Work Text:
JK steps off the bus and looks at the sandy walls of the motel building, hands deep in his pockets. Apprehension stands next to him; it sat with him on the bus, and now it walks with him as he crosses the street and shoulders through the door, into the musty air and dim light of the motel. He's been here before, once. He'd been to YK's old place much more often, back then.
The corridors are quiet, his combat boots tapping on the floor, apprehension just behind his shoulder. He wants to ask why it's following him--he guesses maybe because of the note. How long has it been since YK expressed any interest in seeing him? Why now? Why was SJ watching him when he found the note?
JK takes the stairs two at a time with long, loping strides. SJ... There was a time when JK trusted him completely, more than he'd known it was possible to trust. Certainly more than he's trusted anyone since. Except maybe YK, but YK is different. He's unreliable, unpredictable. Trust in YK is inherently a different kind of trust. JK isn't even really sure if he can call it trust.
He isn't really sure why he's here. He can't deny the sharp nails of something that feels suspiciously like hope digging into his heart. They clamped on as soon as he saw YK's name on the note, and JK hates how strong they are. He hates how much they hurt. He doesn't know what there is to hope for, not anymore. He thought he'd finally managed to wring the last drops of it out of him.
He hates that he was wrong. He hates that he still hopes. He hates that all it took was two syllables, scribbled at the bottom of a scrap of paper.
The top half of the staircase is closed--lightbulb shards litter the steps. JK pushes through the nearest door, entering the even dimmer lighting of the corridor. Takeout smells seep through the flaky walls. There's another staircase on the other side of the building, and JK heads towards it.
Not for the first time, he considers turning back. Maybe he just didn't see the note. He wasn't paying attention, or the wind blew it away before he got to it. Maybe it would be better not to see YK today, here, at all. Maybe JK doesn't want to know why YK wants to see him today, here, at all.
His feet don't falter. He hates that part of him never hesitated, that part of him saw YK's request and immediately and wholeheartedly said yes, as though it was the only conceivable answer.
He knows how many more chances he has to turn back. There's one more left at the end of this corridor, then up two more flights of stairs, and one final left. He could take the stairs down instead of up. He knows he's not going to.
He makes the left and the door to the staircase comes into view. Apprehension places a cold hand on his spine.
When the fire alarms start blaring, JK starts to run.
Bursting through the door, he bounds up the stairs three at a time, four at a time, hauling himself up by the rail. He crashes onto YK's floor and sprints down the corridor, ignoring his heart and his chest and the tightness there that has nothing to do with the sudden running.
YK's door is locked and JK tastes smoke as he kicks it down.
A wall of heat barrels into him and he reels backwards, sucking in a breath of semi-clear air before shouldering into the room. His eyes sting and his shoulder aches and his chest hurts.
"Yoongi-hyung!" he shouts. "Hyung!"
Glass shatters somewhere nearby and the flames billow. The alarm is a dull wail underneath the roiling fire. Through watering eyes, JK sees the bed and the silhouette standing atop it. "Hyung!"
YK looks at him with empty, empty eyes.
His chest fucking hurts. There are claws in his heart and there is smoke in his lungs and his ribs are too brittle and too small to hold him together. Every breath tastes like fear and gasoline and rage.
The only thing he can think to say is "We all promised to go to the ocean together."
YK's legs buckle and he collapses on the bed. JK lunges forward, fighting for a hold on YK with the flames that have already claimed the bed sheets. The heat sears his skin but there is already a fire within him and the fuel of rage and fear burn it hotter than oxygen every could. He wraps his arms around YK's chest, hauls him off the bed, backs towards the door, YK's weight somehow both heavier and lighter than it should be.
The smoke follows them into the corridor. YK's boots drag along the floor and JK's shoulder throbs. He slides his good arm under YK's knees and picks him up, stumbling down the corridor and away from the smoke as it chases him. He realizes he's coughing. "Hyung," he says. He doesn't know why. "Yoongi, please."
He's not sure when he made it out of the motel. There are people crowded outside, voices clamouring over the keening alarm and the wail of an approaching siren. An ambulance--JK needs to ask about an ambulance.
Someone starts to come closer and then doesn't. JK pulls out his phone with shaking hands--when did his hands start shaking? He stares at the dial screen. The air should be easier to breathe out here but his lungs still feel too small, his throat is still too raw. YK is limp on the pavement at his side, a puppet with his strings cut. JK's hands are empty, where is his phone? He picks it up from the ground, unlocks it, stares at the dial screen. The numbers blur.
There is an ambulance in front of him. He's not sure when it got there. People in uniform swarm around him and their voices are too loud in his ears. They reach for YK and he pushes them away, but their hands are gentle and he remembers they're supposed to help, aren't they? He stands, watches, oddly aware of his hands empty at his sides as they pick YK up and lay him on a stretcher and roll him into the back of the ambulance. A strange panic seizes him as YK disappears from view and he starts forward, but there are hands on his shoulders and faces in front of him and then the ambulance is gone.
There is a blanket around his shoulders and he's not sure how it got there. Someone hands him a phone--his phone. Someone is asking him questions. He puts his phone in his pocket and starts walking.
He isn't quite inhabiting his body. A part of him somewhere remembers how to function and processes the streets in front of him, keeps his feet moving, obeys the traffic signs and avoids moving cars. It's the part of him that's kept him alive this long, simply by default. Most days he wonders why his default setting is 'alive.' Or not even alive so much as 'surviving.' 'Still alive.' 'Not dead.'
He almost talked about it with YK once. YK mentioned something--JK remembers the phrase stop existing. He doesn't remember why he didn't ask or say something more.
The sky is the same colour as the motel room; the sun is setting behind the city smog. JK wonders where YK's lighter is, whether he dropped it or put it in his pocket after setting the gasoline alight. He can't imagine YK without it. He hopes it's lost among the debris in the motel.
Why can he still feel the pain in his chest? He can't feel the rest of his body, not unless he concentrates, but his chest--it's hollow, aching, heavy. Like the smoke turned to stone in his lungs and his ribs are bars of ice. He doesn't remember pain like this. It's not simple the way pain from an injury is--it's not just pain, it's fear and guilt and anger and betrayal and need and hope, again the fucking hope, and it hurts. JK hates that he cares this much.
How can he hate YK for it and also not blame him at all? He doesn't understand anything.
But that's not true. He understands enough about part of it, at least.
The sky is almost dark. When JK looks up, he's standing in front of the corrugated blue metal of NJ's container. This deep in the trainyard, the city noise is a low hum. Metal screeches as JK slides the door to the container open. NJ isn't here and there is no light. JK doesn't bother to find one, just crawls into the discarded clothes on the sleeping mat and wraps his arms around himself.
YK was like a spectre on that bed, the smoke and flames roiling around him. We all promised to go to the ocean together. JK isn't sure why that, of all things, was the only thing he could think to say, but it's true. They did promise, or at least whatever counts as a promise among them. He didn't know how much he wanted it until he was afraid he couldn't have it.
He doesn't know how that makes him feel. He doesn't hate it as much as he thinks he should, the want.
"Jungkook-ah." JK startles awake to a hand on his shoulder and NJ's face close to his own. "Why are you here? Did you have a nightmare or something?"
JK is shaking, he realizes. Everything is cold. His head is full of fog and his throat is full of thorns, and he can't make his voice work.
NJ puts a hand to JK's forehead and something in him quiets, settles. Strange, he thinks, but then maybe not so strange. This container is the closest thing they have to the refuge that was their classroom.
He has a fever, NJ tells him. The thorns in his throat make it difficult to swallow the medicine. "Sleep more," NJ says, "we'll talk later," and JK thinks maybe it isn't the place that feels like a refuge, maybe there's another common denominator.
"Hyung?" NJ turns to look at him. His voice is a scratchy whisper and he's not sure what he's really asking for when he says, "Will I be able to become an adult like you?"
If NJ answers, JK doesn't hear it as he sinks into the peaceful nothing of sleep.