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Jungkook is cruel. It's not something Hoesok would ever verbalize, ever speak into the early, tender hours of daylight, but that doesn't take away from the verity of it. Jungkook is, cruel.
Hoseok to his friends is jubilant. Hope skitters over his being like baptism, like the blinding grin of a caring deity. But that's not him. Well, atleast not entirely. But it's easy that way, to mask the shadows that eclipse the brightness of his soul. The doubts. The hurt. The hunger pangs.
Jungkook knows that too. Of course he does. Hoseok feels like he wears his skin inside out when he is around. bare. always so bare. the pang in his stomach twists into a knot.
"Heard you're hooking up with the twink from that pizza place again, huh." It's Yugyeom, goes to the same university as Jungkook. Hoseok recognizes him from Jungkook's many Instagram posts and tags. It's been cloudy all day, and the ground feels lumpy under his mud-flecked sneakers that are far too old and should be commissioned out of wear, but oh well. He crouches behind the bike stand, pizza-box probably crumpling under the pressure of his bony fingers.
Jungkook shrugs, fingers still flying over his phone, in an endless scroll.
"You know our Jungkookie is, Yug. He does like taking long hard walks down the other side. Can't say what you see in him though, dude looks like a possum drenched in sewer water half of the time. I'd never even eat anything he touched." Eunwoo guffaws, makes a gagging sound, someone titters snidely, sharp and cutting. Jungkook.
The pizza-box slips, as his fingers go lax, takes a miscalculated fall directly onto his dirty sneakers. Great, now not only he'll have to take this bruised pizza out of pay-cheaque, he'll also have to find a place to clean the cheese and topping off his damned sneakers. And he'll get his ear chewed off by his manager because he's already several minutes late. But how is he supposed to get on with any of it, with tears spilling over blinding him.
"Well I'm not gonna keep seeing him anyways." Jungkook says, snatching a coke can right from Yugyeom's mouth, ignoring his indignant cursing.
"And I can't risk being seen with a nobody like him, ugh imagine the damage control dad would have to do. I still am trying to convince him to let me to go that filmmaking school in L.A for my masters, gotta be in daddy's good graces for that to happen."
Suddenly ice grows on his skin, suddenly it's not sunny in Philadelphia anymore, suddenly all color seems to be draining from everything around him.
"Is he like any good in the sack, though cuz like- ouch Eun what? I'm just curious," Yugyeom pouts making a show of ribs where Eunwoo elbowed him. Jungkook just shrugs, takes one last sip from the soda can before launching it straight into the trash bin. Both his friends whistle at the successful throw. "I mean I have had better."
Hoseok never went to college. Couldn't afford to go to one. He's a from a shit town, he ran away a couple of years back from his abusive family, did a few odd-jobs here and there until he found his current one, atleast it stuck. It isn't that Hoseok isn't human, everytime he crossed over the SNU campus to get to Jungkook's dorm room, his heart has twisted in want. But he's 25, he works a minimum pay job, has to wait months to buy a new pair of shoes, he simply cannot afford to let himself dream anymore.
Jungkook and his friends clear out, happy and buzzing and not fucking dying like Hoseok is on the inside.
"You wanna uh- come by for coffee later?" Jungkook had asked after his 6th order in a week, each time Hoseok had been the one to deliver it. There was no mistaking what his intentions were, there was a suggestive gleam in his eyes, and the sly upturn of his lips spoke of a self-assuredness that Hoseok could only dream of.
Hoseok wrangles the fallen-pizza off his sneakers, his fat tears smattering the lid, a violent sob threatens to break free, even though he has no idea why it hurts so much.
You do, Hoseok. Ofcourse you know why.