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Jungkook usually has nightmares, and this night was no different. But he doesn’t wake up with his own sweat itching or knuckles bloody, he wakes up to Hoseok making noise beside him.
He blinks slowly and gets up. His body feels heavy and part of him wants to just go back to sleep, but he can’t. There’s meds to be given and he's the only one who can do it.
“Hey, Kookie.” Hoseok’s tone is soft, but still his head pounds with the words. “Go to your room and finish getting your nap before med time, okay?” Jungkook nods and crawls out of the tent. He can’t just take a nap though, he has too much to do.
He goes straight to the mini fridge on the corner of the kitchen, starting preparations on autopilot. He has been taught how to prepare these syringes for each guardianship test, has done it himself hundreds of times by now. His movements feel a bit sluggish, it takes ten minutes longer than it should for him to do it. But it's fine, he always starts early just in case.
He leaves the syringes in the minifridge and grabs the laptop sitting on the dinner table to keep looking for materials, optimizing the time he has to wait before giving everyone their shots.
It feels really dissociative to use the internet after everything, even if he’s had years of it to get used to it. Jungkook often has to triple check when each site last updated, if they're not from before the world ended, especially with stores. They feel like cheap memorials for all the people who are gone, which is not quite what he’s gunning to think about when he’s looking for supplies to do some work on the house. He has so much shit to do. A ramp so Seokjin can access the outside easier is a priority, also an outside space so Hoseok has somewhere better than the tent, then there are things he can do to make the house easier for Namjoon to move around and be more independent.
Jungkook scrolls through search results for a while. He doesn’t realize he nodded off until his alarm goes off in his pocket, buzzing and very loud. Jungkook jumps up and narrowly avoids dropping the laptop to the ground. No nightmare this time at least.
He somehow feels more laggy now though. But he can do this, he has to do this. They rely on him.
Most of them come in for med time without him having to call. Taehyung and Jimin are the first ones down, Jimin smiling softly as he pats Jungkook’s head, Taehyung with Yeontan on his arms. Bam seems to have appeared at some point, nuzzling Jungkook’s knee affectionately. Seokjin wheels in from the kitchen with a few bowls of simple food for them to eat after the medication is administered. Hoseok is waiting by the door, talking excitedly about acquiring a chicken? Jungkook frowns, slightly confused. He should add a coop to his list of things to build.
Namjoon looks incredibly tired when he comes up to them, with crutches instead of his prosthetic leg. Jungkook feels a tinge of guilt, because he couldn’t buy a custom made one yet, having to rely on the standard one the government made available. But Namjoon has never complained, even now clearly in pain he smiles with those dimples and pats Jungkook’s head affectionately. Yoongi is the last, and he doesn’t quite even leave the stairs, but is close enough that Jungkook can see him shivering.
“Yoongi-ssi, you wanna be first?” He doesn’t mention the reason why Yoongi might need this accommodation, his addition into the house is still fresh and Jungkook has been worried about his integration.
He nods and walks up. The process is perhaps a bit slower than it should be, but at least Yoongi doesn’t flinch with the pain. And Jungkook gets to look at his tattoos, which he doesn’t often see because Yoongi always wears clothes that don’t show a lot of skin. He feels himself tracing the patterns of the chrysanthemums, they are beautiful.
“Jungkookie, you okay?” Seokjin’s voice wakes him up from his thoughts.
He blushes and pulls his hand away from Yoongi’s arm, who promptly goes back upstairs as quickly as he can. Then obviously Hoseok should be next, so he waves him closer and goes ahead, almost dropping the syringe when Hoseok flinches at the needle as he always does. It’s like his hands are lagging behind his mind, as if he’s wearing his own skin and trying to move it around for the first time.
“I’m fine, hyung.” He answers Jin while gently patting Hoseok’s shoulder to let him go, and in a blink of an eye he’s out, though he remains at the door watching them.
Jimin and Taehyung always go together, holding hands and distracting each other. It actually makes him a little bit annoyed, they distract him too when he should be focusing. But he can't say a word about it, it's always better that they’re having a good day. He doesn't realize he’s sulking until Taehyung leans in and pinches his cheek.
“Oh Kookie. Why are you pouting?” His boxy smile shines, and Jungkook has to look away.
“Don't tease him, Taetae.” Jimin’s laughter is very endearing, which is also a bit annoying for some reason.
Then they’re off to get food, and it's down to the last two. Jungkook can do it, even if he is feeling more and more tired with every injection.
Namjoon is very much a backseat driver about it usually, but today he’s very quiet. He even smiles at Jungkook after his own shot and says he did a good job. How pathetic must he look that Namjoon needs to comfort him as if he’s a child? He doesn’t reply, just gives a polite nod.
Seokjin is the easiest, which is why Jungkook usually leaves him for last. But this time it makes him feel more and more like his hyung knows something he doesn’t. By the time he’s done, Seokjin stares at him and flicks his forehead. “Go rest. We’ll call you for dinner.”
He doesn’t want to. It feels counterproductive, there’s so much to do. And he can do it. But there’s something about Seokjin’s expression, how it reminds Jungkook of his mother when he was little and she was telling him to go to bed. So he begrudgingly nods.
“Please do, can’t miss night meds.”
“I know I know, Namjoon would also not let us forget it.” And then he basically pushes Jungkook towards the stairs.
His room always feels more like a cheap hotel room than a proper bedroom. He hasn’t bothered decorating, there isn't really much money or time for that. In all honesty, Jungkook would have been fine with just a mattress on the floor, but fortunately the house already came with some furniture. He just gets under the covers and falls asleep with surprising ease.
Jungkook’s dreams always feel similar. A mixture of the same ingredients over and over.
Thousands of faceless bodies pressed agaisnt train doors. A stuffed bunny trying to drag him somewhere he somehow knows isn’t safe. Breaking Soyoon’s neck because she got infected and he has to pass by her to make it to where it's safe. He feels the scars on her neck as he grabs, and the way she tries to bite his hands… It’s her but it’s also the old lady he killed and thousands of other faces he saw.
When his eyes open, it takes a while for him to realize what is happening around him. It’s not as dark as it should be, actually there’s some sunlight coming through the window. He groans, his entire body feeling heavy. Jungkook can tell he's too warm. No , he can’t have gotten sick. He swears loudly, and then even though his brain is all foggy he hears rushed footsteps outside, then soon enough his door opens.
He didn’t know who to expect, but he wants to smile when he spots Hoseok of all people inside. “Hobi-hyung… The meds. Have you taken the meds?” If the sunrise is here it means he slept through his alarm, how could he? That’s so irresponsible.
Hoseok, wearing a pink facemask with a sun pattern on it, steps closer and pats his head. “Don’t worry, Tae gave us the meds at the right time.” His hand lingers on Jungkook’s hair and snakes its way to his forehead. It makes Jungkook melt, Hoseok’s cold skin soothing him. (If maybe a little part of him thinks of his parents, that’s between him and the pillow he flops back onto).
“Yeah, you probably do have a fever.” Hoseok declares, so matter of fact that it makes sense. It’s bad though. He can’t be sick, there’s no way… “You should rest, Jungkookie. Well, first you should take a shower because you're all sticky.”
His nod is a bit delayed and Hoseok is already gone when his eyes focus back. Jungkook gets up and stumbles towards his closet to grab a few clothes. He does feel sticky and dirty, it fucking sucks. At least his nose is congested enough that he doesn’t really smell it too. It’s perhaps more telling of his bad condition that he doesn’t hear or notice that someone has come into his room, not until said someone grabs his arm and tugs him around.
“Let’s give you a shower.”
Jungkook sometimes forgets how strong Jimin can be. The other boy used to be in sports teams when he was younger, and even with everything that he has gone through, Jimin has been more and more dedicated to exercising lately. Jungkook is so distracted by that show of strength that he doesn’t immediately process what’s happening. Embarrassingly enough, he only catches up to it when Jimin is tugging off his shirt unceremoniously and shoving him towards the shower. Jungkook would be absolutely mortified if Jimin wasn’t acting more like he does whenever they need to bathe Yeontan than as if he’s getting someone shirtless.
“Do you need me to help you take off your pants?” He asks, tugging lightly at Jungkook’s waistband as if this is nothing.
Jungkook is very thankful to be only half conscious right now, because he can't help but feel himself burning with embarrassment. There are things that are not meant to happen, Jimin seeing him naked is one of them. Fifteen year old Jungkook would have likely literally fainted at that possibility. “I can handle myself.” He says dignifiedly, definitely not whining or pouting as he tries to hide his chest from Jimin’s eyes. Jimin is unphased, hands on his hips and bossy as ever.
“Sure, big boy. I won’t force you to let me help, but I’ll be right outside in case you feel faint or something.”
Jungkook will not admit it, but he soon regrets basically telling Jimin to leave. This kind of behavior is not appropriate though, he's the one responsible for them. And they'll always see him as a child in the end anyway, he shouldn't be blushing either. So instead he sighs and tries to take a decent shower, even if the water feels unnecessarily cold. For a moment it reminds him of the days after the train, of getting scrubbed basically raw by people looking for injuries or any signs of how the fuck he survived. He looks at his hands, at the couple fingers where he lost his nails for good, and can almost see the blood in them.
He shivers, nauseated. A part of him wants to be held, another is sure he should never be. It would just be burdening people, to ask to be taken care of when nothing even happened to him. They need him to get it together and take care of them, it’s literally the least he can do. God, he should just go to bed again. Maybe he just needs to close his eyes for a bit longer and he'll wake up better.
“JK? You good?” Jimin’s voice startles him so hard that he almost trips. He turns and stares like a wet fawn at the still closed door. “You’ve been there a while.”
Has he? He can’t tell. “I’m gonna be out in a sec. Sorry.” Jungkook rushes to scrub himself a bit and get his hair wet enough. It takes too long apparently, because by the time he pushes the bath curtains open Jimin has come in with clothes and towels. He doesn’t let Jungkook do anything, mumbling under his breath as he makes sure Jungkook is dry and warm. You only have these baggy black clothes? When was the last time you gave them a wash? Jimin all pouty and worried is not something he’s used to seeing. In all these months, Jimin has been incredibly nice and polite, to a degree that sometimes Jungkook wonders how he can handle all of this so well. So much better than him, lying awake in bed cycling through a thousand scenarios in which everything around him could crumble.
“I have to buy groceries. And someone has to make sure your meds are on time. I can’t expect you guys to give each other the shots.” Jungkook mumbles to himself as Jimin dries off his hair. “You shouldn’t even have to do this, Jimin-ssi.”
“Call me hyung, I’ve told you that a hundred times, you brat.” Jimin flicks Jungkook’s bangs away from his forehead, and Jungkook must be worse than he feels, going by how brief is Jimin’s smile. “What you need to do is rest. We can handle everything else.”
He knows they can take care of themselves, they did back then. When Jungkook was a pathetic cry baby holding them back, and maybe that’s why the taste in his mouth is so bitter. But luckily enough, he doesn’t have the energy to argue right now. It’s pointless and it would expose him too much. Jungkook has done such a great job at keeping his shit locked away from them. They’ve gone through so much, Jungkook’s weird fucking paranoias and insecurities have no place here. So he just lets Jimin hand him a water bottle and tuck him into bed.
He wants to ask Jimin to stay, to have someone here with him, but he can’t quite bring himself to be even more of a bother right now. So he just shuts up and lets Jimin do whatever he wants. The weight of his eyelids crashes over him.
The last thing he says is that he will be good for the night meds. Which even he knows is a lie.
He feels tiny, forgotten and alone. He dreams of empty train stations, platforms haunted by howling wind. Jungkook vaguely realizes he hasn’t really been to a train station since that day. This one isn’t real, he can tell because it feels at the same time like the one in Seoul, the one in Daejeon and the one in Busan they never made it to. He shivers from head to toe. Why does he feel so small?
He looks up and sees his mom extending her hand to him. There’s pieces of her face falling off, the skin all clammy and the muscle fiery underneath it. Jungkook should scream, he should cry and beg for her to not be like this. Instead he remains there as she smiles and hands him a toy. A blood soaked bunny that Jungkook feels like he should recognize.
There’s nothing much to be done, and perhaps that’s the saddest thing in acceptance. He shakes and cries, but no words come forth. There’s no one to save him, why would there be? Jungkook needs to save himself, to drag himself out of this station. But there is no way out.
The train arrives, and Jungkook realizes he’s had this dream before. That he knows what’s gonna come out once the doors open. He sees the thousands of bodies pressed against the windows, he can’t tell if the faces are familiar or if they just became familiar over the years because of every picture he has seen.
The door opens, and things happen as they often do. He sees Hoseok, as he was when chained to the train. Milky eyes, veins popping and black. His arm is barely attached, his teeth are covered in blood and bile.
Jungkook doesn’t scream, and he half wishes to just vanish.
Jungkook doesn’t realize he is screaming until he feels Bam licking his face. His breathing is heavy, and it takes him a moment to process that he is awake. It’s dark again, and it feels like the world around him makes no more sense. He shouldn’t be sleeping for so long, but it feels like that’s the only thing his body can do, there’s no energy for anything else. Soon enough the door bursts open and Jungkook barely has the time to process before there’s someone there.
He should be able to recognize who it was, there aren’t a lot of options, but still his brain lags. The person comes over and a bottle of water is pressed against his lips, cold long fingers pushing his bangs away from his face.
“He needs something for the fever.” The voice is just familiar and soothing enough that he doesn’t fight it.
Another voice chimes in. “Gotta make do with tea. Not like we can go to the drug store.”
They can’t leave, they should stay. Fear claws at his throat. He doesn’t want to be alone. Maybe he says that out loud, maybe he just thinks it, nothing really feels real around him. The two people seem to get it though, one of them smiles and Jungkook thinks vaguely that dimples are something so cute. Someone covers him with a thick blanket and someone else sits on the bed next to him, offering him a hand to hold, which he does even if it feels childish .
“Do we… Stay here?” The soft unsureness of one of the two just makes Jungkook whine softly. The words to explain that he doesn’t want to be alone have absolutely left him. It hasn’t been this bad since he left his parents’ house, his voice feels like it will not leave his throat even if he begs it to. He wants his aunt’s kimchi, he wants So to show up so he can apologize for being a bad friend. He doesn’t quite get what happens around him, but a solid body settles close, and someone puts on a song to play, just the noise of rain and a piano.
Jungkook falls asleep again.
It’s not dreamless, because it never seems to be. But he doesn’t pinpoint what it’s actually about. There’s not much besides colors and this constant feeling of exhaustion and loneliness. He feels dizzy and lost even in his dreams, but besides that he can’t remember much else. Jungkook almost wishes it was like this every night, that he could forget.
On the third day he wakes up to talking downstairs.
Jungkook sits up and drags himself out of bed, walking up to the half open door. It creeks slightly when pushed, one of the thousand things for him to do and fix around the house. He sniffles quietly and shuffles closer to the stairs, and that’s when he recognizes the newcomer.
“This should be enough food for you all to last the rest of the week, and I brought some cold syrup for him.” It’s weird hearing Soyoon after so long, knowing she’s just a few steps down the stairs. They didn’t have a big fight or anything, nothing he should apologize for, but still he feels too ashamed to talk to her and admit he didn’t try to keep her around. That he just let her disappear from his life. His cheeks burn with the fact that he still needed her help in the end apparently.
“Thanks again, So.” Namjoon speaks calmly and with familiarity. “We were worried about what to do for medicine with him. Seokjin-hyung can drive, but you know all the issues with that.” He sounds secure, able to make things work even with the deck stacked against him. While Jungkook is pathetically sick and behaving like a child. His knees give out and he crouches by the stairs, listening in. Seokjin also thanks Soyoon for the supplies she brought, she offers to come back tomorrow with a new batch of meds, Taehyung and Jimin ask how she's doing. Jungkook bites the inside of his cheek. Maybe tomorrow he can see her? He’ll probably be a bit better by then, and he should at least pay her back for all the money she's spending getting food for seven.
He doesn’t realize someone is watching him until Yoongi touches his shoulder. He flinches and Yoongi steps back.
“You should go back to bed, Jungkook-ah.”
He nods, wide-eyed and feeling a bit like a deer in front of headlights. He looks back down to the stairs though, and Yoongi frowns at him before sighing.
“You can call her some other time.” There’s a softness to how Yoongi speaks, even if Jungkook can’t see his face under the mask he can hear the fondness .
He follows and allows Yoongi to take his temperature. Everything makes him think of other times, of other moments, of a family he gave up for them. Not that there was a different choice to be made in the end of the day, how could he leave them to the centers? Or with strangers? He’s read their case files front and back. Seokjin’s family were Seoul Survivor militia, they’d kill him. The Parks literally would rather have their son be dead than to deal with the fact he might have done things while infected. Namjoon’s and Taehyung’s families never even had the chance to know they lived. And the fucking Mins… How could his parents expect him to not interfere? They raised him to care, and they raised him to try and make the world better.
And yet now what is he doing? Sitting on a bed while one of the people he’s supposed to take care of is babying him.
“You should eat something more than water and rice.” Yoongi mumbles. “But every time we tried you refused.”
Jungkook doesn’t remember refusing, but he feels incredibly embarrassed. “I guess I just keep thinking of my aunt’s kimchi stew.” He tries to smile and act as if he’s feeling better. Yoongi hums noncommittally and gently pushes him back onto the bed.
“Do you want the laptop to watch some videos while you rest?”
He thinks he nods, and soon enough there is a screen in front of him showing a romantic drama from back when he was a kid. Yoongi doesn’t stay with him, which is unsurprising. Now that Jungkook thinks about it, this is the most they’ve talked about things that weren’t practicalities . Some vague part of him wonders who Yoongi is as a person, he often feels like the biggest incognita out of everyone here. But in a way Jungkook can understand. More than he should, probably.
The day is better, though he doesn't remember much between naps and watching very meaningless shit. It feels weird to see what people used to consider serious problems, everything was… different. He doesn’t remember how it felt to be this unworried, to care about silly things like if he could have his first kiss before becoming a trainee. He chuckles to himself, hugging Bam through most of the day.
—
The next time he wakes up is the weirdest.
He wakes up feeling a lot better, sweaty and gross but also more rested than he has been in such a long time. He sits up, and Bam seems to notice he’s better too, based on how his tail is wagging and how he lets Jungkook go clean himself up alone, not trying to make him stay in bed.
He puts on some clean clothes and a beanie to go downstairs. He can barely wait for things to go back to normal, to show everyone that he’s better. That they don’t have to worry about him anymore.
“Jin-hyung, I’m better!” He calls maybe a bit too loud, but he hasn’t seen Seokjin in a couple days he thinks.
Seokjin is in the living room, on his wheelchair, and turns smiling brightly but stiffly. Like he did back when they had to record the propaganda advertisements, so Jungkook knows there’s something wrong. His gaze ends up being pulled to the open door of the house, and he startles.
For a moment he thinks it's his mother. The pixie cut and perfectly tailored outfit say otherwise, but it feels like a slap to his face all the same. Her expression is not soft or happy to see him, her lips pursed as she steps into the house.
“Auntie? What are you doing here?”
“I got a call telling me a certain brat was whining about wanting my kimchi.” She replies, hands on her hips. “And you imagine my surprise to hear that, considering the only brat I know is my nephew who no longer seems to want to have anything to do with our family.”
The words sting, and he stands behind Seokjin’s chair as if that could hide him at all. His aunt was never as tactful as his parents, this anger and contempt isn't really out of character for her. What surprises Jungkook is when he notices Taehyung and Jimin standing in the kitchen, just on the edge of his vision, looking pissed off at her. But his attention gets pulled back to his aunt quite fast.
“Did you even think of calling them? Of letting them know you're alive? Too busy punishing them for not giving on to your every whim. Which they would have by the way, we both know they were about to give in and agree to everything.”
It stings, and Jungkook reflexively steps back. His aunt is not a bad person. When he was little she was one of his favorite people in the world, the cool fashionable aunt that worked in a big marketing company. He hasn't spent much time with her since… The fucking world ended. She had tried, even helped him set up the deals with the government that ultimately allowed him to have all of them here. It's just… she always seems to want him to try more and get better and better, which he can't do. There’s always gonna be a part of him that’s broken, the fact she doesn't seem to get it made it impossible to deal with her.
But now she’s pacing around his living room, making her presence very clear and unavoidable.
“I’m sorry.” He mutters, entire body feeling like it’s about to burst at the seams.
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” She snaps back almost immediately, arching an eyebrow and crossing her arms.
He shouldn’t try to bite back, it’s a stupid move just like trying to argue with Seokjin or thinking he’ll have a good dream. But his tongue itches with the urge, even if he probably deserves everything she’s saying.
“If it's such a stress to come over, we're sorry to have bothered you.”
Seokjin chuckles at that, and it startles both of them. Jungkook had forgotten they had such an audience, and now looks around to see everyone else is here. Hoseok even comes inside with the chicken in his arms, walking firmly until he’s standing next to Jungkook.
“We understand you two need to talk about all that, but Kookie is just recovering from a sickness. So maybe some other time, lady.”
The protectiveness hits him hard. He doesn’t deserve it, he is the one to blame for the shit she’s bringing it up. He hasn’t called anyone in so long, just like he couldn’t bring himself to visit Jimin or Tae before he got them.
And all his aunt does is nod politely, turn on her heels and walk out of the house. He doesn’t want her to leave, not actually, but he’s too embarrassed to ask her to stay. The other guys probably hate her now, or maybe they'll hate him once they really think about her words. His breathing is already a bit erratic, and he realizes he's a shove away from spiralling.
Before he can fully fall in though, the click-clack of heels comes back and his aunt is carrying a thermo bag inside. “I’ll be using your kitchen. Go drink some water and rest.” She waves Jungkook off, ignoring everyone else.
Later on she leaves enough kimchi stew to last them all a few days. It’s still as good as he remembers.
—
He doesn’t call his parents after she leaves, he doesn’t explain to everyone else the complexity of their relationship, he doesn’t quite apologize for being so troublesome.
The one thing Jungkook manages to do, after everyone else leaves and goes to bed, is sit on his bed, grab his phone and send one long overdue text message.
To Soyoon:
Sorry I’ve been a shitty friend.