Chapter Text
(“i had a dream last night.”)
you scare a lot of people, you know. with every little thing you do. they think you’re fading away. they think you don’t want to be here. not here as in where you are. here as in on earth, existing.
you’re a weak person at heart.
you scare a lot of people too.
did you notice?
when you go missing sometimes and cannot be found. it doesn’t matter if your body’s there, sometimes a piece of you is missing. it wanders off somewhere and you’re just gone. where do you go? you leave me behind with everything. you leave me behind.
✥
it’s okay.
jungkook repeats it over and over again in his mind.
it’s okay. it’s okay. it’s okay.
the traces of sleep begin to release his mind.
another push and he’ll be awake.
he had left REM a few minutes ago.
it’s always felt like a small forever—waking up.
another push is all his brain needs.
he does what taehyung had told him to do.
thinks of a bird.
flying and flying and flying.
wings spread in two opposite directions, feathers ruffling in the wind in waves.
it’s an image that’s nearly cemented into his mind, that’s how often he repeats this cycle.
the raven continues to fly painlessly for a few staggering seconds of silence, and then his chest heaves and his eyes blink open.
he’s in a bed.
a bed, not his bed.
it’s been almost a whole year since he’s slept in his own bed.
the lights are dimmed so he doesn’t have to squint up at the people peering at him from around the room.
“hyung?” he frowns. “how did i—”
a burst of coughs halts his words.
squeezing his eyes shut in pain, inhaling through his nose and out through his mouth.
jungkook hates waking up.
sometimes he thinks he can still feel the melatonin dripping down his windpipe coating his lungs in something permanent.
“how did i do?” he manages to wheeze out.
taehyung’s kneeling next to him, white lab coat perfectly draped over his shoulders and eyes glaring at him. although, the glare might just be an illusion.
there’s something about taehyung that inherently frightens jungkook, intimidates him.
it’s as if taehyung’s the scientist in a lab and jungkook is the mere experiment in a petri dish, and it’s always been like this.
he can’t help that his first reaction when he wakes up is to ask how he did, it’s been conditioned into him.
taehyung’s shaped him to aim to please with his every dream, his every thought, his every blink of an eye.
“his lungs collapsed.”
the words leave taehyung’s mouth cold and controlled, no hint of emotion, but jungkook can tell taehyung’s dissatisfied by the way he’s looking at him. eyes sharp, dark brows pulled down, lips pursed in a way that only jungkook can detect at this point.
the older’s fingers slide up jungkook’s arm.
they’re firm and cold and heavy, and jungkook tenses beneath the strong grip.
“taehyung-ssi,” jungkook licks his dry lips, throat constricting, “i can try again. please. tae…”
but the older doesn’t listen, simply continues to press fingernails into jungkook’s skin until there’s a needle in his other hand and it’s being pushed harshly into jungkook’s inner forearm.
taehyung frowns, a look of concentration controlling his features.
jungkook doesn’t think he’s ever seen taehyung smile, at least not while he’s been here.
“please…” but the plea isn’t loud enough to be heard.
it takes all of two breaths before jungkook falls into another deep sleep.
except this one is dreamless.
in the room next to his lies another man, this one dead. lungs collapsed.
it isn’t anyone’s fault really, the man was sick, had been sick for years.
it isn’t anyone’s fault, but the world and a few select people have decided to make it someone’s fault.
and that someone is a young boy who is now lying unconscious on a bed.
needle in his arm and broken heart in his limp hands.
“how long will he be sedated?”
taehyung glances down at jungkook, “a day or so. the next patient won’t be here until tomorrow.”
“is that safe?”
the person asking must be new, taehyung thinks. must be a random intern or some doctor who was curious about what happened in his wing of the hospital.
“i just feel…”
“don’t worry about safety, especially for someone like jungkook.”
taehyung doesn’t spare anyone in the room a look, keeps his eyes focused on the boy lying unconscious.
“he’s dangerous when he’s asleep.”
he stands.
“but it’s worse when he’s awake.”
✥
(“it’s worse when i’m awake.”
jungkook’s in his new psychiatrist’s office.
he’s lying on the ground, out of sight.
it’s easier for him to talk that way.
words usually get trapped when out in the open, and so at this angle from the ground he can pretend he’s talking to himself. or the ghosts.
it’s less daunting that way.
although, his psychiatrist’s soft voice still sounds from a faraway place.
“what happens when you’re awake?”
he likes the man’s voice.
it’s melodic.
that’s why he had agreed to see him.
the sound of him picking up the phone when jungkook had called a few weeks ago, voice low with a timbre that had rattled his bones.
that and his name stood out on the list of recommendations from his last psychiatrist.
min yoongi, dream specialist.
jungkook blinks up at the ceiling.
“jungkook?”
he likes the way his name sounds when yoongi says it.
the man’s voice is gentle.
not too thin.
not too full.
it reminds him of falling asleep.
“why is it worse when you’re awake?”
jungkook blinks again, slow and languid.
he’s on new medication, and it makes thinking hard and speaking a blurry configuration.
yoongi never pressures him into answers, though.
he’s a good therapist.
jungkook likes the way his voice sounds.
“when i’m awake i know it’s real.”)
✥
now i don’t want to point any fingers, but sometimes i feel like you don’t care at all. about yourself. about me. that distinguishment isn’t important, though. you. me. you. me. you.
you.
sometimes your brain is this empty expanse of a place. it’s so barren and lonely. sometimes i get left behind there, in that empty space. and you don’t care at all.
swallow down more pills, but i’m still here.
smash your head against the bathroom tile, but i’m still here.
medication won’t get rid of me.
passing out for hours on end won’t get rid of me.
it only ever makes the empty space bigger. i’m still here.
but you don’t care.
you only care about yourself.
you don’t care.
✥
jungkook wakes up mumbling.
in the same hospital bed, taehyung kneels beside him again, clipboard in his hand,
“jungkook,” his voice is cold and poised.
it aches, something inside of jungkook, something dark and twisted that has only ever known how to expand.
expanding more and more and more until it fills jungkook with something horribly vacant.
“jungkook.”
taehyung’s fingers wrap around his wrist.
the younger thrashes in the bed, still not completely awake. his legs kick out and his eyes squeeze shut in distress, tears brimming.
he tries not to cry in front of taehyung, but he can’t help it sometimes.
“jungkook.”
taehyung digs his nails right over the small dotted scars scattering jungkook’s skin.
needle marks decorate his body from the inside of his elbow to the tender patches of his neck from when the doctors were more desperate.
taehyung squeezes tighter, forcing his arm to stop jerking. “get a grip, jungkook.”
the younger’s eyes fly open.
pupils dilated.
pulse beating like a drum in his ears.
he makes eye contact with taehyung at his side, mouth dry and breathless.
“rise and shine,” taehyung tosses the clipboard into his lap. “new patient in an hour, got into a car accident, paralyzed neck down.”
jungkook’s fingers shake as they hold onto the papers in his lap. glancing down, he can’t make sense of the words for a few moments.
taehyung stands, sweeping his black hair off of his forehead.
he begins to pace, but jungkook tunes it out.
focusing in on the text on the papers.
name, address, date of birth.
names aren’t important.
places to call home and birthdays aren’t either.
jungkook flips to the next page, eyebrows bunched up as he looks for what he needs.
blood type: o negative
medical history: discharged from the hospital for severe food poisoning last year, history of asthma, allergic to wasps and shellfish.
incident: head on collision, thoracic fracture, intervertebral disks unaligned.
“he’s on oxygen,” taehyung interrupts his reading.
“i was getting there,” jungkook shoots back, tired. so, so tired.
“i was just making sure.”
jungkook begins to speak again, but taehyung cuts him off before he can.
“don’t want the patient to suffocate again because their lungs fucking collapse.”
it’s only the two of them in the room.
“the operation was almost finished too—”
“i tried,” jungkook says quietly, eyes avoiding taehyung, head bowed in compliance.
“try harder.”
jungkook feels fatigue creep over his vision despite being asleep for nearly 15 hours moments before. defeated, “i need some sort of intimacy, affection, anything. i can’t work like this.“
his head hangs, he can’t look taehyung in the eyes.
“i can’t dream like this.”
taehyung doesn’t care enough though.
sometimes jungkook wonders if he ever did.
“you don’t need intimacy, jungkook. you’re independent. you don’t need me to pat you on the back or hold your hand when you wake up. you don’t need that. it’s a simple procedure.”
“taehyung…” and his voice cracks at the end of it.
“we have thirty minutes, memorize that.” he gestures down to the papers.
“yoongi was better at this.”
that gets a rise out of him, taehyung looks back sharply at jungkook, eyes slanted and dark, “well he’s not here now, is he?”
jungkook tries not to break underneath the words.
he should’ve expected a response like that, but no amount of anticipation can soften the truth, can soften reality.
taehyung’s gaze wavers when jungkook slumps over, a flash of something bordering remorse on his face, but it’s gone within a second.
“what were you screaming about earlier?” the older asks, voice a hint warmer than it was before.
jungkook used to like taehyung’s voice, used to feel comforted by it.
taehyung doesn’t smile around him anymore though. he never seems to smile at all.
voices change though, and it isn’t often that they change back or return to how they once sounded.
“i...i don’t know.”
it’s a lie.
✥
(it’s a lie.
jungkook doesn’t think yoongi will comment on it though. most times yoongi brushes past when jungkook’s answers are too short, too tight, too monotone to be true.
the silence hangs for a long moment.
he thinks maybe his psychiatrist will move on, but then:
“i need you to be more honest with me, jungkook.”
if he turns his head he can see yoongi’s feet from his position on the floor.
he doesn't though. keeps his eyes trained on the lights above him.
like this, he can pretend yoongi is just another voice in his head.
“i don’t know,” he repeats. “whenever i wake up on the medication i’m just yelling and thrashing and scared out of my mind.”
“do you think it might be the medication?”
“no, it’s always been like that regardless of the prescription,” jungkook mumbles.
it’s more than he’d usually confess, but yoongi has a way of talking.
his voice is honey sweet on fridays.
not too light.
not too heavy.
it reminds jungkook of falling asleep.
“i wish i didn’t have to take the medicine.”
yoongi’s feet shift from beneath his desk.
“i don’t like the dreams.”
“you shouldn’t have dreams. that’s what the medicine’s for.”
“i don’t like the lack of dreams, then.”
“why not?”
“it’s terrifying,” the words leave his mouth like wind, like a bird migration traveling away, away, away. “dreaming of nothing.”
if jungkook had been sitting across from yoongi he would’ve seen the soft smile spread across the psychiatrist’s face.
not a smile in reaction to the younger’s words but a smile for getting jungkook to finally say anything about it at all.)
✥
do you ever think about me too?
✥
“wake him up.”
there’s a moment of hesitation filling the room, panic and chaos not having yet settled since taehyung gave the order.
“but—”
“wake him up, fuck.”
taehyung rips the iv out of jungkook’s arm as he maneuvers the younger to sit up.
“but the patient—”
“the patient’s not going to make it, wake him up.”
taehyung grimaces at the young boy who’s asleep, holds jungkook’s face in between his thumb and fingers.
he squeezes, watching as the skin gives way.
“is it safe?” one of the nurses asks, not noticing his impatience.
“none of this is safe, wake him up before it gets worse.”
they must not know the extent of what jungkook’s capable of.
taehyung wonders how many people in the hospital room are even aware of what they’re dealing with.
with his face between taehyung’s hands, jungkook begins to stir.
“come on, jeon.”
for the few breaths it takes jungkook to open his eyes, taehyung feels this impending sensation that the world might just end.
an unconscious fear? perhaps.
but he knows it isn’t baseless, knows it isn’t foolish to envision such a fate.
he’s dealing with a ticking time bomb after all.
when jungkook’s eyes blink open, taehyung slaps him across the face.
palm colliding with his cheek, jungkook’s head snaps to the side and his eyes meet taehyung’s.
“how did i—”
“stop talking,” taehyung backs away from the younger, pulling him up from the bed. “just, god, come on. up, up. let’s go.”
he begins to drag jungkook out of the room away from the crowd of nurses and doctors.
feet stumbling, eyes drowsy, head heavy.
“are they…” jungkook’s eyes trail over to the heart monitor across the room.
flatline.
it stops him in his tracks.
he heaves in a breath, “taehyung-ssi, i’m sorry. please—”
“later. come on, let’s go.”
nobody in the hallway stares at them as taehyung all but drags jungkook through the corridors.
it’s taehyung’s ward anyway, gifted to him from the government to further develop his studies.
nobody throws a questionable look at jungkook either. nobody knows much about him, but somehow they still know enough.
enough to not look him in the eye.
enough to not cross him the few days he leaves his room.
enough to not ask him if he’s okay whenever his eyes are bloodshot and puffy.
enough to not try and comfort him on the nights he spends sleeplessly yelling at the walls, cursing and calling.
taehyung leads him to a room, one he hasn’t been in for months.
and it’s ironic because he used to be in that room every monday, wednesday, friday.
once the door closes behind them, something changes. something shifts.
it’s eerily quiet in that room, a peculiar warmth embedded in its walls and the faint smell of burning vanilla to ward off the antiseptic and rubbing alcohol of the hospital.
like routine, before he can think about it, jungkook sits down on the floor, legs crossed beneath him.
instead of sitting at his desk, taehyung kneels in front of him, holding his hands in his own.
it’s a kind of intimacy taehyung usually avoids.
“what’s wrong?”
jungkook hates it, hates how taehyung switches from doctor to scientist to therapist to doctor.
the older doesn’t smile, but his face softens.
“stop avoiding me, look me in the eyes, jungkook.” taehyung lifts his chin up, forcing the eye contact. “what’s going on?”
“hyung,” jungkook feels himself crack.
he isn’t even supposed to call taehyung that anymore.
“i don’t think i can keep doing this.”
taehyung rests his hands flat on the younger’s shoulders, feels the way jungkook’s frame is bent in.
“it’s awful.”
“what’s awful?” taehyung’s voice isn’t heavy anymore.
it’s lighter, and jungkook doesn’t know if that’s better.
“what’s so awful, jungkook?”
“waking up.”
taehyung clicks his tongue.
it’s a simple thing—waking up.
everyone wakes up, thousands upon thousands of times within their lives.
it shouldn’t make jungkook feel like he’s tearing at the seams.
but with every blink of an eye, every sharp inhale upon waking, every sunless morning he wakes up in that hospital room, jungkook can feel it slipping.
not just the dreams.
himself.
his thoughts, his imagination, his worries, his hopes.
waking up.
it doesn’t have to be a nightmare too, jungkook-ah.
jungkook pushes the sentiment away, the memory away.
“what about waking up?” taehyung’s voice replaces his thoughts. “what’s so awful?”
jungkook processes his words with clarity and precision, a newfound skill now that he’s no longer on his older prescriptions.
thinking isn’t as hard as it used to be.
“the things i dream solidify when i wake up. they’re no longer something trapped in sleep. i don’t like it. i don’t like when they become real.”
and then:
“i don’t think i can do this anymore.”
jungkook tries not to flinch as taehyung’s grip tightens on his shoulder.
“i need to go home.”
but what is home anymore? jungkook couldn’t name it, couldn’t place it on a map.
his apartment’s empty now anyway.
nobody’s lived there in almost a year.
he wonders if the papers are still there.
if the cat still visits the fire escape window.
if the television’s still on the news channel because yoongi had an affinity for background noise.
he wonders if the water still runs in his apartment, or if the pipes have finally filled with pills to the point that the water stays stagnant above the drains.
it’s like pressing on bruises—remembering an old life that was once his.
applying pressure to dark blue and purple skin wondering why it still hurts.
wondering why it still hasn’t healed.
because he’s no longer the same person who had lived back then in that apartment, but why does it feel like he is? why does it feel like he’s reading blurry lines on prescription bottles again? turning the static of the tv up to cover the sound of the hurting.
“what are you going to do there?” taehyung asks, a layer of challenge in his voice.
what are you going to do there?
who’s going to take care of you?
who’s going to make sure the world doesn’t fucking end.
“maybe i could try painting,” and it’s spoken weakly, like jungkook’s simply trying to supply an answer.
“you’ve never painted before.”
“i could try.”
taehyung’s never understood him.
why try to do something, why even bother going through the effort?
if jungkook wanted to be the most famous artist in the world, all he would have to do is close his eyes and dream.
jungkook knows that.
and taehyung knows that jungkook knows that.
“you belong here,” taehyung’s voice sounds.
it’s like an alarm in a way, a tone he accompanies with waking up.
taehyung’s always there when jungkook wakes up nowadays.
“it’s unsafe for you to be by yourself.”
“and it’s unsafe for me to be here,” jungkook mumbles, looking down at the carpet. “i feel like i only ever hurt here.”
taehyung’s hand falls from his shoulder and settles on his knee, knuckles white.
jungkook immediately regrets saying anything.
he should’ve just kept his mouth shut.
he should’ve lied down on that hospital bed and listened to whatever lecture taehyung had for him about collapsed lungs and veins running dry.
he should’ve nodded his head in submission and promised to do better.
“you think you’re hurting?”
jungkook’s spine straightens and he has to bite his cheek to keep his jaw from trembling.
“there are people out there suffering more than you could ever imagine.”
taehyung’s cold and detached.
“you think being here is painful? like it’s hurting you? leave if you want. i don’t really care what happens to you, you’re pathetic.”
jungkook bows his head, knows taehyung’s only speaking, knows it’s only words.
“you waste time talking about how much you hate it here, yet you’re still here. i can’t even pity you. you’re unbelievable.” and then, like an afterthought, “the world would be better without you.”
it’s not even said with hate. in fact, jungkook knows taehyung would die for him, would never let him go like that. taehyung would rather be killed himself than let jungkook be killed.
he’s too valuable in taehyung’s eyes.
despite that, however, it’s still a fact—the world would be better off without him.
because the world’s an awful place on its own, but with jungkook, with his aching thoughts and stygian dreams, it becomes something even worse.
(“i had a dream last night.”
“what was it about?)
(“the world would be better off without me.”
“what do you mean?” yoongi tries to hide any sign of concern in his voice.
just simple black and white questions and then the session will be over and he’ll be able to go home.
friday sessions are always easier because he knows he’ll have the weekend to process and reassess.
he doesn’t have to stomach each new piece of information and horrid thought into the next day and then the next and then the next.
“it would be better if i didn’t exist.” jungkook’s still lying on the ground.
“do you want to die?”
“no, i don’t want to die.”
“you don’t want to exist anymore, though?”
“i don’t want to hurt people anymore. i don’t want to control them and make the world worse.”
“control them?” yoongi latches onto the phrase. “like manipulation?”
yoongi highlights that in his brain, marks it with a red flag. jungkook seems like a pretty nice kid so far, but you never know what some people have underneath their skin, what skeletons they hold in the palms of their hands.
“i don’t mean to,” is all jungkook offers in clarification.
he picks at the hem of his grey shirt, loose strings hanging from the collar.
the things i dream change reality, the things i dream come true . how do you say that to someone without them thinking you’ve lost your mind?
“i’m glad you’re here,” yoongi says seemingly out of the blue.
it catches jungkook off guard and he has to look away, has to mask the feeling behind darting eyes and clearing his throat.
but an undeniable warmth blossoms in places he’s locked away. he doesn’t mean to let yoongi’s words get to him.
it’s just yoongi.
he’s paid to say this sort of thing.
“there are so many people out there who suffer silently, jungkook. i’m not sure i could ever comprehend how much pain is out there. most people don’t try to get help, though. i’m glad you’re here, and i mean it when i say it. i’m glad because you aren’t one of them.”
jungkook wonders how many people yoongi’s said that to, how many times yoongi’s rehearsed that line to say to his patients.
“it’s not about you paying me, jungkook. i’m glad you’re here too, not just sitting in my office talking to me about things that are hard to have courage to talk about. i’m glad you’re here, on this planet, existing.”
jungkook looks up and finds yoongi’s eyes already on him.
they stare for a few long moments, but yoongi doesn’t cower or look away like most people.
his eyes crinkle as he smiles, and jungkook doesn’t know why he’s smiling.)
✥
“why don’t you just dream you aren’t here anymore?” taehyung asks eventually, still across from him on the floor.
that is where taehyung and jungkook are different.
that is what sets them apart as people, as humans, as two individuals looking toward the future.
taehyung knows why jungkook doesn’t do it, knows why jungkook refuses to dream these days, why jungkook used to swallow down sleeping pills every night praying that a black abyss would await him on the other side of sleep.
he knows all of this, but he asks anyway.
there are two reasons why someone would ask the same question again.
one, they forgot what the other had answered with.
or two, they don’t understand.
taehyung has an eidetic memory, and so it’s the second one for him.
it always is.
“i loved him, you know.” jungkook avoids the man in front of him, shoulders slouched in and chin down.
“loved?”
“love.”
“and look where that got you.”
jungkook’s eyes squeeze shut at the biting words. he’s usually not awake long enough to have to process the memories, to process the things that he’s done, to process anything really.
that’s why taehyung keeps him unconscious.
it’s easier for everyone that way.
“why don’t you just dream that you’re with him again?”
“i love him,” and jungkook’s voice doesn’t crack this time.
“do you?”
“i do,” and jungkook doesn’t know how to get it across to taehyung in a way that the older man would understand, doesn’t know how to just make taehyung understand. “i do. i do. i do.”
taehyung delicately brings his hands up to hold jungkook’s face.
he rubs the pads of his thumbs against the younger’s tear stained cheeks.
“ah, jungkook,” his voice is low and deep. “poor jungkook.”
it’s his soothing voice, the one he used back when he was a therapist.
he’s mocking him.
jungkook shakes his head.
he wants to stop crying.
“you love him?”
taehyung hates when he cries.
“he was just going to end up using you.”
“you use me,” jungkook mumbles, eyes cast down.
“yes,” taehyung doesn’t deny it. “but you don’t love me.”
he tilts jungkook’s chin up to look at him, and jungkook’s met with sharp observant eyes.
taehyung’s eyebrow raises as if he’s daring jungkook to object.
“that’s what i thought,” he finally releases jungkook’s face from his hands. “you’re free to go, jungkook. i don’t care if you stay here. you still have to come back to see me if you want your medication anyway. is there anything else you wanted to say?”
“i don’t hate you, taehyung.”
the older scoffs, “of course you don’t. jeon jungkook could never hate anyone.”
jungkook thinks that the other might never understand him. “it’s not like that.”
✥
(“it’s not like that.”
jungkook blinks across from yoongi. he had decided to sit in the chair instead of his usual spot on the ground.
“i don’t mean to control people.”
“but you do anyway?” there’s no hint of judgement in yoongi’s voice, just the same warm toned voice filling jungkook to the brim with this sensation, this feeling, that yoongi gets it, that yoongi understands him.
“i have dreams.”
“we all have dreams, don’t we?”
“no, i…” jungkook gave up explaining it when he was sixteen years old, but something about yoongi entices him to try for the first time in years. “i have dreams, vivid dreams, and they come true.”
“what do you mean?” yoongi shows no sign of heightened interest, but internally he begins flipping.
flipping through memories, conversations, notes, soft remarks that’ve left jungkook’s mouth in his past sessions.
it isn’t every day someone requests to see yoongi specifically, and it’s even less often that they request to see him because of his dream specialist title in fine print.
but jeon jungkook had.
had spoken on the phone in this hushed little whisper, asking if yoongi really did know anything about dreams.
a lot of yoongi’s patients are people who are forced to see him. alcoholics, drug abusers, a rare case of students or 9-5 citizens crumbling beneath work loads.
but jeon jungkook had fallen into neither of these categories.
had sat on the floor during their first session talking about how his job was comfortable and his relationships were all tied together with a red ribboned bow.
it was his dreams jungkook came to him for.
and it was his dreams that took jungkook the longest to open up about.
it’s the first time jungkook’s decided to sit across from yoongi, and the therapist realizes that perhaps jungkook had planned to finally bring this up.
“my dreams come true.”
yoongi doesn’t respond, gives jungkook time to get it out.
“i could dream that a rock has moved and find a mountain in the middle of seoul when i wake up.”
“seoul?” yoongi’s voice sounds, but it comes from a place far away.
“yeah.”
sometimes jungkook forgets that he had dreamed seoul out of existence a few years ago. back when cities and crowded train stations gave him anxiety, and in a restless sleep he had dreamed of an open field replacing the towering buildings and faceless people.
and the next morning, when he looked out of his window, it was gone.
“it was a city.”
“so you dream of rocks moving and find mountains?”
“it’s just an analogy.”
yoongi hums.
“i don’t usually dream about rocks.”
“what do you dream about?”
“i try not to dream at all.”
jungkook’s file can testify for that—a dozen different prescriptions for sleeping pills, some yoongi’s never even heard of.
there are better ways to kill your dreams, yoongi had thought humorously when he first reviewed jeon jungkook’s file. but it’s no longer something funny or ironic.
“before, then. what did you dream of before you started taking medication?”
“people.”
“what kind of people?”
“people who never existed, and then the next morning were somehow an everyday part of my life.”
sounds like a fairytale, yoongi entertains for a moment.
but the look on jeon jungkook’s face portrays it as anything but.)
(“i had a dream last night.”
“what was it about?”
“you.”)
his apartment door is locked when jungkook tries to open it.
he doesn’t have his key anymore, but he didn’t want to ask taehyung for it, didn’t want the other to think jungkook needed him in any way.
the last time he was in his apartment was last may.
a year is a long time.
but time doesn’t really exist when you’ve been dreaming the whole time.
it feels like yesterday he was here.
jungkook lifts the right corner of the floor mat and finds nothing there.
in defeat he stands, wondering who would’ve taken the spare key.
then, in an ill sort of realization, an ill sort of hope, jungkook kneels down again and lifts the left side of the mat.
as if waiting, tucked away safely is the bronze colored key to an apartment that, for some reason, he thought he’d never see again.
he tries to not let it dawn on him why the key was under the left side of the door mat.
jungkook always puts it under the right side.
there’s only one person who would put it on the left.
for safety precautions, jungkook. people are more likely to hide it on the right side. putting it on the left throws whoever’s breaking in off guard, and then maybe they’ll ignore the fact that you’re cliche enough to hide your spare key under a doormat in the first place.
the door opens with a creak.
it's a sound he accompanies with coming home.
home.
the first thing he notices is that the curtains are drawn, pulled back to let beams of sunlight bounce off of the soft corners of his apartment.
it's emptier though, colder.
the light doesn’t do much to change the fact that nobody's lived here in nearly a year.
and a year is a long time.
it doesn’t matter if you’ve dreamed for the most of the 365 days.
it’s a long time.
jungkook finds the first step feels a lot like waking up.
feels a lot like breaking through the illusion of a dream and coming face to face with reality.
it's anticlimactic, almost.
after a year, jungkook almost expected to find his apartment torn to pieces. bits and bits of leftover chaos from the life he left behind. glass covering the floor, mirror smashed, lightbulbs exploded from all of the pressure.
but everything is intact, achingly so.
there's a pile of mail on the floor.
it fits in so perfectly, makes so much sense that it doesn’t.
when jungkook bends down the papers feel brittle in his hands, like they should've been crumpled and forgotten.
there are a few letters from the city, public notices?
a few bills.
a magazine from a car dealership.
a catalogue about architecture because yoongi refused to unsubscribe from it.
the memory spreads a familiar smile across jungkook's face.
he continues to sort through the pile until he comes across a small envelope.
it's a pale cream color and has no return address on it.
just his name— jeon jungkook.
his apartment number and street name aren't even on it, which means it was hand delivered and pushed through the little mail slot in his door.
he doesn’t know many people, especially people who know where he lives, people who would have access inside his apartment building in the first place.
jungkook leaves the rest of the mail on the ground and picks up the envelope.
his name’s written so prettily on it, he can’t help but study the lines and bends.
when you’re trapped in a constant state of dreaming, it’s easy to forget who you are, forget your very name.
jeon jungkook
it glares up at him in small mechanical like characters.
exuding a sense of professionalism, he remembers the handwriting well.
remembers the way it looked on his prescriptions and doctor’s notes excusing him from work shifts at the factory.
he begins to peel the edge of the envelope, tearing a part of the cream colored paper.
his hands are shaking.
he’s only been home for a few minutes and it’s already bordering on being a bit too much.
maybe taehyung was right.
jungkook inhales sharply, fingers trembling as they rip the envelope open.
in a neat delicate scrawl, handwriting jungkook’s long memorized fill a piece of paper:
angel,
he feels the tears well up in his eyes before he can stop them.
✥
(angel.
it’s one of the names yoongi began calling him back when they first started dating.
angel this.
angel that.
angel, can you make an extra cup of tea?
angel, the sheet doesn’t reach the other side of the bed.
angel, if you keep walking this fast we’ll run out of energy before we get there.
angel, there’s nothing to worry about. it’s just a brand of cereal. it doesn’t matter that much. i’ll probably like honey oats more than the bland shit i usually buy anyway.
angel, don’t you like them? i thought you’d like them. they’re tiger lilies.
angel, you’re so pretty when you’re asleep.
angel, don’t cry.
angel, it’s just me. you’re awake now. you’re awake.
angel, why are you so scared of your dreams?)
✥
that night, for the first night in a long time, jungkook dreams.
he doesn’t mean to.
he falls asleep on his living room floor, mail piled beside him and unread letter fallen to the wooden floorboards.
and, for the first night in a long time, jungkook dreams.
it goes like this:
static.
muffled talking.
“he can do whatever he wants.”
more static.
“you don’t have a say.”
pause.
static.
“and what if he does?”
it’s a phone call, jungkook’s eyes blink open and he’s met with cotton white fabric.
fingers run through his hair.
“it’s really not up to anyone but him.”
yoongi.
the older’s fingers continue to part and unpart his hair as jungkook’s head lies in his lap.
“it doesn’t matter—”
jungkook feels yoongi sigh beneath him, the other person on the phone must’ve cut him off.
“ruining other people’s lives? is that even fair for you to say?”
yoongi’s fingers cease their movement.
“he doesn’t need you.”
and then yoongi hangs up.
“hyung?”
when jungkook twists around to look up at him, yoongi isn’t looking at him.
instead, yoongi stares blankly at the wall across the room.
“what are you looking—”
but before jungkook can turn to see, yoongi’s hands keep his head in place.
it stings.
“go back to sleep, jungkook.”
“i need to take my medicine—”
“go back to sleep.”
✥
(“go back to sleep, angel.”
“can’t i stay up with you?”
“i’m not awake for any particular reason. it’s better for you to sleep.”
“but i want to stay with you.”
“i’ll be here when you wake up.”)
i’ll be here too.
his bed’s empty when he wakes up, though.
it takes a while for it to come back to him.
at first he thought it was just a memory, but then he remembers the dream.
he dreamt last night.
a haunting sort of chill crawls down his spine, and with each blink more of the dream resurfaces.
yoongi had been there.
which can only mean that yoongi had been here, too.
jungkook pushes himself off of his stomach and glances around his bedroom.
he’s in his bed.
but he had fallen asleep by the door next to the mail.
that can only mean that he moved.
or someone moved him.
the thought makes him sick.
jungkook wonders if yoongi had hated it, being back in this apartment, a boy who was supposed to love him unconditionally in his lap again.
jungkook’s never experienced it—the dreams becoming reality. he’s always been asleep for it, has never been on the direct receiving end of his handmade heavens.
yoongi has though, and according to him it’s a troubling experience for those who understand what’s happening.
the mind’s left blank and all that’s left is this dull sensation, this dull feeling that you have to do something.
a kind of feeling that makes people do strange things. ( fight, kiss, fill with hate, fall in love. )
a kind of feeling that tears souls apart only to rebuild them.
a kind of feeling that changes around the days of the week so that the trip to the museum can come sooner.
a kind of feeling that makes cities disappear.
it’s unstoppable and you’re left feeling unbelievably weak, but before you can comprehend what’s happened it’s a new day and it’s like nothing’s changed.
and then you forget that there was a feeling at all.
as if fighting and kissing and cities disappearing is the most natural thing in the world.
it’s like pressing on bruises—registering something in the universe has changed right before your eyes.
applying pressure to dark blue and purple skin wondering when it started hurting.
wondering when everything shifted as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
when jungkook leaves his bedroom, the mail isn’t scattered on the floor anymore. it’s in a neat pile on the counter.
he wonders when yoongi left.
wonders when the feeling evaporated and his mind cleared and he realized.
realized that he didn’t belong there in jungkook’s bed that was once their bed.
jungkook walks over to his front door, peaking out when it swings open as if yoongi might still be there, as if the elder might be sitting against the wall waiting.
he isn’t, though.
the hallway’s empty.
jungkook lifts the left side of his doormat and there, lying by itself, is the bronze key.
it’s as if it had never been moved in the first place.
with that sentiment he closes the door, head resting against the wood as he falls to his knees.
he shouldn’t feel this defeated.
it hasn’t even been a full day since he left the hospital, but it’s like there’s an iv in his arm again and a beeping machine sounding from his left and taehyung’s bitter voice shouting wake up .
he just needs to wake up.
he just needs to—
three knocks interrupt his thoughts.
his head snaps up, and in a sudden surge of hope he rises to his feet, yanking the door open again.
thoughts spiraling down like water in a drain, he’s met with someone slightly taller than him.
not yet realizing that it isn’t yoongi, his hands reach out in a desperate sort of manner.
fingers latching onto the other’s shirt, pulling them closer.
jungkook knows that his eyes must be puffy from crying last night and that he must look like a crumbling resemblance of a person.
he doesn’t care.
“i’m sorry.”
a gentle hand hesitantly rests on the small of his back, but jungkook isn’t aware enough to distinguish the words leaving the person’s mouth.
he can feel it though, the soft vibration of words from deep within their chest.
it isn’t yoongi.
“gguk?”
it takes awhile for it to settle in that it’s namjoon.
jungkook pulls away.
namjoon clears his throat, “i have something for you.”
when jungkook looks down he sees the bottle of pills in the older’s hands.
“it’s from jimin,” namjoon begins. “or, well, it’s from taehyung technically since he’s the one who had them. but jimin’s the one who told me to bring them to you. he said you and taehyung are at a misunderstanding.”
namjoon has a way of speaking like it’s the last thing he’ll ever be able to say to you, thoughtful and informative and so delicately honest.
jungkook nods numbly and takes the pills into his shaking hands.
“taehyung’s one of the best people i know. he’ll come around, i’m sure.”
jungkook studies the orange pill bottle instead of replying.
it isn’t melatonin.
it hasn’t been melatonin in a long time.
he isn’t even sure what it is at this point, but it has to work if it’s a prescription from taehyung.
“if you need anything, gguk, let me know—”
“why are you here?” he asks, eyes meeting namjoon’s for the first time.
they stare at each other for a moment, namjoon feeling a bit weak in the knees under jungkook’s gaze.
there’s something about the younger’s eyes that’s unsettling.
like a staring up above the trees at night.
bleary stars and then this impossible darkness.
wide and bright and sparkling, but layers upon layers of something so empty, something so terrifyingly hollow.
looking jungkook in the eyes feels like it should be catastrophic.
it’s like looking into a blackhole and being able to say you made it out alive. like looking death itself in the eye and being able to say you survived.
“hyung?”
the contact breaks.
“hm?” namjoon lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“why are you here?”
“to give you your medicine.”
“i think you should go.”
✥
(“i think you should go.”
“why are you pushing me away?” yoongi asks. the concern slips through the edges of his voice.
it doesn’t remind jungkook of falling asleep, this time.
“i can leave if you want, but i don’t know if you should be left alone.”
wake up, wake up, wake up. “i can take care of myself.”
“i never said you couldn’t.”
“i’m going to break, hyung. if you stay any longer.”
“you aren’t going to break, jungkook.”
“i feel like i’m breaking every day.”
“but you’re still here, jungkook. you’re still on this planet and you’re still living here in this small corner of the world. you’re living proof that you haven’t yet. or, at least, living proof that, even if you were to break, it wouldn’t be the end of you.”)
(“i had a dream last night.”
“what was it about?”
“you.”
“what about me?”)
“yoongi would be able to deal with him better than you, taehyung. you’re too cold.” jimin knows it’s useless to try and talk about it, but he tries anyway.
there’s something worrisome about jungkook pushing namjoon away so quickly.
namjoon had called him the second the younger had told him to leave.
“yeah, well, yoongi left. that’s what happens, people grow apart and then one of them leaves,” taehyung mutters
they’re lying in bed.
“jungkook isn’t as special as he thinks, and he doesn’t have the control to wield the world how he wants. he wasn’t strong enough to make him stay, big deal.”
jimin stares at taehyung for a moment, his lover in the middle of a timeless rant.
it’s a conversation that never gets old, mainly because it’s a conversation that’ll never not be relevant.
“you underestimate him.”
“jungkook?” taehyung replies incredulously.
“you do.”
“if it wasn’t for me his brain would be fried, that or he’d have overdosed by now.”
jimin glares at him.
he hates when taehyung’s consumed by his role as doctor, scientist, therapist.
they aren’t in the hospital anymore.
they aren’t in the labs either.
but taehyung speaks as if he’s arms deep in blood at an operation table.
passionate and frustrated and detached.
“if it wasn’t for you, yoongi would still be with him.”
taehyung scoffs, “why are you even defending him?”
“he shouldn’t have to be defended against you in the first place. he’s your patient.”
“yeah, and you’re talking about him like he’s your friend.”
jimin throws him a hurt look.
taehyung’s gaze softens in response, mind finally breaking through its stupor.
“we were friends, and you know that.” sometimes jimin feels like there are hands wrapped around his neck whenever jungkook’s mentioned.
taehyung does look sorry for a moment, arms falling over jimin’s waist.
looking into his lover’s, his soulmate’s, eyes erodes something in his heart and he lets out a sigh.
quietly, he loosens his arms around jimin and looks down at their embraced limbs.
jimin’s skin is soft, unblemished, tan, healthy.
“i guess he couldn’t make you stay either, then.”
“you’re too mean to him.”
taehyung tilts jimin’s chin up and kisses him.
✥
(“you’re too mean to yourself.”
“is saying the truth being mean?” jungkook argues.
“when the truth is something insensitive, it can be.”
“do you want me to lie?”
“no, i just don’t want you to hyper-fixate on things that can’t be helped.”
“things that can’t be helped? like being weak?”
“like not being strong.”
“you don’t make sense sometimes.”
“maybe.”
jungkook puzzles over it for a second.
but before he can really decipher anything, yoongi segues, “in this session i wanted to talk about something a bit lighter. our last few meetings have been pretty heavy.”
“i suppose.”
“is there anything you want to do with your life? any goals?”
“like dreams?”
“like desires.”
“skydiving seems fun.”
it’s a safe answer, not too unattainable but not so simple.
jungkook’s life is composed of safe answers.
“why skydiving?”
“i’d like to feel like i’m flying.”
“skydiving’s just falling from the sky.”
“it seems freeing.”
“flying or falling?”
“both.”
yoongi writes something down on his transcript, and jungkook wishes he could read what yoongi always writes on those pieces of paper.
because yoongi takes notes on what jungkook says as if jungkook actually makes sense, and jungkook’s not narcissistic but he would like to see what the other sees, what the other thinks of him and his safe answers and dreams.
“i’d like to fall in love.”
despite being delivered like an afterthought, like a followup to the previous answer, the words leave jungkook’s mouth quick and precise, as if it’s something jungkook thinks about often.
and jungkook has, is the thing. every time he wakes up from a particularly haunting dream, the same thought keeps him awake, keeps him holding onto his consciousness, keeps him from swallowing down twenty five sleeping pills at once.
“i would like to fall in love,” he repeats. “once, at least.”
“how would that go?”
jungkook looks down. he doesn’t want to admit that he’s thought about it, but there’s no point in lying.
safe answers never do much for anyone, really.
“i would be walking down the street, ideally.”
“something simple,” yoongi notes.
“yeah,” jungkook breathes. “i’d just be walking past people, and then a boy would bump into me. he’d be shy, of course, but he’d tell me that i seem sad.”
“a stranger would say that to you?”
“it’s just the way i picture it,” jungkook replies. “he would ask me that, and then i’d tell him that i’m not sad but that i had been a few days earlier. it would be because of something traumatic, i don’t know, a close friend recently passed away or something.”
the words come out smoothly, and yoongi finds himself caught in the daydream.
“since i said this really personal thing, i would expect the boy to say he’s sorry or to look the other way, but instead he would just smile. he’d nod his head and say that he had a feeling something like that had happened. i would blush, you know, because i just poured all that out for a stranger. why did i do that? i would ask myself.”
jungkook must not realize, but he’s smiling behind the words.
“but before i can really start worrying about oversharing, the boy would tell me of this really nice restaurant nearby that has a fish tank in the window, and i would agree to go because he’s still smiling and he had been right, i was sad.”
“and that’s all it would take?”
“that’s all it would take.”
“so you’d fall in love after that, then?”
“yeah, we’d fall in love. maybe for a few months or a few years.”
“it wouldn’t last?” yoongi questions.
“i wouldn’t count on it to, you know? it doesn’t always work like that. people are…complicated. they do things impulsively, without even meaning to.” ( fight, kiss, fill with hate, fall in love. )
“and you’d want that?”
“with all my heart.”
“why haven’t you dreamed about it, then?” and yoongi doesn’t know jungkook that well yet when he asks this.
he doesn’t know that the question is like a bullet in a game of russian roulette.
why haven’t you dreamed about it?
“i want it to be real.”)
✥
later, when jimin and taehyung are eating across from each other. “if he misses him so much, why doesn’t he just dream yoongi’s back in his life?”
“you underestimate him, taehyung.”
“he isn’t as—”
“don’t you think he knows that he could easily dream yoongi back into his life,” jimin finds himself retaliating before taehyung can continue. “just as easily as he could dream you out of existence. then what? you could disappear in the second it takes for him to close his eyes.”
“well if he hates me so much why hasn’t he?”
jimin looks tired.
sometimes taehyung regrets making him go through all of this.
“he could easily make me disappear.”
“why can’t you wrap your head around the possibility that he doesn’t want to do that, that he doesn’t want to control people like that, that he doesn’t want to play this game with the universe.”
“he’d be a fool if he thought that. he’d be a coward—”
“stop,” jimin mumbles, standing up from the table. “i’m getting tired of this. come get me when you’re done throwing a fit over the poor boy. i’ll be watering the plants or feeding the fish or something.”
“i’m sorry,” taehyung attempts, but jimin’s already across the room.
✥
(“i’m sorry.”
“it’s okay, jungkook. it’s just…we have to maintain professionalism here.”
“i know, it’s just, you always smell like black coffee, and i used to work at a cafe before switching jobs and i just thought maybe you would—“
“i would like to. i really would, jungkook. you’re lovely… i just don’t want to cross any lines.”
“you think i’m lovely?”
“you’re endearing.”
“i like your voice,” jungkook shoots back.
yoongi looks away from the younger’s gaze for perhaps the first time, hearing that.
he doesn’t know what changed.
he doesn’t know what made jungkook ask in the first place.)
✥
“he called me, you know.”
when taehyung says this jimin’s watering their garden. a mix of herbs and lilies and chrysanthemums. (practical flowers , taehyung had called them. funeral flowers , jimin had replied.)
taehyung’s sitting across from him on the railing, sunlight casting a warm glow over his back.
“who?”
“yoongi.”
jimin doesn’t immediately react, simply bends his elbow to move the hose over the potted plants.
“he dreamed about him last night,” taehyung adds.
“what did yoongi do?”
“he left.”
“but he made it to jungkook’s apartment?”
taehyung doesn’t have to reply for jimin to know the answer.
“jungkook makes him weak,” he mumbles.
“it’s not a bad thing, taehyung.”
“i never said it was.”
“you always say the word weak as if it’s the worse thing in the world you could be.” jimin’s stopped watering the plants, is instead standing in front of taehyung on their balcony.
“everyone’s weak,” taehyung replies.
his voice is gentler, no longer something so awful, no longer something for hospital rooms and memorized eulogies.
“it’s not something you can disagree with—humans being weak. it’s what you do with weakness that, that makes the difference.”
jimin doesn’t say anything for awhile. simply stares at taehyung’s silhouette outlined by the sun. there’s an ethereal glow around him, and it scares jimin because sometimes he can’t even bring himself to be mad.
he’s tired. “i think i just need some space.”
taehyung doesn’t protest.
jimin puts the hose down. “i’ll be back before 9.”
“going to jungkook’s?” there’s no bite in taehyung’s words, though.
“i just need to talk to someone else.”
✥
(“someone else?”
“yeah, he actually asked about you.” it’s friday and yoongi’s office window is open.
“he knows about me?”
“i’ve mentioned you a few times.”
jungkook sits puzzled for a moment, picking at his fingernails idly as he tries not to overanalyze it.
“he’s a scientist. he’s actually really interested in your case.”
jungkook doesn’t care about that, though.
interest. scientist. does it matter?
at the time it didn’t seem like it did.
“is he nice?”
“yes.” and yoongi’s confident when he says this. “he’s one of my best friends. i think you’d get along well.”
“how would it even work? what if i never see you again?”
“it’s just a bunch of paperwork on my end.” yoongi bites his cheek, afraid of uncharted lines being crossed further and further. “and it’s not about you never seeing me again. it’s about you never having to see me again in this setting.”
jungkook catches on, nodding his head, unrestrained smile beginning to pull on the edges of his lips.
“he’s available mondays, wednesdays, and fridays as well. so you wouldn’t have to change your schedule.”
jungkook blinks thoughtfully.
his eyes meet yoongi’s and he smiles again.
“what’s his name?”
“kim taehyung.”)
“i had a dream last night.”
“what was it about?”
“you.”
“what about me?”
“you loved me.”
jungkook hates waking up.
there was only one period of his life when he didn’t, but those days are better left forgotten.
he stopped crying every time he opened his eyes, though. it’s a start.
there comes a time at the very edge of youth, the very brink of either growing up or growing apart.
there comes a time when something changes.
jungkook stopped waking up reaching for somebody to be next to him, and for a long time he told himself that it was growth.
what kind of growth it was, however, he still isn’t sure.
he took his medicine earlier, a dreamless sleep leaving his eyes heavy with fatigue when he wakes up.
it takes awhile for him to grasp his surroundings.
the clock reads 8:32 pm.
he had fallen asleep in the middle of the day.
keeping his eyes open and avoiding yoongi’s letter, avoiding yoongi in general, became too difficult and so he swallowed down the little blue tablets until the only thing on his mind were the running grey and black lines he associates with falling.
falling.
and falling.
and falling.
and then nothing.
that’s how jungkook dreams.
and most times there’s nothing meeting him on the other side of sleep, that’s the kind of medication he’s on these days.
on a rare occasion there’ll be a voice that sounds like a fractured piece of his unconscious, but its tones and frequencies don’t always make sense and jungkook doesn’t always understand what it’s saying to him.
it’s only there sometimes.
he rolls over in his bed, breathing in the smell of floral detergent and black coffee.
but before his thoughts can plummet into the figures of memories of a certain boy, there’s a knock on the door.
bones cracking and floorboards creaking, he pulls the collar of his shirt down as he walks across his apartment.
his feet drag as he walks, a sign that the medication hasn’t completely worn off.
the face meeting him on the other side of the door is a face he’d never forget.
“jimin hyung?”
✥
(“jimin hyung?” jungkook couldn’t believe his eyes.
there jimin was, in overalls and a government id attached to a chain around his neck.
jungkook never thought he’d see jimin again after middle school when the older boy had moved away.
but there jimin was, upon the new faces of people being trained on the computer programs for jungkook’s job.
before he worked in the hospital for taehyung, jungkook used to work in a factory, converting numbers to colors for a government run television show.
blue.
red.
blue.
red.
it was a repetitive cycle, soul killing at best.
it didn’t leave much room for dreams, but jungkook liked it that way.
there’s not much to dream about with colors.
indeed, he could dream of different ones, but it wouldn’t change anything.
once, when jungkook was twelve, he did dream of a new color.
it was a color between blue and red, between the colors of the flag and the television show he would watch as a kid.
he dreamed of a new color, and it existed for awhile.
it did.
but nobody could see it.
there wasn’t not enough cones or rods in the eyes to perceive it.
jungkook didn’t know how color and light absorption worked back then.
when you’re twelve there’s a lot of things you don’t know.
he dreamed of a new color, he remembers it well, mind grasping at the very edges of imagination and creation.
he dreamed of a new color, but he didn’t dream of others having the capacity to see it.)
✥
“i didn’t think i’d ever see you again.”
“this city’s only so big,” jimin attempts a smile, tone pleasant for an early morning. “it’s about time you dreamed yourself out of it and someplace better.”
“but i’d miss you too much.”
jimin laughs, “dream me there with you, then.” the laugh’s a tight sound, though. like old jokes and past memories that don’t hold the same weight anymore.
jungkook just shakes his head, trying to smile along, trying to not let the interaction become awkward and uncomfortable, trying. “ah, you have taehyung though.”
trying.
jimin’s face falls, his expression detached when the mask falls.
trying.
“that’s…” he trails off. “that’s what i’m here to talk to you about, actually. taehyung and i are having a bit of a falling out.”
“about what?”
but jungkook already knows.
“i met him during one of the worst periods of his life. i don’t know if you remember,” jimin begins.
jungkook doesn’t say anything.
“his best friend had passed away, you know, just a few days prior. trauma to the head. the doctor said there was no way to stop the swelling in their brain, that it would’ve taken a miracle. taehyung was a wreck.”
jimin’s rambling, but the younger doesn’t stop him.
“he had been studying medicine at the time, too. he felt so helpless, didn’t know what to do if there even was anything he could do. he felt so—”
“weak.”
jimin inhales sharply. he still hasn’t entered jungkook’s apartment.
“i know, hyung. i was his friend too, once.”
“yeah,” jimin breathes. “we were all friends back then, weren’t we? you, me, taehyung, hoseok...”
yoongi. the silence speaks his name in ways the two boys don’t, ways the two boys can’t.
“why are you here?” it’s the same thing jungkook had asked namjoon.
“i’m worried about you.”
“you should be worried about taehyung.”
“he’s been through a lot. he’s determined and meticulous and you…”
“got in the way.”
“no,” jimin protests. “you became the only thing he believed in, the only thing he thought could work.”
“that’s where we’re different,” jungkook replies, holding the door in his hand as he leans against it. “he thinks the universe is this systematic, mechanical thing that has to work.”
“jungkook.”
—
“jungkook.”
—
“angel—“
“don’t call me that,” jungkook says monotonously, blinking up at jimin.
yoongi’s the only person who’s ever called jungkook that without it feeling demeaning.
“i just want to help.”
“i don’t know why you’re trying, i’m just going to end up going back to the hospital anyway.”
then, after a second:
“in the end he’s right.”
and, then, like giving up:
“i’m nothing without him.”
he wonders what it would be like to have dreams that were just that—dreams.
“i’m just a puppet, a character playing the part, a tool for someone stronger, better, smarter.”
to jungkook, that’s something that’s always been true.
“dreams are the only thing i’ve ever had, and now somebody else controls them.”
jimin doesn’t take a step forward, stays several paces away the whole time. “nobody controls you.”
“they do though, hyung,” jungkook disagrees. “ you said it yourself. taehyung thinks the universe is something that has to work. he only sees me as a means to ensure that it does.”
the older doesn’t make a move to say anything in return, just lets his mouth hang open.
it’s like pressing on bruises—talking to jimin.
applying pressure to dark blue and purple skin hoping it doesn’t hurt.
or, at least, hoping it doesn’t hurt like it used to.
doesn’t hurt like it did back when he first met park jimin, hurt like when jimin stopped visiting him in the hospital.
jungkook doesn’t blame him for the finger indents or tender skin, though.
jimin doesn’t understand.
he was never meant to.
he’ll go home to taehyung, as he’s meant to do, and then he’ll apologize to him, and then they’ll go back to being in love.
jungkook can see it vividly.
✥
(he can see it vividly, if he tries hard enough.
three years before jungkook started seeing taehyung for sessions, jimin had said something about meeting someone.
if jungkook focuses enough, he can still smell the calpico and soju mixed drinks from the first time they all hung out.
the three of them walking together after jungkook and jimin’s shift at the factory, taehyung driving them to his apartment, picking lilies and chrysanthemums from his garden.
pretty flowers, jungkook had said.
meeting jimin’s new boyfriend, it’s a memory perfectly wrapped in red ribbons.
but it’s also a memory that, if he thinks about it enough, he remembers, truly remembers.
three years before he started seeing taehyung, he had already met taehyung.
it’s a gap in logic, in his memory, in the dream.
and if jungkook really tries, he can also hear yoongi’s sharp intake of breath when he realized, too, what had happened.)
✥
yoongi’s letter is still unread when jungkook brushes a finger against its brittle edge.
the date written at the upper right corner reveals that it had been sent several months ago.
jungkook begins to slide the flimsy piece of paper out of the envelope but finds his hands frozen.
the last thing yoongi had said to him, he can remember it clearly.
can remember the kicked bedsheets and the slamming door and the tightening of his ribs as he ran.
this letter, however, this letter’s like a second chance to last times, last words.
jungkook sets it back on the counter with the rest of the mail, unopened.
instead, he finds his phone buried in a jacket thrown haphazardly in a pile of autumnal clothes.
he didn’t take his phone with him to the hospital all those months ago, left it abandoned along with the rest of his memories and dreams.
after a few suspended seconds of watching it slowly light back up to life, plugged into the wall, jungkook dials a number he memorized out of necessity.
it’s something jimin would’ve wanted him to do, jimin who used to only ever want the best for him.
the other person picks up on the third ring.
“—hello.”
✥
(“hello?”
it’s second grade and jungkook is eight years old.
the other boy turns toward him, backpack pulled over his shoulders on top of his bright red winter coat.
“jimin hyung, is that you?”
jimin beams at him, and jungkook smiles back, still slightly confused.
“hyung, you’re here?” jungkook asks, running to the other boy across the classroom. his lips are turned up in a curious little smile.
they both hug and nobody spares them a glance.
jungkook studies jimin, eyes pretty and lips full, hands warm and soft, hair long and dark, smile bright and sunny.
even the way he talks is soothing, the perfect lullaby for any nightmarish sleep.
“jimin hyung,” jungkook mumbles.
his arms are wrapped around jimin’s frame in a hug.
“you look exactly how you did in my dream last night.”)