Work Text:
“Is it possible to feel everything and nothing all at once?”
Jungkook has to wait hardly a second for the search results to come up. He squints in the harsh light of his phone screen, google’s white background illuminating the pitch black room surrounding him.
Instinctively, Jungkook’s eyes flicker up to look at the time. 3:39 am. He has to be at work at 6, so he needs to be up at 5, and he knows he should be asleep. Has been trying to sleep for what feels like an eternity. Jungkook can feel the anxiety stirring in his stomach at the fact he’s going to be so tired tomorrow, that his performance will struggle because of it. At the same time, he can’t bring himself to do anything about it. Finds himself not really caring that much as he continues to switch between Twitter and Instagram – and now, google.
Yoongi is asleep beside him, dead to the world and dead to the feeling – and non-feeling – settling deep in Jungkook’s chest. It’s been this way for a while now, maybe. Jungkook floats between feeling and not feeling, between over sensitivity and complete apathy, between self love, self hatred, and self indifference.
The indifference is the worst, he thinks. The indifference brings on nights like this, where he lays in bed awake and thinks to himself ‘ so what if I’m tired tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get fired. What’s the worst that could happen? I’ll find a new job.’ When he was still in school, the indifference manifested itself as ‘ so what if I fail this exam. Maybe I’ll fail the class. What’s the worst that could happen? I’ll retake it.’
Then, the morning of the exam, Jungkook would be so anxious, so entirely overwhelmed, that Yoongi would have to sit with him and do his breathing exercises. Yoongi always asked why Jungkook didn’t just push through the indifference, if he knew how it would affect him afterwards. Jungkook never had an answer.
Still doesn’t have an answer, even now, as he moves back to scrolling through Twitter. The clock reads 3:45 am. He should really sleep. He knows tomorrow morning, when he’s struggling to keep his eyes open, he’ll work himself into a tizzy about the lack of sleep from the night before. It makes it worse when Jungkook knows it’s his fault, when he stays up scrolling for hours when he could just put the phone down and sleep but–
Nothing changes, even knowing that.
Yoongi rolls over in his sleep, a heavy arm winding its way around Jungkook’s waist. Yoongi’s breath is hot on Jungkook’s neck, his body even hotter pressed against his own, and Jungkook– opens a new tab.
“How do I know I actually love my boyfriend?”
Jungkook knows that Yoongi doesn’t have any doubts about their relationship. Even when they argue, Yoongi always tells him he loves Jungkook, that he wants to marry Jungkook one day, that he’s already planned their life together. There are no qualms in Yoongi’s mind that Jungkook is the person he’ll end up with.
Jungkook… sometimes doesn’t know. He loves Yoongi, loves him so much it hurts sometimes. Loves him so much that whenever they fight, even if it’s over something silly like Yoongi being ‘too quiet’ or Jungkook not closing the bread after making a sandwich, Jungkook cries. He cries a lot. Sometimes, if he’s alone while Yoongi’s at work and they’ve had a weird tiff on his lunch break, Jungkook will lay in bed and sob until his throat is hoarse.
Sometimes, Jungkook wonders if he loves Yoongi enough , if he loves him in the right way. He tries his best – he knows he can be quick to anger, knows that his main form of coping is to stonewall Yoongi until he gets over himself, but he’s trying. But some days, Jungkook is… indifferent. Not just to himself, but to Yoongi, too.
Sometimes after too long between seeing each other, Jungkook becomes numb to missing him. He doesn’t stop missing him entirely, he sometimes gets teary at the end of FaceTime calls when he knows he won’t see Yoongi for a while. Other times, more often, he tells himself he doesn’t care if he sees Yoongi within the next few days, maybe weeks, maybe ever. His heart shuts down and talking to Yoongi becomes less about really missing him and more about looking like he misses him until his feelings come back.
The stasis between feeling and non feeling makes Jungkook wonder, sometimes, if Yoongi would be better off without him. With someone who could love him fully all the time; someone who doesn’t oftentimes drive to work and consider never coming home.
Even in his indifferent state, the thought of leaving Yoongi hurts. Sometimes he thinks bad things – sometimes drives down the interstate in the pouring rain, going ten miles over the speed limit and wonders, what does it matter? Who would care? And then he remembers Yoongi, who would be crushed if anything were to happen to him. Who has planned their whole lives – named their children, named their future cats, is even looking at real estate in far away places where the housing market is booming. He thinks about Yoongi in his times of indifference and he hurts.
That must mean he loves him, right? Even if Jungkook can’t always feel it?
4:12 am.
Jungkook sets his phone face down on his bedside table, and the room is dark. He rolls over in Yoongi’s arm and his boyfriend snuffles before snuggling closer, big hands grasping at his back. Jungkook looks down at Yoongi’s sleeping face, barely visible in the low light of the room.
He wonders how he can be indifferent to this man that loves him so, so much. How his heart can just decide to go on vacation, how his brain decides that’s fine. Jungkook has tried therapy, tried medication, but all that did was make him feel nothing all the time. He decided he could deal with the bouts of indifference if it meant loving Yoongi. Even if it only comes in waves, even if it means he has to try a little harder to make sure Yoongi knows he loves him on days Jungkook isn’t sure he believes it, either. Loving Yoongi wasn’t something Jungkook could trade for perpetual numbness, even if it did help to quell the guilt that always comes after an episode.
In his sleep, Yoongi moves his hand up from Jungkook’s back and touches his face. Even in sleep, Yoongi knows when Jungkook needs comfort, knows when there are tears on his cheeks needing to be wiped away.
Jungkook sniffles, suddenly aware of his crying. This is how the indifference works – somewhere, deep inside him, Jungkook still feels. At least, somewhere deep inside him knows how he should feel. That part makes it easy to laugh with his friends when his brain doesn’t want to cooperate, that part knows to cry when he thinks about maybe leaving Yoongi so he can date someone better than Jungkook. That part, deep inside him, is shrouded in times of indifference. His body knows what to do without Jungkook allowing it, without his heart needing to feel the emotions too.
For the first time all night, Jungkook feels tired. He thinks, maybe, that his body’s way of dealing with the indifference is to keep him awake, make him so exhausted that the only thing he can feel is tired. If he’s tired, he doesn’t have to worry about the happiness or the sadness or if he’s loving enough – he’s just tired. Jungkook finally closes his eyes.
His alarm goes off.
Jungkook drags himself out of bed with an upset sound loud enough to wake Yoongi. His boyfriend reaches out for him, grabs Jungkook’s waist and squeezes. Asks, still in the middle of a sleep haze,
“You okay, baby?”
Jungkook's tells him to smile. He does. He runs a hand through Yoongi’s sleep-messed hair because some part of him knows his boyfriend likes it.
“Yeah, hyung. Just tired.”