerity. He thinks he hears an accompaniment, turning to see Jimin singing a wordless song. He has an innocent voice. The planet song, in his voice, sounds less lonely than what Jungkook had heard as wind whistling past the crystals. A pretty note entices him and Jungkook joins the song, sitting on the armrest of the Throne and looking at where the spaceships still hover above the palace of crystals.
--
Planet red-Scorpio-Mars had several active volcanos, though they had been placed in semi-statis. The heat already overwhelms him backstage, his shirt sticking to back. Even though they perform in the evening, the volcanos glow behind them, the red magma and seething smell of sulfur curling like a boa constrictor and choking their heavy-duty fans. His hoverboots feel sticky.
“Doesn’t hot air rise?” Jimin asks, small fan blowing into his face. “Is it safe?”
“The ventilation should be fine.” Jungkook clicks through the buttons, feeling the boots lock onto his feet. Even the safety check makes him dizzy, the air shifting and sweltering. Everything seems fuzzy, the glitter of their costumes like a bleared mark. His head feels like an echo, stomach twisting as he fights back waves of nausea. Jimin waves over more packs of ice, though they already have begun to melt through their blue insulated packs. In the cramped backspace, surrounded by hot monitors, Jungkook feels claustrophobic.
“Maybe you should just perform on the platform,” Jimin says.
“No. I don’t want to.”
“Jungkook—” Voice like cool silk, he wants to wrap around him. He’s going to vomit. He shoves Jimin’s hands away and staggers to the opening. As the platform rises, the hinges creaking under his weight, he can still see Jimin crouched and watching him.
He sings. He dances. He remembers spinning around. Part of his routine involve somersaults that takes him towards the platform. The people in the crowd all look like smears. The volcano hiccups, the belch releasing a new wave of heat. His heart races into his head, but he smiles and waves to the crowd. His shirt has become a second skin, even though he’s had five costume changes. The ice pack on his neck feels like a wick, absorbing him. His hair mats to his forehead. Every time, backstage, he shoves Jimin away. Hoseok hovers, Namjoon tries to advise. He drinks the water that feels like it evaporates when the droplets leave the bottle threads.
They do an informal Q&A. He smiles, pretending he’s not panting. The Babel earpiece kicks in, what’s your greatest fear, when he reaches his turn at the wheel. He laughs, noticing that his reflection in the holographic has a deep flush from his neck to his cheeks.
“My greatest fear,” he teases. “I don’t think I have one.”
“Jungkook is the bravest,” Taehyung announces into his mic. “He’s not even afraid of the dark.”
“Being alone in the dark is a little scary,” Hoseok says, rising to the challenge.
“Being alone,” Jungkook begins, but he’s cut off by Yoongi muttering something about how Hoseok shouldn’t be the one to speak. They’re standing at a cool distance from each other, but Jimin turns to him with a sweet smile.
“At least you’ll never be alone with us.” Jimin laughs, mic held at his waist, so his words don’t get announced through the speakers. Liar. Liar liar liar. Liar liar liar liar liar liar. Jungkook feels so irritated. His skin feels too tight. He’s too hot. He wants to vomit. In front of the crowd, he smiles, waves, nods, and the moment the cool darkness welcomes him back beneath the stage, his knees buckle on the platform and he keels over.
--
It’s cold when he wakes up.
The room is dark. When he breathes, he imagines the vapors rising from his throat. He’s surprised he’s not covered in icicles, frost coating his eyebrows. He grips a fist, fingers numb. He thinks he’s in a medical cryo chamber, the ones in the south end of the ship. He’s been there before, getting his fingers scanned by the laser while sitting on the white bench. When he fumbles for the exit switch, usually a toggle on his right, he finds his hand slipping into air.
A cot. He’s sleeping on a medical cot. The room’s temperature had been lowered to compensate. He wants to get up, but he can’t. Everything is dark. He hears rustling, soft clothes. He can’t move his neck, but Jimin peers down from his periphery.
“Are they dead?” he whispers.
“What?” Jimin smiles, uncertain. He looks grim, sallow eyes and hood drawn up. A reaper. A comfort. Jungkook feels delirious, fumbling out to grip onto Jimin’s sleeve. Uncharacteristic. Vulnerable.
“Is everyone else dead?”
“No. Yoongi’s sleeping,” Jimin says. “Namjoon’s writing a speech. Taehyung is outside, so is Hoseok. Jin is making dinner for you. Everyone’s okay.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.” Jimin laughs, curling his hand over Jungkook’s hard fist. His fingers don’t quite cover the healed knuckles, brushing over Jungkook’s ring finger. “They’re okay. I promise.”
“I don’t feel good.”
“I’ll up the dosage.” Jimin stands up, reaching to the dim green light of the medical switches. Jungkook fumbles, grabbing the give of the sweatshirt and pulling him down. He’s not crying, just sweating.
“They’ll get mad if they find me here,” Jimin murmurs, but he still climbs onto the cot. He’s already barefoot, curled near Jungkook’s side. He doesn’t use Jungkook’s arm as a headrest, though he’s splayed out. Instead, he takes a small corner of the pillow. Jungkook’s eyes have adjusted enough to the darkness. The door had been sealed shut, the double-paned window of the front revealing the ship’s lights still working without any emergency red tinge. Though Jungkook doesn’t move, he can still tell that Jimin has only occupied a small space, curled up within himself.
“You didn’t kiss me,” Jungkook says to the empty air. His chest feels heavy. His arm aches from where he recognizes a drip has been taped into his elbow joint. His head hurts. He expects Jimin to say that their cultural packet hadn’t said anything about kissing, maybe laugh and smirk at Jungkook’s question. He would have a lilting tease and Jungkook would let the issue release into the air.
Instead, Jimin rises onto an elbow. His fingers feel cool against Jungkook’s jaw. He doesn’t move, doesn’t kiss back, when Jimin kisses him. He closes his heavy eyes and feels the feather touch, the cot giving way to where Jimin has rested most of his weight on the crooked bend of his arm.
--
On Planet Libra-Venus.A2, holding hands was the etiquette. Jungkook isn’t surprised that Jimin stretches out his hand, weaving their fingers together. He is surprised when Jimin still kisses him, surrounded by the flowers that loom above them.
On Planet Virgo-Mercury, he allows Jimin to fold his arms over him like origami and kiss him. In the planet of waterfalls, he pretends not to be surprised when Hoseok and Yoongi invite him fishing. As their ride hovers over the magnetic strips, zipping through the city, he watches the flickering holographic billboards and the flashing neon signs disappear behind the spliced hybrid trees.
“What if there’s a solar flare?” Jungkook asks. “Like in Idas-Marpessa?”
“These things have back-up generators,” Yoongi says, eyes on the road. “It’s safer than it used to be.” Jungkook doesn’t believe him, but he also doesn’t live his life in worry. He lets the wind sweep over his hair, gripping the metal back of his seat and allowing the relief of natural gravity stretch his legs. The waterfalls cascade in dull roars, the white froths hiding the scalloped scales of the fishes. Descendants of salmon, Jin had told them.
The water splashes cold around his ankles. He side-steps a circle of mushrooms, testing the spring of the fishing rod. The latest technology of fishing rods had robot fisheries, expert machines that had moveable joints and a reeling line engine that sped faster than some baseball pitches. However, fishing as a hobby remained relatively static, save for the updated charge systems on the fishing rods and the accompanying drone nets that could cast multiple fish. They hadn’t brought the latter, presumedly since the sport would be taken from the process. Yoongi leans back in his folding chair, eyes exchanging words with Hoseok like a rock-paper-scissors contest.
“You want to talk about Jimin,” Jungkook says for them. “Me and Jimin.”
“Well.” Hoseok straddles a chair, hands wrapped around the fishing pole’s grip. “I think you and Jimin know each other best. We’re just worried. Aren’t we?”
“I’m not,” Yoongi says.
“Most of us are worried.”
“What does Jimin think?”
“You’d have to ask him,” Hoseok says. “I guess we’re just here to ask, what do you want?”
“Want?” Jungkook echoes. “I don’t want anything.”
“If he keeps kissing you,” Yoongi said, “you’ll keep getting married on more and more planets.” That was true. He had already accidentally married Jimin in a few planetary incidents, though their marriages weren’t contractually binding for all the arm of the galaxy. Throughout the purple stars, the twin suns, the thin gravity, they had accidentally been dedicated to one another. But he couldn’t consider this so different from what they had been to each other. Like the comet that only crossed every hundred years, they crossed each other’s paths and had entered a contract then, subtle as the touch of Jimin’s hand on the inside of his pulsing wrist.
“It’s fine,” Jungkook says. “He doesn’t know anything yet. I know him more than he knows me.” Hoseok rises to say something, but the tug of his line catches his attention. Their current planet, with heavy artificial gravity, had adopted some wildlife descendants. To him, the salmon that Hoseok catches resembles the ones he had seen on screen. The shimmer of the scales, the sleek webbing of the fins. He supposes to Jimin, or those who had been born on Earth, the difference might be clearer.
“Knowing someone isn’t the same as understanding them,” Yoongi says, once the commotion settles down. He seems mildly entertained by fishing, but he’s more interested in the compass of their ride. He had used to prowl around the hyperspace lanes, honing his navigational senses even without Namjoon’s conventional schooling. In fact, when they had arrived on Planet S87472-Marea, Yoongi had the contacts that had proofed their systems and examined their cryo chambers, giving a thorough onceover of the engines and AI systems to prevent further faults.
Jungkook trusted Yoongi’s words, but suspicion had become a closer friend.
“If he wants to kiss me, he can kiss me.”
“Jin says that you’re mad at him,” Hoseok says.
“I am.”
“Is this normal?” Hoseok directs this question at Yoongi, who taps the compass with his finger.
“It’s not good to stick our noses where they don’t belong,” Yoongi says, shrugging. “If Jungkook says it’s fine, it’s fine.”
“Thank you.”
“As long as the center holds.” Yoongi glances up at the sky, near the direction of the missing planet of the orbit.
--
“Get dressed.” It’s late at night. Jungkook feels the tethers unlatching from his sleeping bag, spilling him out to the zero grav. Jimin smiles, mischievous, as he beckons him towards the open closet. This time, he doesn’t lead Jungkook to the observation deck, but the mini-launch pad. Jungkook slips into sleep again, waking up only in time to witness the slingshot maneuver around the gravitation pull. When they land, he’s handed a pair of density boots. Stepping from the oxygen tube, he notices the pale rocks on the ground. Wherever they have landed hadn’t been a tourist attraction for a while, but he still recognizes the weathered sign, metal bent, words scorched, a small round logo on top.
Welcome to the Moon.
“It’s a good time to come here,” Jimin says. “The galaxies are colliding.” Jungkook does look up to the glass sphere. The Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy had already begun their slow collision, the new placement of the Moon now closer to the outer spiral. Space had always been full of stars, but now they clustered together, each star a shard of ice and pale sky. Jimin, impatient, tugs at Jungkook’s arm and pulls him down the street.
“I was born here,” Jungkook says, though he has said this many times during interviews, Jimin sitting beside him.
“It’s a place to call home,” Jimin says. The Moon only had the first versions of terraforming, the equivalent of placing an empty glass on a table and pumping in oxygen through a straw. Most of the craters had been kept as historic artifacts, only decorated with rock carvings of rabbits and a scattering of benches. Jimin slides down a deeper crater, Jungkook holding him by the waist to help ease him down. Iron chairs and tables had been left towards the center, Jimin taking a seat and unfolding the flap of his backpack.
“I packed your favorite,” Jimin says.
“What’s my favorite?”
“Food.”
Jungkook admits this was correct. The density boots keep them on the ground, but his steps still have a certain bounce. He remembers his childhood on the Moon, the day that he had seen Namjoon, when he had met Jimin. He looks at the stars above until hands fold over his eyes.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Jimin says.
“I don’t trust you.”
“Shh. Keep them closed.”
The familiar coldness against his mouth. He parts his lips, letting the fork slide into his mouth. He crunches down. A surprisingly complex taste fills his mouth, a crisp tang. The sweetness layers with the saltiness and the spiciness, like a light in his mouth. As he chews down, he detects the sourness that has soaked into the vegetable, a fermentation. The taste lingers in his mouth even when he opens his eyes, running his tongue over his teeth.
“Do you like it?” Jimin smiles.
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you if you like it.” Jimin scoops another portion out of the jar, holding this out for Jungkook to eat. He can see a paleness beneath the red. He thinks he can taste scallions, too, and the chili flakes. He swallows this down, accepting another portion. He doesn’t know what it tastes like, or even how to make a comparison. It’s not until Jimin forks over the last bit that Jungkook realizes that his eyes have kept flickering up towards the stars, looking for something that was no longer placed there.
“The Earth,” he says.
“Ding-ding-ding,” Jimin says, pleased. “It’s my mom’s kimchi.”
“You got the cabbages.”
“It wasn’t impossible.” Jimin laughs. “I mean, it was hard. Almost impossible.”
“Does it taste like how you remember?”
“Probably. My mom said it does.”
“You didn’t have any.” Jungkook sits on the garden bench on the Moon. Jimin pulls out the foil page, peeling it open by the jagged edges.
“There wasn’t enough,” Jimin says, apologetic. “The rest went to my family.”
“I’m angry.” He doesn’t know why he says this now. It comes out of him before he can think, Jimin’s eyes widening in surprise. He doesn’t raise his voice, the tone soft and casual, but the seething boil beneath this was easy to discern. The heat rising inside him feels like anger. He thought he’d boxed it all out, transferred the wrath from his fists to the punching bag. Jimin had even held the bag on one occasion. But he wasn’t done being angry. He is livid and he wanted Jimin to know.
“It wasn’t good?” Jimin looks at him, hands frozen.
“It was the best in the world.”
“Then.” Jimin places the food back into the pack, pushing it aside until only the dusty table laid in front of them. “Why are you angry? I’ll listen to you.”
He was angry because the solar flare had occurred when they crossed the Idas-Marpessa Galaxy. Their ship had stopped, their engine triggering a shutdown from the service interruption. For a while, all he recalled were the lights shutting off until the back-ups kicked in, a dimmer light with a faint red tinge in the hallways. Fake night had almost already descended. The air already grew colder, the back-ups only prioritizing livable temperature ranges, not comfortable ones.
“It happens,” Jimin had said. “Go to bed. It’ll be warmer there.”
“What about the engine?”
“By the time you wake up, it’ll be working again. Besides,” Jimin had added, “we have the emergency escape pods, there’s no need to worry.”
And that had been the conclusion. Jungkook had woken up the next morning with the engines humming. They performed their songs on Planet A12!11 near a cave full of dragon scales.
When Jungkook had browsed through the footage to clip together his video, he found the raw reel of the main living space from that time. He would have skipped over it, too, if they hadn’t gathered there for an unusually long time. Instead, he projected this onto his wall, watching the scenes unfold before him. The lights shutting off. Dim lights returning. Him, floating through. Jimin talking to him. He remembered this part. He hadn’t known what had come afterwards.
The main living space remained empty until the members returned. The artificial gravitational hub had also been shut off, so they had tethered themselves to their primary seats. Only Jungkook’s seat was empty. The three main camera angles focused on Yoongi, looking grim. Hoseok with severity drawing his face sharp. Namjoon, covered in a blanket and hunched over in thought. Taehyung, solemn like a statue. Jin, hand over his mouth and watchful.
Jimin, angelic.
“Jungkook’s sleeping,” Taehyung reassured, sitting down on the couch. He drew another blanket over his shoulders.
“Doesn’t he have a right to be here?” Yoongi asked. “He’s not a kid.”
“He was tired,” Jimin said. “We’ll tell him later.” Jungkook hadn’t been tired. He’d even been reluctant to sleep, verging on his nerves. But Jimin had laughed at him. In his room, he zoomed onto Jimin’s face. Jimin had no tell, just a solemn serenity as he watched the other members. The living space must have been cold, but Jimin didn’t shiver.
“It’s not good,” Namjoon said finally. “I was talking to Cassie. Solar flares are unpredictable. This one happened to cut off some of our main systems. Communication, basically. We can’t radio out.”
“What galaxy is this?” Hoseok asked.
“Idas-Marpessa.” Jin answered for Namjoon, who seemed lost in thought in his hands. “It’s a hyperspace route, but we got ejected from the lane. Just our luck, right? No wormholes. We’re far, far, far, far, far away from any good planets. No food, no water, no service.”
“How far?” Yoongi, now.
“Years by regular ship,” Taehyung said softly. “Or that’s what Cassie calculmagiced.”
“It’s not all bad,” Namjoon said. “Cassie said she might be able to do a full reboot of the engine. We’d still have the garden-circulated oxygen and the whatsitcallit. But if it fails. If she fails. Then we don’t have a way to send an SOS.”
“The staff ships will still look for us,” Hoseok said, half a question, half a test. His positivity disappeared into a grim doubt.
“If we haven’t already drifted.” Yoongi hadn’t taken navigation in school, but his confident voice spoke to the days when he ran the sails of the smaller ships. “Our navigation was already getting bad. Maybe from sunspots. It only takes a few degrees for us to go nowhere.”
“We don’t have our navigation system,” Namjoon said. “But, like Yoongi said, it’s likely that we’ve drifted off-path.”
“So what are our options?” Hoseok looked at him.
“In two hours, Cassie will be ready to try a reboot. If she can get us back online, then the engine will start back up. We’ll be fine, smooth sailing.”
“Enough to get back into hyperspace?” Taehyung asked.
“Back to normal,” Namjoon said. “And even if we don’t have hyperspace capacity, our warp drive can push us to the nearest planet in a few days. We don’t even have to use the cryo chambers. Might be better if we didn’t until we get an engineer to do a clean reboot.”
“And if it doesn’t work,” Jin said.
“If it doesn’t.” Namjoon studied his hands. “Life support for seven people will be difficult. Maybe a few hours, but our garden was never meant for full oxygen support.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear,” Yoongi said.
“But it’s not all bad news. Cassie has enough power from the offline power module to boot an escape pod. The lifeboat system. Full works, SOS signal, cryo chamber, oxygen supply, water and food lines, temperature control. Once the power module can absorb enough energy, navigation will reboot. The full cryo chamber would stop the aging process, so it doesn’t matter if it’ll take fifty, a hundred years to re-navigate. As long the escape pod can run close to the hyperspace lane, one of those ships are bound to detect it and pick it up.”
“It is the law,” Jin added.
“We can only hope.” Yoongi dropped his head. “As long as the cryo chamber works. Doesn’t that thing need full power to really freeze someone?”
“That’s true.” Hoseok turned towards Namjoon, who looked like he had the weight of a planet on his hands. “My egg pod said that most cryo chambers just do light sleep. Deep sleep mode takes a lot of energy. More than maybe what this ship can give.”
“Cassie says she can do it.” Namjoon seemed to ponder about something, forehead wrinkling, while he struggled with thought. Finally, he seemed to have been defeated by thought. His shoulders dropped down, blanket dragging to the floor. “But the main ship will have to be powered down within three hours. Exhausted of energy. All devoted to one escape pod. Like I said. One lifeboat.”
The main room didn’t possess the red tint, but just had a dull light. The silence that followed remained had a thick, suffocating air, no longer accompanied by the engine sounds or even the faint whir of hyperspace. They sat in the dark and in the cold. Their worry resembled the severe religious lines of marble statues, shadows cast in small eclipses onto their faces. The words must have resounded in the room. Seven people. One lifeboat.
“Jungkook will forgive us one day,” Jimin said.
In his room, watching this footage with his door closed, Jungkook reached out an arm. He touched his wall, trying to merge into the scene. The footage only reflected on the back of his hand. Jimin’s face, while serious, remained serene. Someone stop him, he thought. But he had already been asleep, tied to the wall. Stop Jimin. Argue with him. In his mind, he wanted an adult to disagree with him. But they were all adults.
“He wouldn’t go in there willingly,” Taehyung said softly. “Not if he knew we wouldn’t have life support on the ship anymore.”
“It’s fine,” Jimin said. “He’s asleep now. We can pack for him, our staff piled his important things on top in his closet.”
“He’ll wake up,” Hoseok said.
“If he does, we’ll tell him all the escape pods are working. He won’t know,” Jimin said. “And he’ll forgive us one day. He can’t if he’s dead.”
They lapsed into silence again. Jimin didn’t look like he was manipulative. Too clumsy to be cunning, too self-conscious to be conniving. Even in the camera footage, he had an angelic look to his face. But Jungkook knew. Eyes wide, hand pressed flat against his cold wall, he knew. Jimin’s tone brokered no argument, already moved onto the following steps. Namjoon looked vulnerable, grieving at breaking the news that his family would have to sacrifice six to save one. The decision, already made, would be a relief. They didn’t have to argue over whose life would be worth more.
Jimin had already decided for them.
“We do have two hours,” Namjoon said, wobbling. But he had shown the unbroken skin of his neck. Jimin smiled, blissful.
“That’s enough time for me to write some letters to my family. Or would a video recording be better?” Jimin pondered.
“Either one,” Yoongi said. “We’ll store a tablet in there.”
The decision had been made. If anybody would have risked looking selfish before, they couldn’t now. The argument had shifted from who to how, no doubling back to that topic. They must have still had been tempted, somewhere, to clamber for their lives. Beg, desperate, or to hold court about the value of their lives. But they were all fond of each other. To save at least one person must have always been the only choice. To choose their youngest, the one not there, must have been a pale martyrdom.
They were cruel. All of them. They didn’t really think what it would be like. For Jungkook to see their smiling faces, reassuring him that they would wake up with him. He could imagine it. The don’t worrys, the casual talk about whether a cruise ship would find them, if they ended up on that planet where the winter had never ended, and they would have to burrow under the snow for warmth. Hands on his back, smiles in his face. Jimin, loud and endearing, pushy about securing the seatbelt strap. If Jungkook had looked into his eyes, truly looked, he might have seen something lurking in the shadow of his pupils. But he wouldn’t have looked. Wouldn’t have known. Years later, he’d be alone. Drifting in space, like those old movies, abandoned and spinning into the endless void. The only survivor.
He punched the wall.
“Okay,” Namjoon said on screen, unmoved by the force and reflecting over where Jungkook had cut his hand. “We’ll meet back here in two hours. Bring your last will and testament on your drives, we’ll combine them.” When nobody moved, Namjoon finally rose from the couch. He wrapped his blanket around him, unlatching his tether and pulling the handles to the parted doors. In emergency mode, all the doors had been unlocked. Most of them dispersed, though Jimin and Taehyung still sat in their assigned seats.
“Maybe a video will be better,” Jimin said. “I can tell my family that I’m not afraid.”
“You’re not?”
“Of course I am,” Jimin said, surprised. “I don’t even know what will get us first. Lack of oxygen? Freezing to death? Hunger? Really, it’s terrible.”
“I don’t know either,” Taehyung admitted. “But if he knew this was your idea, he’d never forgive you.”
“I know.” Jimin smiled, beatific. “Let’s record our messages.” Even they were gone, now. Jungkook fast forwarded the footage. Two hours later, they met. Heads gathered, a blank tablet filled. The cold must have been worse, the blankets now heavier. The lights shutting off, then turning back on fully. Hugs. Pats on the back. Smiles. Five hours later, he would wake up. The footage showed Jimin casually eating, standing up to pull a seat out for him. Smiling, resting a hand on his shoulder. Liars, all of them.
Now, Jimin sits on the Moon and looks at him, wounded.
Jimin must have known this would come. He must have. He had still chosen to do it. He should reap what he had sown. Jungkook had the right to shout in his face, fists bashing against the table. But instead he buries his face into his hands, lacking resolve.
“What’s wrong? Does your head hurt?” Jimin sometimes spoke to him too gently that his heart felt like he was already breaking.
“I don’t want this,” he says.
“Don’t want what?”
“This.” Jungkook gestures, though his arm arches over the entirety of the Moon. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Jimin scowls. “I’m nice to everybody.”
“You’re not.” Because he had seen what Jimin looked like when he was cruel. Now he could see the kindness as a choice.
“That’s not my problem, then.” Jimin says, teeth set. “I don’t see why you’re mad. I’m your friend. I want to be nice to you. I don’t want anything from you. There’s no reason to be angry.”
“But I want you to want something from me,” Jungkook says, feeling like the words explode from his mouth faster than he can think them.
“What should I want, huh?” Jimin crosses his arms over his chest.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, but you’re mad.”
“Yes,” Jungkook says, shouts. “Yes, I’m mad. You don’t understand. You won’t understand.”
“I’m trying! I don’t know what you’re saying!” Jimin’s anger is visible on his face now. So the angel could look mad. Jungkook feels a sick thrill. He’s drowning in fire.
“You don’t understand,” he repeats. “You can’t know. How stupid you feel. To realize how much you’ve been loved for so long. That you’ve taken for granted. How stupid—stupid—it is to think, everything works out well, what a miracle, what a coincidence, that you can float above everything, when you’ve been protected—your life—by someone who loves you so much.”
“Who loves you?” Jimin thrusts his arms outward, forehead knotted.
“You do. You love me.”
“I—” Jimin hesitates, face flushing, then doubles down. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. That doesn’t have anything to do with anything.”
“It has everything to do with everything. How am I supposed to deal with this!” Jungkook thrusts out his hands, plaintive. The bruises have already healed on his hand. “That I know you would hurt everybody else except for me.”
“That’s not true.”
“I was happier,” Jungkook says, “when I didn’t know what you would sacrifice in your lowest moment. It’s—gravity. It’s heavy. It’s so heavy. How am I supposed to carry this?” He’s frantic and yelling nothing. He knows this but can’t stop. He feels so much like a child throwing a petulant tantrum, but the gravitational pull on his heart makes him feel crushed, like the clouds collapsing in star birth.
“You can carry anything. You go to the gym,” Jimin snaps.
“I lift weights, not planets. Not this.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“You’re not understanding!” Jungkook makes eye contact with Jimin. He wants to stare him down, but Jimin’s gaze doesn’t waver. He tries to study his eyes, trying to find that tell that he couldn’t see through the monitor. Jungkook was good at staring. He never won the staring contest with his robot teacher, but he didn’t need that victory. He wanted this one, finding himself pulled by the intensity of Jimin’s stare. Perhaps this was delusion from the windless Moon, but he thinks he can see something in Jimin’s eyes. A spark. A fondness. A delicacy.
The tense silence finally slips away from them, Jimin turning with a sigh.
“I guess I do love you.” Jimin sits down, heavy. He doesn’t sound happy, rolling the back of his neck in his hand. “Now that you mention it.” They don’t have false dawn or false dusk on the Moon. Jungkook couldn’t tell how much time has passed, the stars a constant bright light above them, their dusty footprints untouched by wind.
“I don’t want to be alone,” Jungkook says. “I want you to treasure you more. I want to be able to treasure you more. To protect you. From yourself. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You don’t.” Jimin looks at him, eyes wide.
“It just scares me. How much you love me. But I think I can get used to it. It—scares me that I’ve already been able to handle this much already.”
“You’re really making it sound like a burden,” Jimin says. “I don’t have to love you.”
“Liar.” Jungkook looks away. “Jimin is a liar.”
“I’m not asking anything from you. I said that already. I meant it.” Jimin scowls. “So it’s fine, isn’t it? We’ll be like normal again. We’ll be friends.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Because Jimin had been thoughtless. Because Jungkook had been furious. Because this was already too late for maybe and take-backsies, they were already married on several planets and in the throes of his heatstroke, he had wanted to burn faster.
He rises from his chair. The Moon doesn’t have a distinct smell. From all his memories, in comparison to other planets and even other moons, it did have a tinge of something. But the landscape always looked clean, the craters and crags dipping in gray shadows against pale rocks. His footsteps seem to echo against the glass shield. Jimin looks at him, unsure, even as Jungkook bends down to kiss him. He’s not nice about it. He doesn’t hold him like crystal, like glittering gems. He shoves his mouth onto him with a bite of his teeth and tries to imprint upon him what he had wanted to say, what he wouldn’t say, what he couldn’t say. He kisses him rough and angry, like glass raining down in a barrage of shatters and splinters.
His fingertips touch Jimin’s ears, his palm brushing the line of his jaw. Jimin responds, leaning upward and his hands holding onto Jungkook’s wrists. Then, and only then, does Jungkook relent, letting Jimin kiss him with the light inside him.
Jungkook eventually releases him, though he only sinks to kneel beside his chair. Jimin looks at him, almost bewildered, but still strokes through his hair.
“Was that a hello?” Jimin asks, uncertain. Jungkook rests his head on his lap, elbow curled as a pillow. Jimin is warm and smells familiar. He closes his eyes, feeling the orbiting need to stay close to where Jimin has rested his hand on top of his hair. He still doesn’t know how he would survive with all the battered feelings inside him, but the anger had finally drained from him. He was left, at the bottom of the box, with something warm and gentle.
“It’s more than that,” he murmurs. “But you’ll know what it means soon enough.”