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Yoongi likes to look into the fire pit whenever they gather in the empty warehouse, eyes focused on the flames until the sparks continue to glow even when he closes them.
They meet often, once every few nights or so, tired faces and worn frowns finally lifting, eyes getting a glint to them that they can’t see during the day.
It gets loud, especially when Taehyung is stressed, or when Hoseok is too energetic, or even when Jimin is feeling a little more playful than usual. When that happens (or even when it doesn’t), Yoongi likes to lean back against the couch, fingers flicking his lighter on and off as he watches the others fool around. Namjoon and Seokjin usually watch along with him, sometimes engaging in a soft conversation that he doesn’t bother to include himself in. At those times he lets himself relish in the small peace he has until he returns to his usual life of staying up at night, and struggling to get up to that dreary job down at the store that he was lucky to have.
Yoongi lets himself be content with the small luxuries in life, until the one day it all changes.
The night starts out relatively normal. The fire goes stronger than before, crackling inside the bin and soaring up high before they manage to contain the flames. It’s a quieter night than usual, when everyone is laying on a couch or stool, just chatting contently with each other.
It is comfortable, until all of a sudden Seokjin begins to shush the people with a serious face and frantic gestures. The younger two sit up, a little worried, and they all hear small clanging sounds outside the warehouse.
Yoongi stiffens. He’s not worried about the cops coming in on them, because the place was far from where any authority would try to check, and it wasn’t like they were doing anything illegal in the area. At most, if said police happened to run in on them, they would just give them a scolding about the fire.
No, Yoongi’s worried about all the other types of people that could be barging in right now. It could be a gang, for all he knows, although the rational part of his mind tells him that the quiet, sloppy motions of whoever’s outside points against it.
When the heavy metal door finally gets pushed away, there is one lone figure leaning against the door, body unsteady. Everyone watches quietly, unsure of what to say, but Yoongi sits up slowly, eyes widening in shock. He recognizes that face.
The person looks up, and Yoongi feels a small part of him dying, burning along with the ashes in the flames. He gets up quickly, heading over to the door. When his hands meet the other’s shoulders the strength seems to leave his body, and Jungkook slumps slightly against him, Yoongi struggling to hold the other’s weight. Jungkook has a split lip and a couple of scratches on his face.
“Fuck,” he hisses. “What happened? Why are you here?”
And Jungkook looks up at him with the same beautiful, wide eyes that he remembers, and he smiles.
“I found you, hyung.”
--
Yoongi swallows, irritation building up. He can feel the gazes on him, questioning. The place is quiet, an awkward but not tense kind of silence. He leans back against the worn couch, one arm draped on the armrest and the other underneath Jungkook, currently resting his head on his lap. His eyes are closed, and he is unmoving. His mouth is slightly open, his chest rising and falling slowly, and Yoongi knows the other is deep asleep.
“Yoongi,” Seokjin starts carefully, and Yoongi smiles bitterly. He had expected it to be him. “Who is he?” he asks, head gesturing to the sleeping figure. Yoongi’s eyes remain on Jungkook.
“A kid I used to know,” he replies. “He shouldn’t be here.”
“Did something happen?”
Yoongi shrugs. “How would I know? I haven’t seen him since I was in college.” At that he hears a small curse being uttered. “Three years ago.”
“How the hell did he find you? You’re not even--shit, you’re not even home right now, Yoongi, you’re in some abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere--” and Seokjin stops abruptly, making Yoongi look up.
“What?”
“Yoongi,” he says, voice guarded. “Lift his shirt.”
Yoongi gives him a disgusted face, but the other scowls. “I’m not playing around, just do it,” he hisses.
And when he does, Yoongi’s hands freeze as a small shiver runs down his spine. “What the fuck--”
There are splatters of dark colors lining the other’s stomach, bruises of different kinds. One is a fading yellow, healing, a few others fresh purple black. Some are more hideous than the others, some light enough that they look only a darkening red against pale skin.
“They’re not serious,” a voice laced with sleep interrupts his thoughts, and Yoongi’s disapproving stare meets with Jungkook’s tired eyes. “I ran into some people by accident, and they ‘taught me a lesson,’ or something. It’s over and done with.”
The frown doesn’t leave Yoongi’s face, however. “Jungkook, go home.”
Jungkook pouts at this. “Nah, I’m good.”
“I wasn’t fucking asking you. Go home,” Yoongi says, and the other struggles to sit up from his position, wincing slightly as his muscles tense from use. “At first I thought those might have come from home, but now that I know they’re not, go home.”
“I’m of age, hyung. I’m nineteen. I can stay out.”
“That’s not what I mean--” Yoongi presses his lips together and breathes out slowly. Fading memories start to invade his mind again. This is so fucked up.
“Shit,” he says, and Jungkook gives him a smile he knows all too well. It’s innocent, unchanged from when they were just children and would walk along the block hand-in-hand in order to run errands for their mothers.
But past the light in his eyes, Yoongi sees the dried blood on the corner of his lips, the tired contours that the shadows bring to his cheeks, and the trembling in his arms as he tries to keep himself upright.
“First,” he says, voice softening, and as if noticing the change in his tone, Jungkook’s smile glows with hope. “Let’s go home,” he says.
“Home?”
“Yeah, my place.”
Jungkook’s smile fades out into a mild shock, before a touched expression graces his features. “Okay,” he says softly, smile playing at his lips. “Home.”
--
It’s been a few weeks in, and Jungkook fits in easily with the three energy balls. In fact, he fits well into the overall dynamic of the group, the six of them turning into seven almost overnight. The others have taken an immediate liking to Jungkook and his small amounts of sass, and Yoongi watches as they chatter and play around the fire like he was always a part of them.
Jungkook is not as crazy as all of them, but what he lacks he makes up for in youth and energy. He is the youngest in the group now, being two years younger than Jimin and Taehyung, and for this the others treat him like a kid. Seokjin dotes on him more than usual, and Taehyung teases him with an excited smile on his face. Namjoon looks on fondly, as he’s always done, and Jimin gets angry whenever Jungkook “forgets” to use honorifics with him, but his smile is always back on his face as soon as it leaves. Hoseok has stuck with teasing Jimin, but he treats Jungkook just as nicely as he does to, well, anyone.
The place gets a little livelier, a little brighter. But no matter how much Yoongi has missed his dongsaeng, no matter how much everyone else loves him, Jungkook needs to go back.
Because they always said that Jungkook was destined for great things. He was a kid who excelled in everything he tried, loved by adults and kids all around him, with the potential to be anything he wanted to be.
Yoongi was a quiet kid, sometimes a problem and sometimes not, with nothing special to his name other than the fact that he apparently put fear into younger people’s eyes back then, but Jungkook is different. He listens as the other sings, his voice light and filled with emotion at the same time. If he tried, Jungkook could be a celebrity. He has the voice of an angel, after all.
Jungkook can be anything he wants to be, and Yoongi can’t let the other give away everything just for this group.
“What are you thinking about?” a figure flops down next to him, and an arm throws itself over his shoulder. Yoongi rolls his eyes, but he never has the heart to push Hoseok away, and so he let’s the other’s arm rest against him. Hoseok smells like burnt sugar and ashes, a scent that must’ve stuck to him from dancing around the fire the whole night.
“Why are you here?” Yoongi asks back, and the other gives him a shrug and smiles into the distance. Taehyung and Jungkook are still trying to crush Jimin into the ground, and Seokjin and Namjoon are caught up in one of their little conversations again.
“Hey, I get tired sometimes too. And I wanted to see how you were doing. You look constipated.”
Yoongi furrows his brows and musters the strongest pout he can manage, but Hoseok laughs and squeezes his shoulder affectionately, and Yoongi’s face smoothes into a light smile. “Hoseok, I love you too, now let go of me before I push you off the couch,” he says. The other doesn’t take offense, however, and unwraps his arms.
“Really, though, you okay? Is it Jungkook?” he asks, and Yoongi takes a deep breath. Hosoek’s too smart sometimes, he kind of prefers his stupidly bright persona over this one. “You’re not hiding it well, if you want to know. You keep looking at him.”
“I’m not trying to hide anything,” Yoongi replies softly. “I’m just worried. Jungkook’s still young. He’s younger than Jimin and Taehyung, and he has the chance to become something great in the future. He shouldn’t be here with us.”
Hoseok hums, eyes going to the ceiling. “You think that maybe that’s what he’s running from?” Yoongi turns to look at him. “It gets hard when people keep thinking that you’ll become something big in the future. The pressure starts to build.”
And Yoongi’s eyes fall over to Jungkook. The split lip has already healed, and for a while he hasn’t seen any new bruises on the other. As he watches the younger, laughing loud at some sort of imitation Taehyung is doing, the others laughing along, he thinks that the other really does seem like the 19 year old he is supposed to be, enjoying his life.
“But... what are you two?” Hoseok asks, and Yoongi snaps his head over to look at the other, a real frown marring his features.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
Hoseok rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. The kid stares at you like he’s staring at an angel.”
“They’re just eyes of admiration. I was always cool.” Hoseok wrinkles his nose, before he turns his head to face the other direction, and Yoongi can no longer look into his eyes. He doesn’t know what the other is thinking.
“I mean, you kind of look at him the same way…”
He freezes at this statement, eyes on the back of the other’s head, but Hoseok makes no move to turn around. “Hoseok,” he calls, and maybe his voice had betrayed the calm facade he wanted to keep up, but Hoseok turns around, eyes searching. The two stare at each other.
“What are you two doing?”
Yoongi breaks eye contact first, lifting his head to see Jungkook standing over them. ‘He’s tall,’ Yoongi thinks to himself, probably hit a growth spurt and grew past his height sometime after Yoongi had left. His eyes flit over to Hoseok, and then back to Yoongi, who shrugs. “Hoseokie and his annoying ass here was just leaving,” Yoongi says, and Hoseok laughs before lightly giving him a shove. Usually, Yoongi would take none of this bullshit (which was probably why Hoseok had put so little force into it in the first place), but tonight he was drained, especially after that conversation, and so he makes to wave the other away.
“Aigoo, our Jiminie, did you miss mee~” he sings as he prances over to the duo on the other side of the room. Jungkook sits down next to him, before his body tilts and he rests his head on Yoongi’s shoulder. Yoongi looks down at the other, eyes bright and clear as they stare up at him. This close, he can smell a faint scent of soap and outside air lingering in his hair, the strands resting comfortably on his neck. The exchange lasts an unknown amount of time, until Jungkook, keeping his eyes on Yoongi’s until the very end, finally closes his eyes and relaxes his body, sinking into the other.
Yoongi blinks, vision now focusing on the top of the other’s head. His lips remain curled in a frown for the rest of the night.
--
“I think you should go back,” Yoongi starts one day, as the two are seated on the couch, Jungkook flipping through each channel every few seconds as if on automatic.
The channel lands on a horror movie, the darkness of the room contrasting with the white flashes of light. When Yoongi looks over, Jungkook has visibly tensed, his hand still aimed at the television, and Yoongi sighs before he grabs it from him, shutting off the television and standing to turn on the table lamp. The room becomes lit in a dim yellow glow. Jungkook’s face is stoney.
“I was wondering when you were going to say it,” he said, voice quiet. He turns in his seat to face Yoongi, but his eyes are glued to the ground. “Is it so bad that I want to be with you, hyung?”
“It is,” Yoongi says without missing a beat, and a look of hurt flashes across Jungkook’s eyes. Before the younger is able to say anything, he continues.
“You have a life ahead of you, Jungkook--”
“You’re not that much older than me,” Jungkook mumbles.
“--and unlike me, you have the skill to make it work out. I’m not telling you to become the president of the country or some famous popstar or something like that, but find a stable job that you enjoy, find a girl that you like, and make your parents proud of you.”
“You don’t know anything, hyung,” Jungkook whispers, and Yoongi shakes his head.
“I know, Kook, more than you think. I won’t let you give away everything for some spur of the moment crush you have.”
At this, the other looks up quickly, eyes wide, and Yoongi meets his gaze head on, swallowing softly to steel his nerves. He sees the other’s cheeks redden slightly. “Y-you knew?” he asks, voice going up one octave, and the way he bites his lip as his eyes dart about wildly is a cute sight, but Yoongi grits his teeth, refusing to let his smile show.
“Jungkook,” he sighs, and the other jumps, before he begins to calm himself and finally meets Yoongi’s eye again. “I’m a terrible influence, I don’t even know why you like me--”
“Hyung, you do--”
“No, just listen to me for now, okay?” he says, and Jungkook quiets down.
“I’ve never had a passion in life, Jungkook. I’m not a genius, I didn’t try hard in school, and now I have nothing left at all, nothing except this run down apartment, a boring job that barely pays minimum wage, and the people I care about. You guys. I don’t want to see the young ones become like me--not you, not Jimin, not Taehyung. And,” he pauses, hands curling into fists as he lowers his gaze. “I’ve hurt you before, Jungkook, because I was wasting away my life. I’m sorry.”
“Hyung--”
“I had a breakdown back then, I couldn’t think straight and so I tried to drown my thoughts in alcohol, and it didn’t work, and I ended up hurting you. I’m sorry. I knew I couldn’t take it back, so I left. You ended up in a hospital because of me, so I left. I don’t know why your parents are even allowing you to live with me right now, but--”
“I ran away from home,” Jungkook blurts out, and Yoongi freezes, expression going rigid.
“You what.”
“You weren’t the only one having a breakdown, hyung. When you left, I felt so numb, like I couldn’t feel anything at all, so I kept going out, and I got hit so many times, but all I could think about was why it didn’t hurt, and--” he stops mid-sentence.
Yoongi pinches the bridge of his nose. He feels a headache coming. “Jungkook, I’m going to call your parents, and you’re going back.”
“Hyung, no--”
“Don’t fucking mess with me!” Yoongi screams, and Jungkook flinches back. The room is dead silent save for the heavy breaths of air Yoongi is taking in as he tries to calm himself. “Jungkook, you don’t love me. You’re confusing it with something else right now. I want you to get your head straight--”
“You said it was a spur of the moment,” Jungkook interrupts, and Yoongi closes his eyes in exasperation. He must’ve gone too soft on the other. Now he’s being interrupted as if it’s a normal occurrence. “I’ve liked you since I was ten years old. I’ve liked you for nine years, how is that a spur-of-the-moment thing?” he asks, and Yoongi opens his eyes.
Jungkook looks at him with a confident gaze, although his fingers tremble as they fidget with the hem of his shirt. “Remember how there was this one time I really wanted to be a writer? And you told me to try keeping a journal, so I did. I wrote everything down for a while, so I remember it all.”
Yoongi waits for the other to continue, the furrow in his brow not leaving his face. The new information is bringing up too many complex emotions for him to sort out in such a short amount of time.
“When I was ten, there was this one time when mother forgot to pick me up. I waited outside the school for hours after I lied to my teacher and said there was someone outside. You came to pick me up, and that was the first time I thought you were beautiful,” as he finishes this, Jungkook’s face reddens to a pale shade of pink, made darker by the glow of the light.
“When I first entered high school, I felt really left out because I was kind of shy, and nobody tried to talk to me for a while, but you came over every day after school and sat with me until I fell asleep, even though I said I was too old for that. That was the first time my heart started beating faster.”
“Jungkook--” Yoongi begins, letting out a sigh, and the other continues quickly, as if afraid that if he were to stop talking, Yoongi wouldn’t let him say anymore.
“Remember the time my friends introduced me to porn and left it in my room, and you found it and laughed at me? That--that night… was the first time…” Jungkook trails off into a stammering mess, and Yoongi’s face scrunches up. This is something he'd rather not have to hear. But the next thing that comes out of Jungkook’s mouth is very different than what he expected.
“I-I dreamt...of--of you.”
It takes a few seconds for the stuttering mess that is his dongsaeng and the implications of that sentence to come together, but when Yoongi finally gets it his mouth drops wide open, and he leans back in shock, face a lovely shade of red. He stammers, trying to form a coherent sentence, but Jungkook continues.
“When I was getting stressed about my first finals week, you told me to let out some stress, and, um. In the shower--to you--”
Holy fuck.
Yoongi shoots up from his position on the couch, face burning and one hand holding the back of his neck. “Holy fuck. Jeon Jungkook, I am not listening to this--”
But a hand grabs onto his free wrist, and when he looks down Jungkook is staring at him with wide, pleading eyes. His fingers hold on tight, but they tremble as if afraid to hurt him. His voice is desperate. “Please listen, hyung. I listened to you, please listen to me now.”
And Yoongi doesn’t make to move. How can he? When the other looks at him with such fear and sadness that it begins to eat away at him too.
“I touched myself thinking of you--” Yoongi swallows in embarrassment, “--and I just felt so bad afterwards, because at that time you were already feeling so down, and I couldn’t do anything, whatever I did wasn’t working, and all I could think of when you sighed was how nice it would sound under me--”
What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck--
“--and I just felt horrible for thinking of these things while you were suffering. And then when you--” Jungkook flinches as he stops. His grip becomes loose, but the look in his eyes stops Yoongi from pulling away.
“--You punched me when you were drunk,” Jungkook’s voice gets quieter as he reaches the end of his sentence, and Yoongi’s blood runs cold.
“That was when I realized I loved you,” he finishes. Yoongi blinks.
“...You’re masochistic,” he says slowly, and Jungkook shakes his head quickly.
“No, no no! That’s not what I meant! Well--I mean, I’ve never tried anything so I wouldn’t know--but no, anyways, er--” Jungkook stammers, his face going beet red again. Yoongi lets out a shaky laugh.
“What I meant was,” Jungkook continues when he manages to compose himself, “I realized I didn’t want to just--I don’t know--it wasn’t just lust. I wanted to be by your side, and make you smile again, and sleep next to you like you used to do for me. I just really wanted to be with you. I… I love you, hyung,” he says quietly.
And Yoongi remains quiet. He can’t say it, no matter how much he wants to. No matter how queasy his stomach feels, how fast his heart is beating right now, Yoongi can’t bring himself to say it.
Sensing his inner conflict, Jungkook laughs bitterly. What he says next has Yoongi feeling even more like shit. “You know, after you left I kept going out at night and trying to pick fights with people that I knew I couldn’t win against. Do you know why? Because the last memory you left me with was me getting hit in the face and pushed to a wall. I did it because it reminded me of you.”
The place remains quiet that night.
--
Yoongi stares up at the ceiling lifelessly as the others tumble about around him. He’s seen Seokjin and Hoseok shoot him looks countless of times, but the look on his face has prevented them from bringing anything up yet, luckily.
Jungkook is doing a great job at avoiding him, keeping himself close to the other two youngsters at all times. If he’s even feeling anything, he’s hiding it well; his eyes are still glinting just as bright as on the first day he showed up, and no one’s suspecting that Yoongi’s foul mood has to do with him, not at all.
Yoongi’s eyes are closed when he feels the couch sag next to him, and he lets out a long, exasperated sigh, lifting his head so he can get a look at whichever bastard finally got nosy enough to bother him.
But the sight he expects is not there. Not Hoseok’s smiling face, not Seokjin’s concerned gaze, but Jungkook, looking back at him with shining eyes.
Yoongi leans back out of reflex, jumping slightly. But Jungkook doesn’t seem to mind, and when Yoongi makes no move to go away, he leans his head on the other, eyes closing as his body relaxes.
Yoongi tenses, but the other says nothing, only breathes evenly against him, and soon enough Yoongi finds his body relaxing into it’s usual comfortable position whenever the other leans on him. Only when he’s fully relaxed does Jungkook begin to speak.
“I never thought about it,” he says, and for some reason, Yoongi is feeling much more relaxed than he should be, and so he tilts his head so that he can get a clearer view of the other’s face against him, eyes still closed and fluttering. “I mean, I have, but I know it’s not possible, and I don’t mind.”
“Mind what?” Yoongi asks.
“Being with you. As a couple. I don’t mind it not happening.” Yoongi feels a pang of disappointment clench at his heart, and he berates himself for feeling this way, because this was what he wanted, after all, and so he has no right to feel hurt at the statement. “I just want to be with you. It doesn’t have to be romantic. Like a brother. Like how we used to be back then. That’s enough for me, so… please let me stay,” he says, eyes still closed, and Yoongi takes this time to look at Jungkook.
He’s done it countless times before, observe the details of the other’s face while he slept, while his attention was diverted elsewhere. But this time, when Jungkook opens his eyes, Yoongi allows his gaze to roam, and he maps out the other’s expression, soft and dreamy-like, looking back at him with hope and… and love.
Yoongi sighs, before he leans back against the couch, and then he lets his head rest on top of the others. He can feel Jungkook’s body tensing from shock, but Yoongi says nothing, only feels the hair on his neck and the warmth on his cheeks.
Jungkook lets out a content exhale, and he doesn’t need to open his eyes to know the other is smiling.
--END--