Work Text:
Epilog ; Fever
"Y–yoongi?!"
"Yes... it's me."
"I'm not hallucinating, am I, Sweetheart?"
"You called me something else. It's like you can't do without me." Yoongi said through gritted teeth, standing up and wrapping his arms around the small waist of Jeongguk, who felt like a statue in his still position.
"Sweetheart? That's your name—" Yoongi interrupted, pressing the flesh against his ribs. "Sweetcake, to you I'm a piece of cake, which you won't waste every bite of. Sweetheart? You can't just lump me and her together. That's not fair, Bun."
He saw Jeongguk's eyes widen, like it was a misunderstanding, like he didn't want Yoongi to misunderstand, but it was a reality Yoongi had to accept.
"Hyung, I—" Jeongguk tried to say, but Yoongi didn't want to hear it. He pulled his hand away, taking two steps back.
"You're still with her, Jeongguk." With every word he said, he swallowed the lump of gravel in his throat.
"Remind me, what am I to you but yours?"
"You're everything— there will never be anything more, just please let me touch you—" Jeongguk tried to break the ice but Yoongi didn't want to fall back into the embrace that blinded him. He could feel Jeongguk's excitement breaking through the air, maybe two years was enough to let Jeongguk know what he meant to him.
"Tell me, Bun, am I anything other than yours?"
"Sweetcake, the sweetest piece. You're the angel who's stuck being my lover. You–you're my breath, the direction of my life." Jeongguk didn't care if he sounded so far–fetched, because that was exactly how he felt about Yoongi.
Yoongi relented, finally giving in and letting Jeongguk hold him and feel Jeongguk's lips slide hungrily over his. Yoongi let Jeongguk touch him, but not give him what he wanted.
He said in his heart to enjoy it, to remember it —which he also missed— because it would be the last time he let Jeongguk feel his presence.
"That was back then, wasn't it? Before I became not enough for you, before you always felt lacking in the way I loved you."
"No!" Jeongguk held him tighter, just as desperately trying to get his fingers between Yoongi's. Yoongi's wrists were thinner than Jeongguk remembered, his shoulders had never been so small, his cheeks had never been that thin since Jeongguk first got to know him.
Yoongi was tormented too, with the wounds Jeongguk created, with the pain they shared.
Jeongguk might be broken inside, but Yoongi was dead.
"Hyung, I only love you."
Yoongi glared at him, scoffing, "And me too, but unlike you, I really mean only to you. So please, Jeongguk, no need to lie anymore. Not again."
Yoongi released Jeongguk's grip and walked towards the lonely grand piano in the corner. His first love, before Jeongguk came along and took away all the feelings he could give.
"I know it's wrong. I can even stop first." Jeongguk stared at Yoongi's back as tears threatened to fall. "But I didn't even try."
Yoongi nodded, his eyes refusing to focus on anything other than the piano keys. He spoke without looking at the younger, afraid of how broken he would sound.
"Am I really not worth trying?"
Jeongguk ached in place, his feet moving faster than he could think. Arms came back around Yoongi, trapping him, hoping he wouldn't be able to leave again. The scent of oranges and roses hit his sense of smell, finally bringing down the tears that welled up.
"You– for God's sake, you deserve it. You deserve the entire world, hyung."
"But you didn't," muttered Yoongi into the collar of the mint hoodie Jeongguk was wearing, which he recognized as his own hoodie that he had purposely stayed in, to remind Jeongguk that he had existed. "You're not even trying, Bun."
They stood there for what felt like a very long time, like seconds and minutes turned into hundreds of years. But it was only five minutes when Yoongi glanced at the clock.
He felt Jeongguk's hands going up and down his back, gripping his waist. Jeongguk's lips trembled against his neck.
"I do, hyung. And the fact that I'm so stupid, not you. You're never lacking, more than enough, it's just me being greedy."
"It's been two years, Jeongguk."
"Two years doesn't change anything! I still love you like I can't live without doing so!" He panted.
"Two years means nothing because you're still with her! In fact she was never replaced, not like you tried to replace me!" Yoongi lost his composure.
"No, hyung! Not when she's the only one left. Not when she stays when you leave me! Not when she stays when you leave!" Jeongguk shouted back, unable to contain what he was trying to hide in the darkest corner of his head. Not realizing he was just further destroying any chance Yoongi might have given him.
Yoongi couldn't breathe, his brain instantly forgetting how to. His legs almost wobbling, the world suddenly spun around him, like the ruins of the sky had hit his consciousness.
Was that really what Jeongguk had been thinking during the hundred days they had been apart? Was it true that his leaving was his fault? Was it really Yoongi who was the bad guy between them? No! Yoongi wouldn't believe it, how dare Jeongguk try to put him in the wrong when all he did was love him beyond himself.
"The only one left?" Yoongi echoed in disbelief, "I'm on the other side of the world, Jeon Jeongguk. I'm not six feet under!”
"You weren't everywhere I looked, so it feels like it."
"How dare you?! Two years. I give you time to figure out who you want, who your heart loves and chooses. And now that I'm here, can you tell?"
Jeongguk's gaze fell, shame coursing through his body. "I was wrong, I forgot myself, I was blind to the importance of you in my life."
Yoongi's lower shirt sleeve was wet as he angrily wiped his eyes, his movements quick not wanting Jeongguk to see it.
"Hyung," Jeongguk broke down again when he saw the remaining tears that soaked Yoongi's eyelashes. Jeongguk wanted to reach out as Yoongi's palm pressed against his chest, holding him back from grabbing it.
"Please don't cry. Not because of this, because it's all my fault. Just hit me, hyung, don't waste your precious tears crying over me."
Hearing that made Yoongi jump, he laughed, dryly without humor. He thought it had been a long time since he laughed, even if it was just a sarcastic laugh. He remembered he hadn't laughed in two years. "It's too late for that, Bun."
Tears welled up again, coating the honey-brown jewels that always reminded Jeongguk of the scent of summer, trickling down to leave little paths down his cheeks. Jeongguk's fingers were already clutching Yoongi's wrist to his chest, desperate to see him.
"Please stop..."
"I hate you so much" — I love you so much.
"You should."
"You love me less than I deserve." — I love you more than I should.
"You deserve more, the best, hyung."
"You won't even be able to think how much I hate you." — My love for you is still as great, greater if possible.
"I'm sorry."
"I wish I had never taken that bus to the University." — I wish we could start over. Can we?
"I don't regret meeting you."
🪐✨🪐✨
Jeongguk woke up with a pain in his head. His heavy eyelids fluttered open, forgetting how it felt to have every corner of his room radiating warmth. He didn't realize when he fell asleep, and hoped to never wake up again only to find he was alone again.
Jeongguk felt helpless, he felt like he wasn't breathing anymore. His hands weakly reached out for the warmth that had vanished beside him.
"Please, don't leave me alone again."
"I'll be gone before you can even realize it. You will still look forward as you did before you knew me. You'll stay because I can't."
Jeongguk stumbled down from his bed with stinging eyes, barely conscious, and would soon be crying over what he remembered in the last twelve hours.
He felt his body ache terribly, like he had been crushed under a building and left to suffer. Jeongguk clung to the chair, feeling like someone had thrown a rock to crush his skull.
It seemed like the sun had already risen, crawling further to warm his skin. He wasn't entirely sure how he could let his hands go of Yoongi, or how he was so resigned to going back to not trying.
Jeongguk would have cried, but right now he needed a glass of water, some painkillers, to regret his past foolishness.
Frowning, Jeongguk tightened his grip on the back of the chair. There was a man in his kitchen. The morning light hit him unceremoniously, falling between his white arms, his slightly fluffy black hair. He seemed to be calmly humming a song that Jeongguk had recently recognized as a newly released hit song.
A song for a newly debuted soloist, what made it a hit was the magical hand of the producer. Jeongguk tried to remember the producer's name, he knew it well, the producer's name— Prod. SUGA.
A large hoodie fell to his mid-thighs, gray pajama pants camouflaging the curves of his legs. The man looked so gentle, and practiced in his kitchen, as if he knew the place intimately, like he'd known every corner of it for years.
God, it was too early for him to think it was Yoongi. Suddenly his head was like being hit by a boulder, he winced, there was no way Yoongi was in his kitchen, and cooking.
Jeongguk unconsciously turned away so quickly, squeezing his shoulders and turning him around. Facing a shocked expression that was no joke, to see the face of the person he was thinking about when he first woke up.
"How did you get here, Bun? You should rest."
"Y–you're here?" He stammered, cupping both of Yoongi's cheeks and squeezing.
Jeongguk saw Yoongi's brow furrow in confusion, like Jeongguk's question was the silliest thing in the world, because of course Jeongguk was asking, the new pain from the old wound is still there.
"Jeongguk—"
"You didn't leave. You stayed." He exclaimed, still trying to digest faster. Yoongi's shoulders were pulled up, crushed in an embrace. Panting breathed in his hair, rubbing his back with his wide palms.
"I'm always here, Bun. We live together, where else do you think I'll go?"
It was a sentence Jeongguk wanted to hear, but he also found it hard to believe. "Hyung, I always choose you, wherever, in whatever universe we are, it will always be you." Jeongguk wasted no time in feeling the pouting lips smiling amusedly at him. He felt the returning arms hug him tighter, squeezing his heart with pleasant euphoria.
"Of course, Bun, so do I. No matter what, you'll come back to me."
It felt unreal. Just a few hours ago Yoongi was still looking at him with the old hurt, the one Jeongguk who begged to be together. And Yoongi did stay for him.
"You should go back to bed, Bun, your fever is very high."
Jeongguk touched his forehead and winced at the stinging feeling, his body temperature high. But he didn't care, "I love you hyung, not her."
"I actually don't understand what you're talking about, who ‘her’ is, but you don't have to worry. It was just a fever dream." Yoongi nodded, leading Jeongguk by the arm around his waist.
"A fever dream?" repeated Jeongguk, couldn't stop staring at Yoongi's face. It had never been so beautiful, more stern yet still soft to feel.
"You have a high fever and are dreaming. You know, fever dreams can be more serious to be accepted as just dreams, right?"
Jeongguk believed Yoongi would never lie to him. And even with all his consciousness he had a hard time accepting that bit of truth.
As long as the one wearing his hoodie was Yoongi, as long as the hand channeling calmness around his waist was Yoongi's, and as long as the one with him was always Yoongi he ignored the screaming in his head that couldn't believe it so easily.
It felt like just yesterday he was miserable alone, now Yoongi's fingers were already grasping him.
If so, Yoongi didn't need to know what happened in his fever dream. That pain was enough that Jeongguk kept it to himself.
Jeongguk fumbled in his pants pocket, finding a small box that he knew was inside. This time before it was too late, he gave it to its owner.
"Hyung, even though you keep insisting that no one loves bigger than you, but you know that my love is too much to describe, right?" Jeongguk took out a ring, with heat in his eyes and pain in the back of his head he knelt down. A box of rings for Yoongi, and Yoongi closed his mouth, nodding until his hair swayed above his head.
'It was all just a fever dream.' Yoongi said to himself, having made peace with his old self.
A little lie wouldn't hurt him, not like Jeongguk never did to him. Let Jeongguk think of it that way, because as for parting ways, he couldn't.
Wounds and sacrifices, all are fair in love.
🪐💫✨🪐💫✨