Work Text:
Days like this repeat for eternity
If this is God’s idea of a joke
I want to curse him
“So”, Seokjin turns to you, the smile on his lips not quite reaching his eyes. “Is it today?”
You don’t look at him, not yet; the sun is a thin line in the horizon as it makes its slow rise towards the sky. It’s a cold autumn morning and your legs are starting to go numb. You regret picking the jeans with holes on your knees, but it was too late to change your mind by the time you and your friends decided to crash by the abandoned junkyard next to the railroad.
Seokjin’s gaze doesn’t quite burn you as much as it feels like a warm caress across your face; you’re scared of staring back at him and breaking down again, of shaking like a leaf in his arms once more when you should be enjoying his company one last time.
One last time again.
You’ve done this so many times you know exactly what happens and the very moment things happen. Jimin has his head on Seokjin’s lap and Taehyung is draped over his small frame in an awkward angle. You can hear Namjoon’s snores from somewhere behind you, and you know for a fact that Hoseok is sprawled right next to Namjoon, hand unconsciously lifting up to hit Namjoon’s back to try to stop him from snoring every now and then. Jeongguk is curled up between you and Seokjin; you’ve long since given up on your blanket in favor of his and Seokjin’s warmth.
You start a mental countdown: 3, 2, 1, and Jeongguk twitches in his sleep, face in a deep frown, and Seokjin reaches down to smoothen the lines and whisper soothing words against his temple. Jeongguk briefly opens his eyes, sighing in relief at seeing Seokjin, and with a little more coaxing he’s out like a light again.
(you remember the first time you tried telling Jeongguk about Seokjin; you remember his disbelief and anger at your rage when he found you trashing around the room and breaking everything your limbs could reach; you remember your own deranged laughter the first time you told him then feeling his fist connect with your face; you remember how you punched him back just as hard, how the struggle stretched itself out until your long overdue anger finally got the best out of you and you picked up a chair—
and threw it at the mirror, opposite from Jeongguk’s terrified small frame.
you make a point to tell him every other loop, when you need an outlet for your inability to save him, to save anyone from the same week-long hell you’ve been going through for over a year now. his reaction never changes, nor do his nightmares about it on the following days)
Seokjin still waits for your answer. Instead of speaking, you put a hand on Jeongguk’s shoulder and count again: 3, 2, 1, Seokjin’s hand is on yours, warm and incredibly soft like you remember it to be; how many times again?
You realized you stopped counting somewhere around forty-three and just shrug at nothing in particular. Seokjin’s hand squeezes yours like how it is supposed to be and you let yourself relax.
This is not the first time you tell Seokjin he’s about to die; once you found out how relaxed and carefree he becomes after he knows, you’ve all but thrown caution to the wind. It changes nothing, after all: in the end, you’ll still have to see him die.
Might as well enjoy your last moments with him again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
“Tonight”, you say, voice strained and low not to wake up your friends. They never really wake up but you figure you’ll just do what you’re used to anyway. Seokjin’s grip on your hand falters a little before he squeezes again.
You should feel like a fool for all the butterflies in your stomach whenever Seokjin holds your hand; how many times again?, but it’s your feelings for Seokjin that bring you back to relive his last week alive every time. You wonder what would happen once you started feeling nothing for him, but you doubt that’s even a possibility. If anything, every last week you get to spend with Seokjin makes you fall harder for him than the last week before.
You love Seokjin and you’re tired, tired, tired.
“Can’t we do anything about it?”, he asks in the same tone you’ve heard him ask for at least the last ten loops, and it should drive you insane by now, but you figure you’re long past the point of insanity once you watch the person you love die over fifty, sixty, how many times again?, and you shake your head once as you fondly remember how your hand would start shaking at this moment and Seokjin would pull it closer, both of his gangly hands wrapping around it and rubbing comforting circles over your skin.
It hurts but your body is used to the strain now. You no longer shake, although you do still cry every time you wake up from the nightmare of his death on the shabby couch of the apartment to Jin’s smiling face as he aims his camcorder at you. It’s ugly and gross and you cling to him like a lifeline when he quietly turns the camcorder off and stutters an apology and a promise to delete the footage later; the wrecking sobs you let out against his shirt make him shake as hard as you and for a moment you think you can keep him like this for the rest of your lives.
Your life.
He is always dead by the end of the week.
You never tell him how much his death affects your friends; how much you get to see before you’re looped back to the week before, having no choice but facing the painful memories that precede the inevitable. You never tell him how Taehyung is the first to follow, the noise it makes when his body splashes against the water and sinks, never to rise again; you never tell him how Namjoon drinks himself into oblivion that night and gets a broken beer bottle to his throat during a bar fight.
You never tell him about Hoseok’s pills suddenly disappearing and of him falling asleep on Seokjin’s bed never to wake up again, nor about Jimin locking himself up in the bathroom and lying down on the bathtub, and you’ll never, ever tell him about the glimpse you had into Jeongguk’s road to self-destruction.
What if you did?, you wonder and quickly push the thought aside because the last thing you want to do is hurt Seokjin or make him feel guilt over his own inevitable death.
As if on cue, Seokjin asks the question you dread the most. “What happens to them when I’m gone?”
In all the other times Seokjin asked you this question, you answered differently. The first time you shrugged and said I don’t know, I don’t stick around long enough to see , and it seems to appease him until you begin looking significantly wearier and wearier and wearier and he knows you know something but you just tell him they’d have to get over it eventually and it’s comforting even for you to pretend they’ll be fine when both you and Seokjin know they won’t.
The look on your face hides nothing from Seokjin. “What happens to you?”, he asks, grip on your hand subtly tightening.
That you can answer. “Nothing much. I go back to last Friday.” You try to sound casual, but your tiredness seeps into your voice as heavily as it does into your bones and Seokjin catches on, because of course he’d catch on. He has been taking care of you and the other five long enough to see right through your or anyone else’s bullshit.
And, you think, if someone can see through Hoseok’s smiles, they can see through anything.
“Aren’t you tired of it? How many times did you…” he trails off, his free hand adjusting the blanket over Jeongguk absent-mindedly.
You shrug, not even pretending to count. “At least over fifty times. I stopped counting a while ago. Hurts less.”
He repeats his question, leaning to your side so your eyes meet. “Aren’t you tired?”
The dim sunlight slowly seeping from the crack in the horizon warms your bare knees and makes Seokjin’s eyes look warmer, less dull and dead like in the last time you actually see him. Your resolve wavers at the way he looks at you, and you turn away from him, feeling the now too familiar burn in your eyes.
“I can’t be. Not until I figure out how to stop it—stop it from happening”, your voice cracks and you’re grateful Seokjin never tries reaching for you to wipe your tears like Hoseok or Jimin always do; you would only break down further at his gentle touch by now.
“So you’re tired.” You shake your head again, not daring to look at him in the eye. “Yoongi. You’re tired.”
He entwines his fingers in yours and you hide your face with your free hand, willing the tears away.
You hastily wipe your face once you feel Namjoon stir behind you. Seokjin’s grip on your hand doesn’t falter, and once you can see clearly again you chance a look at him.
You see nothing but affection in his eyes when he whispers, “join me.”
xxx
“I thought we were gonna watch the sunrise,” Namjoon complains groggily as everyone lazily files into Seokjin’s pickup truck. The sun is fully up; it took you and Seokjin a while to wake up the others.
“And we were”, Seokjin replies with a giggle, “but you babies all fell asleep on us!”
Namjoon grumbles noncommittally before settling himself by your side in the back of the truck. Jeongguk always sits on the front seat (Seokjin refuses to let him be as reckless as you and the others; Jeongguk often complains about being babied but he never does in the timelines where you tell him) and you and the others all pile up at the back, recklessly yelling taunts at bypassers and neighboring cars. Seokjin says he hates it when you do that, but you know he laughs along with the shouting and taunting.
Besides, Seokjin would never hate anything you or the boys do.
The drive is oddly silent; everyone’s still either too cold or too sleepy to raise hell. You feel Hoseok’s head slump on your shoulder and you let him rest a little more; it’s a long ride home, anyway. Namjoon’s gaze is unreadable underneath his shades; you’d rather not dwell on whatever he’s thinking about right now. Jimin and Taehyung quietly talk about something or another that you might have tried to overhear twenty timelines ago but that now feels irrelevant and unimportant.
Would I miss this?, you ask yourself while watching Jimin laugh at something Taehyung says. Would they move on if I did, too?
xxx
You’re the only one not looking surprised when Seokjin pulls over at the beach, camcorder in hands and ready to film everyone’s reactions. The others yell excitedly as they jump out the back of the truck, kicking at the sand and laughing at the camera. Seokjin makes sure to capture every moment.
Jeongguk takes as long as you do to get out of the car, in no hurry at all. You drape an arm over his shoulders in a meek attempt at an apology, even though you know he has forgiven you at least four days ago. He forces a smile and you can see the small but colorful bruise on his cheekbone clearly; your lip is still swollen and barely healing, too.
“Last one in the water is a rotten egg!”, Hoseok shouts at the others, already dashing out to the shore. Seokjin yells a “wait!” and runs after him before turning back and walking backwards to the sea to record the others running, too.
You nudge Jeongguk’s shoulder and he frowns at your forced smile before reluctantly nodding and dashing along with you.
Later, when everyone’s lazing about around the truck on a grassy path near the beach, you find Jeongguk, perched on top of the car, watching Seokjin intently. You do not intervene from your spot beside him, a – once again – snoring Namjoon sprawled on the grass with his head on your lap; Seokjin doesn’t notice he’s being watched at first, too busy fiddling with his camcorder, until he looks up and meets Jeongguk’s intrigued stare.
Jeongguk’s gaze falters and there’s a hint of sadness in his now watery eyes. Seokjin smiles and you know what happens next, except what happens next isn’t what you expect.
Jeongguk’s face scrunches up in grief as Seokjin mouths at him while reaching out to put his hand over yours, “We’ll be fine”.
He looks away from Seokjin and you, pretending to be terribly interested in whatever Taehyung and Jimin were doing in the back of the truck. You watch him shed a single tear before he uses his sweater sleeve to wipe it off his face.
Seokjin’s hand feels comfortably warm against your cold one. You allow yourself to imagine if his lips would feel the same against yours.
(you’ve felt his lips before in several timelines; the circumstances differed wildly depending on how much alcohol you had in your system or just how sleepy Seokjin was feeling, pliant and smiling under your light, feather-like touches before you dived in for the kiss)
“Let’s go home”, he announces before his hand leaves yours and he gets up, patting the dirt from his pants. You nudge Namjoon awake before doing the same.
xxx
It’s when you’re back at the ratty apartment that you realize Seokjin’s subtly saying his goodbyes to every one of your friends.
You watch him give the polaroid camera to Jimin, who looks delighted at the gift and immediately points the camera to Seokjin, who promptly poses and winks at him. Jimin laughs as he takes the picture and Seokjin throws his arms around his neck as they wait to see the picture.
His whispered “I love you, Jiminie” roars like thunder against your ears; this didn’t happen before.
It’s enough to make Jimin smile for the remainder of the day, snapping pictures of you and the others with abandon.
Next, you see him saunter towards Taehyung and Namjoon, who promptly push him against the cracked white wall of the living room and take out their spray cans, painting around and over Seokjin, who laughs in delight. Jimin snaps another picture and Seokjin hugs Taehyung when they’re done fooling around with the spray cans.
He kisses the top of Taehyung’s head and his hushed “Be good for me, okay, Taetae?” once again reaches your ears loud and clear. You want to get up and ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing, because he never felt inclined to say anything to the boys before he was gone; Seokjin was always a firm believer that actions spoke louder than words.
This Seokjin, however, was never with you in the other timelines; sometimes you need to remind yourself that the only continuity among all these loops is you.
He disappears into the kitchen before you can even move, so you decide to idly watch Hoseok and Taehyung make a tower out of the red cups scattered across the room. You notice Jeongguk never moved from his spot in front of the couch, staring at nothing in particular until the loud crash of Hoseok’s leg hitting the cup tower snaps him out of his daze.
His eyes meet yours and there’s a question in his that you don’t quite know how to answer yet; you get up from your armchair and walk towards him, plopping yourself down by his side and patting his head.
Seokjin comes from the kitchen with a steaming mug in his hands and you and Jeongguk turn your attention to him, watching intently as he hands Namjoon his hot coffee and laughs his squeaky laughter when your taller, more awkward friend nearly drops the mug because it’s too hot.
“It’s not my fault you like your coffee steaming hot, Joonie”, he laughs again and helps him hold the mug, hands touching his tenderly. “I’m glad you know how to make your own coffee. If you don’t break anything I’ll even let you make it here from now on, you’ll have to. I won’t be around forever to make you coffee and food, you know!”
Jeongguk’s breath catches in his throat and you pat his head again. Maybe this is a dream, you think when you hear Namjoon scolding Seokjin (“Don’t say that, hyung!”, but he’s laughing like he doesn’t believe in the possibility of Seokjin ever leaving), maybe it’s still Thursday and I’m still with my head on Jin’s lap, maybe my nap lasted too long.
Maybe I should finally let him rest, and you feel something other than alternating anguish and indifference for the first time in many, many loops. Relief.
Next, it’s Hoseok. Before you first saw Seokjin die, back in the original timeline where you were blissfully unaware of what would happen that friday, you still had Hoseok to worry about; Seokjin was the first to point out that his smile no longer reached his eyes, and you were the first to notice the pill box he seemed to always carry around now.
Of course Seokjin was the first to talk to him about it; Hoseok did not open up at first, but he promised Seokjin he was taking his pills properly and scaring off the bad thoughts. Seokjin hid nothing from you, but you feigned unawareness and always did your best to smile genuinely at Hoseok whenever he beamed at you.
(you found out at around timeline #17 that, other than Seokjin, Jimin was the only one who knew about Hoseok’s pills, maybe even more; you notice, then, that he seems to always gravitate towards Hoseok, quietly slipping an arm around his waist and leaning closer to him, head on his shoulder, and Hoseok answers to his silent question with a nod and a genuine smile.
you now know Hoseok trusts Jimin because they’re going through the same)
Jeongguk’s staring at something across the room and you see it’s Seokjin and Hoseok cuddling on the floor, giggling about nothing in particular. It both warms your heart and makes your stomach sink to watch them share such an intimate moment when you know what happens next to both of them, but it’s also different this time; Seokjin’s smile turns into a frown and you don’t really catch everything he’s whispering at a startled Hoseok but you can make out take your meds properly or I’ll find a way out of hell and personally fight you and you fight the urge to laugh because you’re also alarmed at how Seokjin’s getting less and less subtle with his impending death hints.
But Jeongguk seems to catch on to what Seokjin says, too, because he actually giggles. “He would do that”, he tells you, shrugging, and it feels good to see him smiling, so you smile at him, too.
He leans his head on your shoulder and you try not to freeze when he starts rambling, “you take good care of him in hell, too, or I’ll have to come down to fight you and you know he won’t be happy to see me there so soon, so. Be nice to him.”
Of course the little shit didn’t go back to sleep in the morning, and you should be alarmed at yet another change of events after so long, but all you do is laugh and pull him closer.
(and, hey, Hoseok’s laughing too, smile actually reaching his eyes once Seokjin tells him I love you, Hobi, you know that, right?)
xxx
“If we head out now,” you stand on your tiptoes to whisper on Seokjin’s ear, hands pressing against his waist for balance, “you’ll— you’ll die, hyung.”
It’s not the first time you warn him directly in over fifty timelines, but it’s also the first time you don’t actively try to stop him from leaving after you warn him.
“What happens if we don’t, then?”, he asks, letting go of the doorknob and turning to you, oddly calm.
You realize you’re still holding his waist even after he turned. You allow your hands to stay where they are for now. “You die anyway. Something— something always happens and you die, hyung.”
You don’t want him to ask you what could possibly happen; you’ve watched many times the different ways Seokjin dies a stupid, inevitable death right in front of you and the boys, and as tired as you are of all the looping, as used as you should be by now to helplessly watching him die, every time he did it still hurt.
The outcome is always the same, anyway – none of you can move on after it happens, there is no closure for that; the seven of you are a small, broken family, still hurting and still barely recovering from everything you had to go through before you had each other. Seokjin was – Seokjin is, right now – the main source of comfort for all the boys, with his tenderness and kindness, with how he would always indulge to any of the boys’ whims, how protective he acts whenever someone gets injured from all the fooling around they do. Seokjin talked Namjoon out of drinking and smoking (with coffee and lollipops, which also aren’t exactly healthy coping mechanisms, but still) and did his best to keep Taehyung out of as much serious trouble as he could. Jeongguk never skipped class again after he met Seokjin, never tried to fit in with the bad crowd again – we are your very own personal bad crowd now, Seokjin would tell him, and it was true – they didn’t exactly run around the better parts of the city and their penchant for defacing and vandalizing things made them quite infamous. Still, Jeongguk went to classes, ate the lunch Seokjin religiously prepared for him every morning, and went straight back to the apartment instead of straying around in smelly alleys doing whatever the local ruined youth was on that day.
How did such a goody-two-shoes like Seokjin come to fit in your ragtag group of broken little people, you have no idea. But he fits, somehow, even with his rich family background and his stupid expensive pickup and the apparent lack of a single evil bone in his body. He fits and he keeps you and the boys together, in every sense. He fits and he makes sure you fit too, he makes sure you eat and sleep on a barely appropriate daily basis, he makes sure to keep your anger in check (he no longer has to, at least not for the last ten or twelve or eighteen timelines, whenever you stopped counting and feeling so much anger except when you break things so Jeongguk sees you); without Seokjin, you would have burned your own house – and yourself – down long ago.
And, even if you’re fully aware he would do everything he did for you and maybe more to any of the others (and he did), even if you’re fully aware you’re not any more special in Seokjin’s eyes than the others, that Seokjin does not play favorites no matter how differently he may feel for any of you, you can’t help but feel special whenever his hand touches yours and closes over the lighter you can’t seem to let go of whenever you feel uneasy; more than once did he let you burn his hand and smiled through your apologies and half-hearted stupid hyung insults as you fumbled for the first-aid kit he always kept nearby.
Of all people, of course you had to fall for Seokjin.
Of all people, of course he had to be the one to die.
You feel Seokjin’s hands over yours on his waist as he lifts them up and entwines your fingers in his. “If we head out now,” he repeats, looking straight at you,—
(and you know your face looks awful and your eyes are sunken and framed by dark circles because you no longer sleep properly during this one week and your mint-colored hair looks brittle and lifeless because you just stopped caring even with Seokjin’s nagging about keeping it properly if you wanted it green so badly; you stop caring because, by the end of this friday, you’ll go back to when you had it freshly dyed and your efforts will be useless again)
—the same calm-but-not-happy smile from this morning in his lips, “will you join me?”
xxx
You remember the other times you kept him from leaving the apartment.
The first time he doesn’t leave, he slips on the wet bathroom floor and cracks his head; no one really sees him die, but the blood pooling under him and his wide eyes are enough to set everyone off and make it so nothing changes. They’re still doomed to self-destruction.
It’s a stupid way to die and you’ve made sure to keep the bathroom floor dry since then. It’s dry right now, because you slipped inside after Namjoon’s shower and sneakily cleaned up the mess he’d made.
It doesn’t really matter, in the end, because Death finds other ways to take Seokjin by surprise, be it with an accident involving a loose wire and the bathtub (you took it upon yourself to fix that wire every new timeline) or with an accidental drunken fall off the building’s rooftop (the rooftop is off limits now; you made sure to jam the lock so no one would be able to break through it). Every death is accidental; Seokjin never intended to leave you and the boys, yet he’s always taken away in the cruellest and most unexpected forms.
When you do head out, even when you keep him from getting too far from the sidewalk or from high places or from anything you consider dangerous in general, something always goes wrong and he strays, somehow, stands right in front of what could kill him, where you and the boys can see, and it’s always messy and tragic and you never find the strength to hold on to them; it’s usually just you and Jeongguk after it’s over, left to find whatever still lingers of the others.
Before morning comes you’re abruptly brought back to the previous friday like it was all a dream; in the mirror, you see your bright mint hair and somewhat healthier complexion and you look nothing like the wreck you become by the next week.
Originally, Seokjin dies when hit by a speeding truck inside the tunnel near the apartment where you’d hang out at night, when few to no cars passed by, drinking and laughing away at the colorful graffiti Namjoon and Taehyung would do on the dirty walls. He’s laughing, carefree, drunkenly swinging the camcorder from the middle of the road, trying to capture all of you at once.
The truck strikes him so violently you think you can feel his blood splatter on your face; it doesn’t, but you see it all over the pavement, on the side of the truck, on Taehyung’s hands when he lifts Seokjin’s lifeless mangled body and presses it to his chest and howls in pain.
You’ve learned to avoid the truck in the third or fourth timeline; when it’s not the truck, he falls off a bridge, and when it’s not the bridge, he drowns in the sea during your impromptu night trip to the beach. Staying home and heading out will always lead to his death regardless, so you figure you’ll let him decide how he wants to go down this time.
That’s how you find yourself back in the tunnel, whiskey bottle in hand, forcing a laugh at something Jimin says.
At first, it’s exactly how you remember from the first time: Namjoon works on a pretty yellow scribble on the wall while Taehyung adds details in red here and there and Hoseok’s having an impromptu dance-off against Jeongguk while Seokjin films the whole thing, and then there are the changes: Jimin taking a picture of the graffiti, Hoseok quietly refusing a swig of the vodka bottle Taehyung offers him, Jeongguk taking the camcorder off of Seokjin’s hands to film him instead, asking him to dance. Seokjin was always a bad dancer, you know, but he dances anyway, awkwardly and making faces at the camera. Jeongguk’s laughter is strained, but the others are genuinely happy.
You look at your phone watch. We still have some time.
Seokjin holds Jeongguk’s hands on his when he attempts to return the camcorder. “No. This is yours, now”, he smiles and Jeongguk sniffles and shakes his head, and you’re thankful no one is really paying attention, with the graffiti and Jimin taking pictures of Hoseok beside yet another work of art by Taehyung on the wall. You watch them briefly before turning back to Seokjin and Jeongguk.
“You can’t just… Hyung, you can’t…”, he muffles a sob with his hands and Seokjin wipes his tears his his jacket sleeve, smile never faltering.
“You’ll take care of them for me, won’t you, Gukkie?”, he coos, and Jeongguk nods despite himself. You can’t help but smile at that; no one was ever able to say no to Seokjin’s requests. “Be good for me, okay? I want you to make more memories of us while I’m gone.”
You look away when Jeongguk throws his arms around Seokjin and holds him tight, burying his face on his shoulder. It’s not your moment to intervene and you feel the kid needs both his closure and space. Seokjin hugs him back just as tightly, but he doesn’t cry; sometimes you feel like punching him for accepting so easily something that hit you so hard you stuck yourself to a doomed time loop, just to see him in tears, but Seokjin never cries over his own misfortune and that makes you want to punch him even harder.
It’s always a fleeting thought, though, because soon Seokjin is right in front of you, that knowing smile he saves only for you, and you swallow thickly because he was never this close to you by his own accord before.
“When does it happen?”, he asks you and you fumble with your phone to check the time again, hands shaking despite yourself.
“A-at eight forty-six”, you answer, not looking at his eyes. Seokjin’s hand sneaks under your chin and he pulls your head up slowly, settling both of his hands on your shoulders once he’s sure you’re looking at him.
“We still have a few minutes, then. Is it always at this time?” You nod and your hands find his waist before you can stop them, feet fidgety because you’ve been through this week over fifty or sixty or seventy times and yet this never happened before. You wonder if you really do look as tired as you feel or if Seokjin’s just that good at reading you; if he knows what you need even better than yourself.
“I guess we can make good use of this time.” He closes the gap between you before you can say anything, and the smile you feel against your lips makes your heart churn. You grab onto his waist and pull him closer, hungry, needy, desperate, tired, tired, tired, and his arms encircle your neck and you don’t give a fuck if you have to stand on your tiptoes to kiss him properly or if the kiss turns sloppy because you’re in a hurry and if this is the last of Seokjin you’ll ever have you have to make it worth every time you had to watch him die after trying so hard to make him live.
You hear catcalls and whooping noises and you know the boys are watching you two, that Jimin’s snapping pictures you’d sell your soul to see and keep with yourself for the rest of your life (and you laugh against the kiss because you wouldn’t even have enough time to actually see the pictures), that Jeongguk’s filming through his tears and Hoseok is the one behind the catcalls. Namjoon and Taehyung shout took you long enough you dumbasses and your heart clenches at what that meant.
So when Seokjin pulls away and you finally see tears forming in his eyes, you know what he means when he tells you, “I love you, Yoongi”.
xxx
The tunnel is empty except for you and Seokjin. Jeongguk manages to convince the others that this asks for a pizza celebration and you stray behind on purpose while they cheerily leave the tunnel. What they won’t see won’t hurt them, will it?, you think, and you’re thankful they seemed all too eager to leave you alone with Seokjin for a few moments.
You gave Jeongguk a thumbs-up when he turned back to look at you and Seokjin one last time; Seokjin mouthed be good and I love you and the kid hastily turned his back again and left, surely trying not to cry again.
“You know,” you look at him and then back down to your entwined hands, “I love you too, right?”
His laughter fills your heart with fleeting joy. “You wouldn’t go through this— through everything if you didn’t”.
Your smile mirrors his. Your phone watch marks 8:43 and you’re surprised you feel nothing at the thought of dying. “Do you think this is gonna work?”
“I have no idea, you’re the time travelling man here!”, he laughs again and rubs circles on your hand with his thumb. “But it’s worth a try. You have to rest, too, this— this isn’t how you should live.”
You look down again, biting your lip. “I’m sorry.”
For everything, you want to say. For my inability to save you all those times. For keeping to myself about my feelings for you. For putting you through this time and time again, even if you don’t remember anything about the other timelines, even if you’re not even the same person from the other timelines.
Instead, you repeat, “I’m sorry.”
Seokjin shakes his head, tucking a strand of stringy green hair behind your ear. “You did your best, Yoongi. You always do.”
It’s 8:44 and you have nothing to say to him, because you still think you could have done more, but telling him that would steal your last two minutes away in silly bickering over whether you did your best or not, so you take a deep breath and tilt your head towards his. “Is it okay if we kiss again before—you know…?”
He nods and his forehead touches yours before you capture his lips. You try to get lost in the sensation, you really do, because Seokjin is so soft against you, and if you could choose to die while kissing him, that’s what you would do, but you also want to look at him one last time before you go.
You suppose you should feel terrified in your last two minutes of life, but Seokjin’s solid presence in your embrace and the warmth of his hand that fits perfectly with yours have a calming effect on you. You nuzzle his neck and revel in Seokjin’s flowery scent one last time.
“Are you scared?”, he asks and you pull away to look at him.
You don’t have much time now. It’s 8:45 and soon you’ll hear the truck approaching fast. It’s been a while since you last heard it, granted – you might have let him die by the truck again some good twenty timelines ago, but still –, but you know it’ll come and it’ll hurt and you just hope someone else finds the bodies before the boys do.
You hope Jeongguk will swallow his grief and keep the others away.
“Honestly,” you steal a kiss on the tip of his nose and he lets out a surprised giggle, “if I don’t wake up on last friday again I’ll be happy enough.”
Seokjin smiles and nods. It’s time; you can hear the faint noise of the truck in the distance, and you kiss Seokjin again; it’s just a peck, and it’s barely enough for you, but you’ll have what you can take.
He looks at you like he looked at Jeongguk earlier today, and even his words are the same. “We’ll be fine.”
The blinding lights of the truck hurt your eyes, but you don’t let go of Seokjin. He never stops smiling, so you smile, too, and his hand on yours is warm—
(his grip tightens on your hand and it’s the only sign of distress he shows; you tighten your grip too as if to say I’m here now, I won’t leave anymore)
everything goes dark when the truck hits you two; you feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, but his hand is still on yours when your bodies hit the ground; then there’s pain, pain, pain, sharp and bone-breaking, and your eyes are unfocused when you force them open and look at Seokjin’s mangled body twisted in an awkward position across from you.
the sharp pain would make you scream if you still had the strength to, but you don’t. you idly wonder if you’ll survive, after all, and he’ll die again, but your body starts to give out and you close your eyes again and wait.
there’s darkness,
(there’s the reassuring warmth of Seokjin’s hand on yours)
(there’s his voice in your head whispering we’ll be fine over and over again)
and then there’s nothing.
The usual regrets will disappear on the wind
I wish I could have seen a little more
Of the self you never showed to anyone else
Time is quietly scowling