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It was the idea of Jungkook, he realized multiple summers after Min Yoongi. It was the mere idea of holding hands, getting tubs of ice cream together, sharing earbuds to listen to Savage Garden on the bus ride home, taking pictures at local brunch shops. None of it was actually wanted in the first place, that was why it hurt so badly.
Acceptance was breaking free from a gravitational pull, and in the beginning, it felt nearly impossible. What would Uranus say if it were to finally be released from the moon?
But without you, what will I do? Where will I go?
Places, the moon would likely say. You’ll find your way somehow.
At the time, hearing Yoongi say he felt as if he were being suffocated by Jungkook, it hit an especially tender spot in his chest. He let the injury sit there and he let it hurt, and he bled out. It was hard to speak up when you were embarrassed for being hurt at all. He couldn’t say anything in the dim lit apartment. Not to Yoongi’s sleepless puffy face.
Jungkook felt numb and didn't even notice the weightless tears falling from his eyes. “What do you— what do you mean by that exactly?”
He can still recall the exasperated expression Yoongi wore out loud. His shoulders reached his ears and his bottom lip bore bite marks from all the anxious chewing he did. It was Jungkook, it was all Jungkook.
“I don’t know what to do with your feelings,” Yoongi simply said, as if Jungkook’s open heart was a pile of paperwork. As if Jungkook’s affection was dead weight he had to carry daily because he had no idea how to get rid of it.
“You don’t have to do anything with them,” he whispered. “I thought you felt the same way. About me. I thought we agreed to let it play out— us play out.”
Jungkook remembered the way Yoongi’s face flushed red. He talked animatedly with his hands like he was pitching a genius product to a company, instructive and stiff. “A lot has happened recently, and I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
What about the words we shared? Uranus asked. Did you lie about me being the only one you looked forward to seeing every day?
No, the moon responded, I just don’t feel that way anymore.
“I’m tired, Jungkook,” Yoongi had said that night. His apartment was so dark, it felt like a cave. None of the windows were open— which was odd because Yoongi loved hearing the city before bed. Or maybe he didn’t, maybe that was something Jungkook forced upon him throughout their relationship. He didn’t know what else had changed since their night of exchanged hushed confessions. Yoongi rubbed his hands at his sides, “And you deserve better.”
Jungkook hated hearing him say that. He hated the way Yoongi would talk badly of himself. He hated the way he thought Jungkook didn’t know what was best for him, or what he could or couldn’t love with everything that he had.
“Don’t say that,” he told him, but it was pointless. He didn’t speak another word after that, just listened to the man he loved talk about his strong desire to leave him behind. There wasn’t much he could say to someone who wanted little of him anyway.
Yoongi said goodbye to Jungkook that night, an awkward smile on his face told him that Yoongi at least had the decency to be embarrassed for ending things like that.
Jungkook remembered getting in his car, waiting until Yoongi shuffled back into his lightless apartment, and then driving for a very, very long time.