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Tenth has been a thorn is 875’s side since their inception, so Jimin is glad to see a room full of them dead. All it cost him was a couple bullets and thirty minutes. Oh, and his favorite suit. He likes this suit because it makes his legs look longer than they really are. Now there’s blood splattered up the front, so much that he can’t just take it to a laundromat. Fucking Tenth. Fucking bastards. He contemplates kicking one of the bodies but doesn’t want to scuff his new boots. They probably cost more than Tenth paid to rent this entire shitty building.
All the guns are accounted for, so he’s killing time by snooping through their cabinets and drawers. So far the only interesting things he’s only found are a Tom Nook Pez dispenser full of pills he can’t identify and a science textbook still wrapped in the cellophane. He puts the dispenser in his pocket and tucks the book under his arm, excited to investigate them at home later.
When he turns to go back into the main room, his book nudges into a fishbowl. Swimming inside is a single orange goldfish. Jimin looks at it and it looks at him.
After a moment’s pause, he steals the fishbowl, too. Yoongi’s cats like watching fish, but he can never keep one long. They always disappear in the night.
“I’m gonna go see what they’re doing,” Jimin calls out. “It shouldn’t take this long.”
He reenters the central room and sees Namjoon is right where he left him, standing before a wall mirror and trying very hard to fit his wig back on. It came off during the fight, and he’s paranoid about his identity being discovered. All their enemies are down, but he won’t step foot out of the Tenth-run building without the disguise. Jimin personally thinks it is better to be known as a gang member than to have a fuckass bob cut, but he isn’t Namjoon. To each their own.
“The elevator’s coming down right now,” Namjoon informs. “They’ll be here in just a second.”
He keeps combing his bangs. Jimin doesn’t reach for the cane he left propped by the elevator. Neither of them consider the possibility that it’s Tenth reinforcements coming to murder them. If anything, their floor was the difficult one to clear as it was just two of them.
Ding.
The moment the elevator doors part, Hoseok slips out and gets far away. He looks completely unharmed, so Jimin focuses on what he’s running from.
“— really, thanks for all the help,” Taehyung is bitching right Yoongi’s face. “If Hoseok hadn’t been there, I’d be dead. That guy was about to cut my fucking face off.”
Yoongi takes one step out of the elevator and stands there with his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t bother to look at Taehyung, instead glancing around the room as he says, “I told you to give me the gun. I said I wouldn’t use the knife.”
Taehyung’s arms fly in the air, and Jimin hears fabric ripping. He must’ve torn his suit. Uh oh. That’ll just infuriate him further.
“I saw you kill a man with chopsticks once,” he shouts. “Chopsticks, and you can’t use a knife to save my fucking life?!”
Yoongi’s expression does not change. He just blinks calmly in the face of Taehyung’s rage and says, “I don’t want the cats to smell blood on me.”
Of course, Jimin thinks. How absolutely reasonable. Taehyung almost had that ridiculous mustache cut off his face and — wait, that actually wouldn’t have been so bad. He grew it only because Jimin let it slip that he was trying to grow one. A week later, Taehyung had a fucking wooly worm above his lip and Jimin still had only a couple dark blonde hairs. He was convinced Taehyung glued the thing on every morning just to bother him.
Vibration against his thigh distracts Jimin from the escalating argument. He drops his book on a table and pulls out his phone. Jimin doesn’t recognize the number, but that isn’t strange. Most men in his business use burner phones and change the number weekly. He doesn’t see the point. He’s had the same digits since middle school and the NIS hasn’t caught him yet.
Maybe it’s Seokjin, he thinks. Maybe he sees a van of Tenth bastards pulling up. That would be excellent. Taehyung would forget he was ever mad at Yoongi, his mustache might even get cut off for real this time, and Jimin could make more people pay for ruining his favorite suit.
He walks to the back of the room, far as he can get from the elevator and Taehyung’s shouting. It’s still loud, but he swipes to accept the call anyway.
“Yes?” he answers, glancing out the window, looking for headlights. There are none. The night is endlessly black and utterly dead, just as all nights seem to be.
Right in his ear, the caller whispers, “Jimin?”
The fishbowl slips from his fingers. It shatters atop his left boot with a loud crash, glass skittering everywhere. The goldfish flops helplessly against his calfskin covered toes.
“What the hell, Jimin!” Namjoon scolds. “Sanctity of life, man.”
Jimin does not see him step over bodies to come scoop the fish up and drop it in a half-drunk plastic water bottle. He does not see the apartment anymore nor his gang. He has blacked out, gone completely fucking blind because —
“Uh, hello? Jimin?”
This voice is from another time, from a life long since ended. It doesn’t belong in Jimin’s ears anymore. He recognizes it easy as his own.
His whole face tingles. It feels like static is in his pores, like he is having a stroke. His eyeballs quiver. Jimin does not dare open his mouth to answer lest his heart slip out and fall beside the goldfish. That is a very real possibility.
“My phone’s dead and your number is the only one I know.”
A lifetime ago, Jimin got a cell phone before his best friend did. He repeated his new number in math class, during lunch, at recess, until he memorized it. The boy went home every single day and dialed it on the landline just to talk to Jimin some more because eight hours at school just wasn’t enough. That was a very, very long time ago.
“Jimin. Please.”
He doesn’t want to vomit up his heart, but he also doesn’t want to hear his name or please said by this voice again. When he does speak, the word comes out hushed and tastes like ash.
“Jungkook.”
There is a relieved sigh on the other side of the phone. For a moment, Jimin just listens to him breathe. In and out. Then he hears himself ask, “whose phone are you using?”
Jungkook hiccups once then says, “the bouncer’s.”
The bouncer’s. A club bouncer, surely. He has to be drunk. Why else would he dial this number? It was muscle memory, intoxicated nonsense. If he were a smidge more sober, he’d have walked a thousand miles home before pressing this string of buttons. He didn’t choose to call Jimin because he thought of him. He was drunk, and his phone was dead, and this was the only number he knew. Nothing more.
At that realization, Jimin’s soul stops trying to escape his body. He looks at the bodies on the floor, the crates of guns, the take-out containers, the blood, the newspapers, and finally his friends. Namjoon holding a goldfish in a bottle. Yoongi. Just Yoongi. Not Agust D anymore. Hoseok and the gray hairs he didn’t use to have. Taehyung’s black caterpillar. He doesn’t see Seokjin but he knows he’s on the roof, looking out for them all. Jimin sees 875, his gang, the only people in the world who matter to him anymore, and he is no longer dismantled by the one who used to matter most of all.
He turns back to the window, unable to bear their concerned faces.
“Do you have money for a taxi?” he asks, voice even.
“Spent the last of it on beer.”
Drunk as he is, Jungkook has enough presence of mind to say this with shame.
Oh, how Jungkook has fallen, Jimin thinks.. He grew up into a man, and that man was a stranger. A stranger who spends all his money on beer. Still, it was Jimin’s number he remembered, so maybe the boy was alive in there somewhere. Jimin has done many bad things in his life and will surely do many more, but he can’t leave that boy drunk and alone.
He could send an Uber, perhaps. He could put Jungkook’s address as the destination and let a stranger pick him up. Jimin didn’t even have to see him. He could let a stranger take him home, Jungkook, who was so drunk out of his mind that he called Jimin of all people. Could he trust that stranger to leave him safely? To not follow him inside? No. He could not. He knew too much of the world to ever trust that.
“What’s the club name?”
Jungkook doesn’t answer immediately. He probably doesn’t know and is looking for it. Jimin wonders if he’s even in the city anymore. He could be at any club in the world.
“Euphoria,” Jungkook says at last.
Jimin knows where that is only because they sell prescription drugs out of the backroom. Luckily, he has supplied some of those pills before. They know him.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he says. “Tell the bouncer who is coming to get you.”
He listens as Jungkook repeats the message. He must put the phone away from his face when he says it, because his voice sounds distant. The next time he speaks, it’s right into the microphone.
“He looks scared now,” Jungkook says, and Jimin hears his frown.
“Fifteen minutes,” he repeats for lack of anything better to say.
Then Jimin hangs up and contemplates jumping out the window.
It’s only the second story, so he may just break his legs. What’s worse, Jimin contemplates: two broken legs or facing his gang? It’s a harder question than one may think. In the end, he doesn’t even get the choice. A hand settles on his shoulder and pulls, turning him around.
It’s Yoongi. They’re the same height, but with the proximity, he can’t see past him to the rest of the room. It’s just Yoongi. Yoongi, who walked through a blood-splattered room to get to him when he wouldn’t stab a man to save Taehyung ten minutes ago. (Yoongi, who would’ve killed the man with his teeth if Hoseok wasn’t there to save Taehyung. Yoongi, who would burn the entire world and the moon, too, if it meant keeping them warm on a cold night.) He keeps his hand on Jimin’s shoulder, just resting there. He doesn’t say anything.
Jimin takes a deep breath. Only then does Yoongi drop his hand.
“Take this to the warehouse,” Jimin tells them, back to business. He looks at the guns instead of his men as he crosses the room. “Remember, we agreed the price went up ten percent since last time.”
Even without the price increase, it’s a good haul. He made a lot of money tonight by stealing his enemies’ guns and selling them to his own buyer. He killed a lot of those mortal enemies. No one in 875 got hurt.
It is the worst night of his life. Correction, the worst night of the life he lives now.
His doesn’t have to face them until getting in the elevator. When he turns around to push the button, they’re right there, all five of them crowded at the doors. He stares at the big rip in the side of Taehyung’s dress shirt and waits for the doors to close. They start to, but Hoseok puts his hand out to stop them.
He wants an explanation Jimin will not give. They all do. He says nothing.
Finally, Taehyung says, “we’re worried about you.”
Jimin raises a blonde eyebrow as if to say “me?” He thumbs up the grip of his cane until it pops free from the staff, the concealed blade shining under the elevator’s fluorescent light.
“Right,” Taehyung says, clearly unconvinced. “Just… Call one of us later, okay? When you get home. Say you will.”
Jimin agrees, so Hoseok lets go of the elevator. He pushes the button again, and when the doors close and he is all alone, he does not crumble. Because Jimin is one of six, so he is never truly alone. Not really.
☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
He gets to Euphoria in eight minutes. It’s three o’clock in the morning so no one is on the streets, and no officer on the force would dare pull over his distinctly rare, expensive car. He parks down the street and stares at the man sitting on the curb, head between his knees.
Even like this, he recognizes Jeon Jungkook. Of course he can. How could he not?
His hair is still black and short. He’s wearing a dark sweatsuit and trainers that have clearly seen practical use. Jimin can’t see his face, but he knows that body anywhere. He knows that shape even if he doesn’t know the soul who lives inside it anymore.
Jungkook doesn’t pick his head up once the whole time Jimin watches him. He wonders if he’s asleep, maybe. Passed out right there on the sidewalk. That thought has him putting the car in drive. He glances at his phone to check the time. Only two minutes until he said he’d be here. That isn’t so early that it’s embarrassing. His eyes fall on the date and he feels a headache coming. Why?
He drives up the road slowly and comes to a stop right beside Jungkook. He pushes a button, and the passenger door rises. Just like that, he’s staring into the very round eyes of the first and only person he has ever been in love with. He could stare at them until the sun rose and set and rose again, but Jimin decided on the drive over that he was not going to be pathetic about this. So he says “get in” and faces he windshield.
Jungkook always was bigger than Jimin, but he is timid as a rabbit as he settles into the passenger seat. He’s careful with the seatbelt and only puts the back heels of those dirty trainers on the floorboard. This he does not recognize. This is not who he used to know. But, Jimin thinks, he has a gun in his waistband and one in the glove compartment. He isn’t who Jungkook remembers either.
On that note, he drives.
They make it to the first stoplight before Jimin realizes he has no clue where he’s taking Jungkook. His childhood home is much too far from here, and the last place he knew Jungkook living was a college dorm that he’d visit whenever he could get off work.
He’s going to have to ask him. He has to break the silence and speak to Jungkook face to face for the first time in eight years. There’s no way around it.
Jimin opens his mouth.
It hits him right then. Why the sight of today’s date disturbed him.
It’s Jungkook’s wedding anniversary.
Jimin very nearly drives the car into the sidewalk before remembering he just literally picked Jungkook up off the curb. This was not a man celebrating the happiest day of his life. Maybe his wife died, Jimin thinks hopefully, then feels a little bad about it. Not too bad, though.
Four whole minutes later, he thinks his voice is normal enough to speak again.
“How’s what’s-her-name” is the question he asks, not the one he should. He remembers her name, of course, but he won’t say it. He refuses to even think it.
Jungkook makes the same confused sound he used to when they were kids. It’s cute and terrible enough for Jimin to regret being petty in the first place. That’s what he gets. Fucking karma.
“Oh!” Jungkook says all of a sudden, too loud in the small space. “We got a divorce. Three… ? No, five years ago.”
The wedding was seven years ago today. Seven years ago, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Jungkook became a husband, and with his marriage, Jimin became a widower. They didn’t even last two years, but their union ended things for Jimin and Jungkook forever.
Something burns in his gut. Acid, he thinks. Revulsion. His fingers flex around the steering wheel as he wills himself not to vomit.
Jimin doesn’t open his mouth the rest of the way to his apartment because he thinks he really might spew bile if he does. That means he can’t ask Jungkook where he’s supposed to be taking him, and Jungkook doesn’t offer an address. He just sits there and stares straight out the window. When they get to Jimin’s apartment, he follows like a ghost. They take the stairs up sixteen floors because Jimin doesn’t want to be close to him anymore and because a little part of him wants to torture Jungkook. It hurts him too, of course, but that’s how it always went with them.
They’re both breathing hard as Jimin unlocks his door. He tries not to listen to their synchronized panting.
Jungkook follows Jimin like a lost puppy all the way to his bedroom door. Jimin shuts it in his face and stands there staring at the wood until his breath evens out. He wonders how long Jungkook did the same on the other side. He wonders if Jungkook’s heart still pounds like his does. He wonders if Jungkook even has a heart, because he certainly didn’t the last time they saw each other.
Some time later, Jimin gets into bed with all his clothes on. His bloodstained suit, his wet boots. He doesn’t think to take them off.
When he dreams, Jimin hears the same words he does every night.
I have something to tell you!
I do too.
At the same time, then?
Okay.
I’m engaged!
I’m in love with you.
☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
Jimin spent two years in prison, so he wakes up at the quiet sounds coming from the main room. That’s how he catches Jungkook about to sneak out before the sun is even well and truly risen. He’s got one trainer on and the other in his hand. Jimin sees that his pale pink sock has a hole in the heel. At least he had the sense to take his shoes off at the door, unlike Jimin who still hadn’t done so.
“Even my one night stands leave a note,” he lies through his dry mouth. “You used to have good manners.”
Jungkook flinches so hard he drops his shoe.
“Sorry,” he tells the front door.
His voice is heavy enough with embarrassment and sorrow that Jimin knows he isn’t just apologizing for not saying thank you. He would like to know what all Jungkook feels sorry for, exactly. If it’s the right things. Probably not. It shouldn’t matter either way. It doesn’t matter at all.
It dawns on Jimin that he could just… let him go. He’d done it once before. It killed him, but he did it. It will not kill him this time.
Then Jungkook turns just enough to catch his eyes. In the fresh daylight, Jimin is startled to see that he looks like absolute shit. Stepped on shit, with a footprint clearly stamped into it. They were best friends for seventeen years, but Jimin never remembers seeing him look like this.
Jungkook’s eyes are red but the bags underneath them cast purple shadows on his pallid skin. His hair is flat and lifeless. Even his body seems like it’s withering. He filled out much better than Jimin had, growing taller and broader, but he must not be eating well because he looks diminished, somehow. Like he used to be more, and now he isn’t. He looks defeated. He looks like he’s dying. He looks like he might already be dead.
“Thank you for coming to get me,” he says, sincere and solemn. “I’m sorry I called. I will try very hard to forget your phone number. I… I can get you money for the gas.”
Do you have money for a taxi? Spent the last of it on beer. Clearly he does not remember admitting this. Jimin is a murderer, but he is not cruel enough to remind him of the confession.
“I don’t need your money,” he says easily, but Jungkook still grimaces. “Really. Look around. I don’t need it. I wasn’t that far, anyway.”
“Were you in the middle of something?” he asks and looks even more mortified at the thought.
“No. Nothing at all.”
“Okay,” he says, shoulders relaxing a little.
Then, Jungkook puts his hand on the doorknob. It feels so sudden Jimin’s heart skips a beat. As a goodbye, Jungkook says, “I’m sorry again for wasting your time.”
Jimin is speaking before he can think about the words.
“You remembered my phone number. Do you remember that I probably won’t eat if I’m alone?”
It’s the first time in almost a decade that he’s spoken aloud about the secret struggle he had as a teenager, and it’s said in an effort to keep Jungkook from leaving. Maybe he was halfway wrong before. Maybe it won’t kill him to let Jungkook go, but it will surely hurt like hell. It’ll be another wound that doesn’t end his life but tries very hard to.
Jungkook doesn’t turn the knob but he doesn’t say anything either. Before he can, Jimin pulls his wallet out and takes out the highest value note. He walks up to Jungkook, every step closer feeling like gravity is increasing, and pushes the money in his back pocket with as minimal contact as he can manage.
“There’s a sandwich shop around the corner,” he says in his gang leader voice. He knows it leaves little room for arguing. “I go there almost every morning. Tell her you’re there for me and she’ll know what to make. Get yourself something good.”
He pretends to go back to his room. He only makes it out of sight before he leans against the hallway wall and puts both hands over his mouth, trying very hard not to hyperventilate. He counts the seconds until the front door opens, and after it closes, he runs to the window. He presses his nose into the glass and stares down at the sidewalk. When Jungkook walks out, he doesn’t hail a cab or stand there pondering his life. He turns the corner and is out of sight just like that, no hesitation.
Jimin needs to change his clothes. He needs to call one of the guys before they come looking for him. He does neither, just stands there with his nose squished, watching the corner.
A short time later, he gasps aloud when Jungkook comes back around it, two coffees and a paper bag in hand.
Jimin jerks away like the window burned him. He glances wildly around the main room, at the couch Jungkook surely slept on and the empty bookshelves and the TV he can’t find the remote for. He looks down at his brown pinstripes and grimaces at the huge red bloodstain that hasn’t disappeared. Why didn’t he change?
There’s no time in the end, because a knock comes before he’s ready. He counts to ten before letting himself open it even though he was standing there the whole time.
“She said the store doesn’t carry your brand of syrup anymore,” Jungkook tells him first thing.
It is a throwaway comment, a nothing inconvenience. The banality of it settles Jimin’s heart rate enough that he is able to sit down like a normal person and eat his breakfast with Jungkook. They talk about coffee flavorings. It is very cordial until they finish and he offers to take Jungkook home.
“I can walk,” he declines. “Thank you.”
“Do you even know where we are?” Jimin asks. His building is in an empty part of town, sort of far from everything.
Jungkook shrugs, and that bothers him. He didn’t go to all the trouble of rescuing Jungkook’s drunk ass off a curb just for him to get lost walking back home.
“At least let me order you a car,” he tries again, reaching for his phone. Idly, he remembers he needs to let Jungkook use his charger.
“Jimin,” Jungkook says, and his voice is so loud it freezes him. “I said it’s fine. I’m gonna walk.”
“You don’t even know where you are,” Jimin snaps, temper flaring. As a stubborn person, he hates stubbornness in others.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jungkook says, and then he’s pushing away from the kitchen table and heading for the shoe rack.
Jimin jumps up and follows him. He doesn’t give a damn if Jungkook wants to walk out of his life again, but he’s at least going to be safe about it. Jimin has seen the things violent people do to each other; he won’t let that happen to Jungkook. He won’t let him wander around, lost and ripe for mugging.
“What the hell does that mean? You’re being an ass. I’m just trying to see you home—”
Jungkook whirls around and, very calmly for a man clearly at the end of his rope, says “I don’t have a home. I don’t have anywhere, anything.”
It clicks, then. Everything.
“Were you… evicted?” Jimin asks, aghast.
Jungkook looks out the window before he nods.
Jimin feels like the floor fell out from under him. He feels like falling sixteen floors and crashing through the concrete. Jungkook was homeless. How did this happen? How was this possible? Why didn’t anyone do anything? How could no one help Jungkook?
“For how long?” he asks, one question of a thousand.
Jungkook glances over at the clock and says, “not even twenty-four hours ago, yet. At noon it’ll be.”
“Did—” he can’t wrap his head around this. “Did she take everything in the divorce?”
Jungkook gapes at him. His eyes are round like he cannot believe Jimin brought her up. Did he think he forgot?
“I got mixed up with a loan shark last year,” he explains, clearly bewildered, "and he took my business. Took all my money, too. That’s pretty much it.”
“Which loan shark?” Jimin asks immediately. He could be dealt with within the hour. One call to any of 875, and the loanshark would be at the bottom of the river, no explanation necessary.
Jungkook’s eyes drop down to the large bloodstain on Jimin’s suit. He looks at it, really looks at it for the first time all morning, then meets Jimin’s eye and says, “I don’t want your help.”
Of course he didn’t. Jungkook was like that. It’s probably why he ended up in this situation. It’s certainly one of the reasons Jimin even picked him up last night, because he knew Jungkook didn’t ask for help easily. But he didn’t really have an option now, did he? Someone had to do something for Jungkook because clearly he was in dire straits, and Jimin was in a position to help.
“You can work with me,” he offers. “It’ll be enough to pay anything you owe and to live off. And it isn’t a handout; it’s a job.”
Someone had to make sure rent was paid for their properties and that their associates were paid on time. He could be their secretary. Their gang secretary. He wouldn’t even have to carry a gun.
“No, Jimin,” Jungkook says, and his tone shocks Jimin. “You don’t understand. I don’t want your help. I know what you do. I’m pretty pathetic, but I’m not going to be a fucking gangster.”
Oh.
It feels like he’s struck Jimin.
How can a desperate man sound so superior? How can Jungkook dare look at Jimin like he is right now, like he’s something shameful. Jungkook, who doesn’t have a place to turn to or anyone to call, is actually judging Jimin. At that moment, all the pity he felt for him disappears because no one can cast stones on 875. Not even someone he used to love.
“Why?” He asks, and his voice comes out quiet. Jimin knows he’s about to be cruel. “Won’t the family — oh, sorry. The ex-wife bring the kids to visit you in jail if you get picked up?”
Jungkook actually goes green and gags. He legitimately gags at what Jimin says. It’s a real possibility that he might throw up his breakfast all over the floor. He doesn’t, but he word vomits instead. Jimin doesn’t know which is worse.
“She wanted to have kids,” he confesses like it’s shameful for a wife to want that. Or… No. Jimin can’t think it. He will not consider that maybe it was Jungkook who didn’t want to have kids.
“She wanted to have kids,” he says again, and Jimin doesn’t know why he’s telling him this. "I liked her. I did. Do, still. But that was it. I just liked her. And I couldn’t have kids with someone I just liked.”
Jimin feels like the blood in his veins is rushing very fast. He thinks he might pass out or maybe explode.
“You married her,” he says and hears his own voice as if through a tunnel.
“It would’ve broken her heart and embarrassed her if I—”
Jimin lunges forward and is shouting before he realizes it, waving his arms like a madman.
“You broke my heart and embarrassed me, Jungkook! What the fuck? What the fuck? You liked her and you didn’t want to hurt her, so you married her? You—You—You did that to me because you just liked her? What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“Stop fucking cursing at me,” Jungkook says, clearly overwhelmed. He looks panicked, upset. His eyes are shining, and Jimin doesn’t care at all.
“You asked me to be your best man,” Jimin spits. He isn’t shouting anymore but his tone cuts like a knife. “I said I was in love with you, and you said you were in love with me, too. And then, before I could even be fucking happy about it, you asked me to be your best man at your fucking wedding.”
“I was there,” Jungkook mumbles. “I remember.”
Jimin thinks about hitting him across the face, but that would feel more like a domestic than an actual brawl so he doesn’t. Then he does something even worse.
He prowls across the room to get in Jungkook’s face, and in a mean little whisper, Jimin says, “you know what I think? I think you didn’t really give a shit about that woman. I think you were just scared of being gay.”
Jungkook turns away from him and goes to get his shoes without another word. Like that’s it. Like he’s ended it all with that word. The silence threatens to bust his eardrums. He feels crazy, like a feral animal. He wants to take a bite out of Jungkook and claw him to pieces. He wants to scream.
“You’re a coward,” he accuses because words are the only weapon he has right now. “You’re a goddamn coward, Jeon Jungkook.”
“I know what I am.” Jungkook hops on one foot as he tries to put his other shoe on. Jimin wants to kick it out from under him just to see him fall.
“Say it, then, since you know. Just once. Or maybe I’m wrong,” Jimin says, knowing he isn’t. “Prove me wrong. Say you’re straight. Or even bisexual. Just say it. Just fucking—”
“I don’t even know why I called you,” Jungkook sighs, and his hand is on the door.
“I know why,” Jimin says, and these are going to be his parting words. “You told me. Mine was the only number you remembered. Not your mom’s, not your dad’s—”
Jimin’s voice catches and cringes back instinctively. Jungkook is in his face quick, bigger than he ever was and angrier than he’s ever seen. He’s so enraged that Jimin instinctively reaches for his gun. Of course he isn’t wearing it, but of course he doesn’t need it. Jungkook just shouts right in his face, screaming at him.
“I know their fucking numbers, you piece of shit! But I can’t call because they won’t answer me! They wouldn’t help me if I was on fire, because they know I’m a fucking—”
His voice dies on the word. Jimin hears it anyway. Specifically, he hears it in the voice of Jungkook’s father, said just like when they were kids and the news would talk about same-sex marriage laws.
For the first time in all his years, Jimin realizes he may have misunderstood something very crucial about Jeon Jungkook. It makes his whole body tingle with numbness.
Jungkook swallows and leans back. His face is red, but the fire’s gone. It isn’t twisted in fury anymore, just overwhelming grief.
“I had a better chance calling you, a ghost, than I had calling my parents,” he says and goes back toward the door.
Jungkook is going to walk out, and other than two cups of coffee on the table, it’ll be like he was never even here. Jimin realizes this and it’s like he’s been shot for a second time in his life.
“Two of my best friends are married,” he blurts out. “Hoseok and Yoongi have nine cats. I know that’s a lot, but they call them their kids. They love them. And they love each other. That’s why they’re married. They would’ve gotten married before they did, but I was in prison and they waited for me. They waited to get married because they wanted me to be there.”
Jimin can’t see all of a sudden because there are tears in his eyes. Hot tears that make his throat itch. He hasn’t cried in years. Seven years on the dot, to be exact. He’s saying things he’s never said before in his life.
“Namjoon wears a bob wig as a disguise but I think that’s not the only reason because he has a magazine of women’s hairstyles under his bathroom sink, a-and I’ve see him looking, sometimes, when we go in stores. At the women’s clothing. But he’s never said anything even though I know he knows we won’t mind. He’s dating Seokjin, and we met him at a gay club a long time ago. Maybe he thinks Seokjin is just gay, you know, men, and wouldn’t, but he would. He would because Namjoon. And we would, too, because Namjoon.”
“And then there’s Taehyung,” he says, and his voice cracks. To him that’s all he needs to say, but Jungkook doesn’t know Taehyung, so Jimin tries to explain the best he can. “Taehyung is the best, most special person in the world. He is every good thing.”
Jimin is crying quite a lot now. Sobbing, really, and not all of it is from the years of hurt. Some of the tears are because he knows a great deal of love, too, and he’s feeling everything on a stripped bare, tender heart.
“And I’m still me,” he says, raising his hands a little and letting them drop. “Me, who was in love with you.”
Jungkook stares at him. Jimin can’t blame him. He cranes his neck to look at car wrecks, too.
“That’s us,” Jimin says. “We’re 875, just the six of us. It’s a gang, yeah, but it’s my family, and it could be yours, too. It’s… It’s a family that won’t ever not answer if you call, Jungkook. We’ve all killed and done bad shit. Yeah, sure. But I can knock on their door anytime, and they’re gonna open up. Every one of them, every time.”
He gets ahold of himself, fighting the tears that are trying to get free after being held back for so long. He takes a deep breath and feels Yoongi’s hand on his shoulder again.
“That’s what I’m giving you,” he says evenly. “A chance to be one of seven. Not just a gangster.”
Jimin stands there with his heart outstretched for what feels like forever, waiting. He and Jungkook just look at each other. He can’t tell what Jungkook is thinking anymore, but he thinks he sees want and doubt in equal measure. They don’t move until someone knocks on the door. Jungkook turns and opens it, and for a wild, nonsensical moment, Jimin imagines a Tenth gun on the other side.
But it’s just a beautiful man in a sharp suit, his hair perfectly gelled. His plump, pink lips are pursed in annoyance. He looks Jungkook up and down, unimpressed, before glaring at Jimin.
“You were supposed to call,” Seokjin accuses, hands on his hips.
“Right,” Jimin remembers. “Sorry. I’m fine.”
“Well, you’re not gonna be,” Seokjin says before sighing. Jimin thinks of the Tenth gun again, but Seokjin just says, “Taehyung and Joon are around the corner. They said to tell you your syrup is all sold out and discontinued. Sorry, man.”
He claps Jimin on the shoulder, kicks off his boots, and walks into the living room. He doesn’t ask who Jungkook is. He doesn’t ask where the television remote is, just flips the couch cushions up until he finds it. Then he plops down without another word, props his feet up on the table, and finds something to watch.
Jimin looks at Jungkook. Jungkook is already looking at him.
☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
Four months later, 875 ascends to the second floor of a factory Tenth is using for a base. They use the elevator because they can’t locate a staircase. Also, Seokjin says it’ll look extremely cool when they all step out of it together. It is absurdly slow and smells faintly of piss. The night will almost certainly end in a shootout, or a knife fight, or a beating with their bare hands. Jin’s only weapon is a backscratcher. Taehyung’s ridiculous mustache has grown into a ridiculous beard, and Jimin’s chin is still as bare as the day he was born.
Ding.
Seven men step out of the elevator.
Jimin is truly, completely happy for the first time in years and years and years.