Work Text:
see, we’ve all got somethin’ that we trapped inside
that we try to suffocate, you know, hopin’ it dies
try to hold it underwater but it always survives
then it hovers over you to tell you millions of lies
there is something incredibly ethereal about life. life, when you care enough to see deeply through it, is mere and bare; complex but limpid. and yet, jungkook’s understanding of it has never felt so blurred along boundless edges.
jungkook goes under the bridge for the first time when he gets lost inside of himself. it is not his usual route, the streets are not as empty as jungkook usually likes them to be. it is a long cut, but at that moment the greyness of the river draws him in; nothing else clicks. people around him are shapes that get in the way – until he becomes one of them himself.
there is rivalry in his heart and he has become his own opponent. there is no weapon but outside cries to draw and give; with silence, when external forces try to interfere.
when he walks, the puddles of rainy clouds stare back and keep him grounded, but it does not feel like it is enough.
jungkook keeps walking;
that is what everyone has always told him to do – never stop, take a moment, will you?. life, he has been taught, is about how you keep searching for the right moment, until you let it consume you whole and become an altered version of yourself. you just need to find the right person. if some small, guilty part of jungkook had not believed it, he would have paused and considered all his options. but survival, the rush – everything that you cannot control – drowns him in deep, nauseous and unstoppable pulls.
feelings pull you in without ever looking back – feelings have arms that pull and stretch and never ask for consent.
it feels a bit like home with yoongi, sometimes. (and sometimes it does not). sometimes jungkook feels like he is lying to himself, like who he is does not match the friend he is supposed to be with yoongi. he does not remember when the last time he allowed himself to let go was – thinks he vaguely recalls feeling free with a beer in hand; yoongi had not been there that day. but even then he had been in his mind (did freedom truly feel like this?). and jungkook just wants to get it over with, to move on – to stay right where he is and stray away from these toxic tracks.
there is no sound but melting terror under the bridge when jungkook explores his mind for the first time. a furious edge to the paradoxical quietness of the feeling of hollowness that envelops him with the rain.
the word love is being used too many times a day by everyone. and yet, more than half of the population – if not all of it – ignores its real pragmatics. [love] is a term that involves a spectrum of possible semantics. two aspects of semantics exist – jungkook knows them by heart (by heart… is ironic). the first one, lexical semantics, designates one of these pulls that jungkook resents but cannot get away from: the very essence of words, construction of signs, the birth of categorisation; where your brain processes information without your knowledge. the second one is logical semantics – and it should be more open, but the signs ruin a moving truth; there is nothing logical about what is extra-linguistic, jungkook knows it because there is nothing logical about emotions and human existence. logic, too, was created by specific signs entrapped in expectations and apologetic morality.
in jungkook’s own self-existence, the word love designates something unexpected from society – something that can be made deniable.
it is because the kind of love that jungkook feels for yoongi is deniable that he does not expect anything from the memories under the bridge. the bridge is a space that he cannot connect to a specific timeframe, yet. tourists are walking past him in a blur of social fragments that do not ring in jungkook’s ears. but he was never looking for stability, so he comes back to that place and carries on.
what keeps him afloat is the shutter of his camera.
when his friends talk about it – about the social construct of love through lexical semantics – they automatically talk about attraction, magnets; undeniable pulls that hurt. they talk about one night stands, hotness and sex. crude words that should heat up the atmosphere but all that jungkook feels is frozen waves keeping him in, breaking him quietly apart.
one click and his subjectivity is captured. the camera is an excuse to look at something else – to look away from them and pretend like there is a beauty in his eyes that can and needs to be perceived. but all there is in jungkook’s heart is fear fear fear and again. retreat. the soft coldness of winter that burns a bit too bright when he is surrounded by everyone else (because winter should not burn your skin, it should appease your dreams).
“i like your pictures,” one of his friends says.
“thank you” for lying.
jungkook’s pictures are deniable. they do not exist in the eyes of people who do not love winter.
next to them, yoongi talks about crimson waves and dates under the burning sun – his partner, another one night stand, is seating on his lap and laughs too loudly.
jungkook looks away and painfully releases the shutter.
(yoongi never notices, because life is not a romantic fiction).
they have both been friends for years, now. they got very close, and jungkook catches himself thinking that yoongi may have been the only person to ever reach the fortress surrounding his soul – maybe not the only one, but the one that jungkook has slowly seen coming,
and has not stopped.
they hang out a lot, in multiple occasions, without the others – just them. while jungkook is often quiet, he listens closely. yoongi makes jungkook want to open up and be passionate about what he loves; but he holds onto his secrets – and yet, he stops himself instead of stopping yoongi from reaching out, because deep down, he knows. what would be the point of getting too vulnerable, when he knows? there is no chase in a game he knows he is bound to lose.
“you’ve never let me watch you dance,” yoongi often says with a pout.
jungkook never truly replies, just puts his head back and laughs with his eyes closed, so yoongi does not figure out why. yoongi brings it up almost every time when they go out for lamb skewers. this kind of evenings always make them both vulnerable, faced with the close nature of their friendship, bare – when jungkook talks a bit more but shows less.
eventually, the nightmare starts, and jungkook was expecting it – because it is not the first time that it happened to him (when he was young, people’s assumptions already tore him down). a silly banter starts in their friend group, just get a room already, and other passive aggressive tales that physically hurt jungkook, yoongi and jungkook have a date! they’re going to eat lamb skewers again! always followed by laughter, because of course it is taken as a joke. what they do not know is that jungkook has often asked himself the question – could it be –
yoongi laughs, too. (but it is quieter, edged with finality.)
micro-aggressions; there is no other way to put it for someone like jungkook. the semantics of asexuality and aromanticism are hard to come by in a world where love should only mean one thing. jungkook is not sure where he stands – refuses to label himself as aromantic for now – but this situation makes him want to get even closer to the brink. the banter involving yoongi and him goes on and on, for months, acting like a couple and making fun of the idea – it makes jungkook sick, makes him feel hollow which is even worse. none of those are considered to be micro-aggressions because, while passive aphobia is the easiest to erase – because people are not even aware that they are spreading it – it is the one that hurts the most, the one that your own friends use against you without ever feeling guilty. so the banter that they think they are using carries on, just like the never-ending walks that jungkook takes, just like his forced search for the right person that people keep mentioning. it is passive – it passes right through him, like millions of burning arrows destroying his chest and heartbeats.
but how can jungkook even blame them, if they do not know they are doing it?
he knows what awaits him if he comes out: prude. virgin. sick.
maybe even rape.
not from his friends – no, his friends would laugh again, or they would pity him. you’ll find someone, no worries. you’re lovable – it would be a shame if you never found someone –
jungkook does not want his feelings for yoongi to be reduced to just that – banter, random banter, meaningless banter. jungkook wishes his feelings for yoongi could be valued as what they are: unconditional [love].
how should you put it? i’m in love with you – but, not like /that/.
jungkook used to kiss yoongi on the forehead before the banter started – just to test the ground. (it was something he had read in a book as a teenager, one of the characters kissing the other on the forehead; that pure, intimate gesture that meant enough for jungkook to think it over and crave it in ways that people would crave a ‘deeper’ physical closeness). but there was no ground, he was just testing the waters; large, infinite waters… too calm back then, calm by yoongi’s side. it was only at night when jungkook would come back home that the tempest would start all over again in his internal ocean – tempest of thoughts shutting everything else down, when he barely knew how to swim. jungkook was swaying over with his thoughts, dreaming of his own definition of love and romance – hopeless, but so undeniably free in his own daydreams.
(once you have this – once you feel this – only then… then, you can go deeper.)
now, jungkook barely reaches out for physical contact – physical contact usually implies something else, and jungkook is content with things the way they are. he just wishes people would accept them as they are.
“written any lyric, lately?” yoongi asks when they are walking out of yoongi’s dorm.
with you in mind? tons; “a few.”
songs are like poems that you can dance to. any song that he writes but cannot share, jungkook dances to. everything that his mouth does not say, everything that his body refuses to do when it comes to his sexuality, jungkook pours into his artistic persona. he dances his nights away, overflows his system with untold joy and courage. he does not let yoongi see it because he knows that there will come a point where he is able to save himself.
then, only then – maybe.
(maybe yoongi knows already, but has refused to see it because nothing jungkook has ever done was considered to be romantic, or pure marks of lovable affection – blurred, trapped between platonic love and what they say means ‘more’)
soft kisses on the forehead; you need to kiss somewhere else – and jungkook wants to. but both, both should mean the same thing.
“i want to find someone,” yoongi says, one day.
they are all out, getting a bit drunk playing board games.
jungkook tightly holds onto his glass of warm chocolate milk.
“we’re here right now, hyung,” he tells yoongi – his tone is shy, too quiet compared to the roaming white noise of their friends.
“i want to find someone who wants to fuck me.”
the whole table laughs playfully. jungkook just freezes, tries to hold tighter onto the present.
jungkook is not in the part of the spectrum that is sex-repulsed – asexuality has nothing to do with libido and sexual interest, it has everything to do with attraction which jungkook, so far, has never experienced. he has no problem with the idea of sex, what people do or do not do with it is not his issue;
but why does everything have to revolve around it? just the word makes him uneasy, used like this. he does not want to sleep with anyone, but it does not mean – it has never meant – that he would give anything less than unconditional passion and care to anyone else. it does not mean that he is not interested.
it is winter when the bridge echoes of bright tones and comforting serenity for the first time. for once, jungkook could almost stop on the spot, getting closer to an undeniable feeling of irrational familiarity. he does not pause quite yet – slows down, bright eyes; there is music under the bridge. jungkook’s steps are careful, but his feet still carry him towards the welcoming sound.
someone is dancing under the bridge...
jungkook suddenly thinks of ringing heartbeats and intimacy; he finally comes to a stop – lets his guard down, and stares at the street dancer. his movements are clearer than the white and ephemeral flakes of the early snow. his body moves with the precision of satisfying lifelines – resonates against the most precious parts within jungkook.
jungkook knows, in this moment, everything about the dancer will leave an undeniable, hopeful mark.
--
the small crowd around the dancer applauds; jungkook sees him beam at a particularly enthusiastic group of tourists that gives him some money and claps some more. he bows again, turns to his belongings left on the ground under the bridge – for a second, jungkook thinks that his presence is enough to replace the dreams of snowy days – the dancer turns off the music and puts on his backpack and a green bucket hat.
the backpack has stickers of bright, yellow emoticons smiling at jungkook, and of something that jungkook is pretty sure could be snoopy.
the back of his hat says hope world, and jungkook might just believe in it.
jungkook goes back under the bridge every day after that. there are days where he misses hope world and sees him with his backpack, bowing to figures out of jungkook’s reach – when he is lucky, he gets to be among the first people to gravitate towards the dancing edge of the sunny winter land that the dancer always creates.
there is an incredibly vulnerable – deep sense of belonging (if not an urge to belong), admiration;
and it is undeniable in the way hope world dances. hopeful – admirable. almost a model that jungkook could draw by heart.
jungkook smiles.
“you’ve been more distant.” you seem happier.
(at times – in ephemeral drops of faith – hoseok smiles back, but jungkook has already turned away).
it is not a crush. not in the semantics that society anchors itself. jungkook gets flustered by hope world’s dancing. it moves him, touches him, grips him – but he embraces it willingly, welcomes it, would draw it closer to himself, because it is familiar to the safe home he has struggled all these years to create. and it is not a magnet either; it is a force that he can push back, something that he has control over. he would not call it a crush to that extent, because the kind of attraction he concedes in feeling is not sexual (nor is it romantic at this point in his life). there is no arousal to it. it is pure wonder – thoughts of a better while, without contact. jungkook admires hope world like he would admire a piece of art, and like he would admire someone like yoongi. jungkook thinks about hope world every day and every night – but it is all there is to it, and more; all at the same time.
he wishes he could be friends with him.
hope world inspires him; even so, when jungkook dances again, it is for himself.
when he dances, jungkook focuses on the bursting beats of meaning, lets his body surrender. he finds himself again and forgets about everything else, becoming his own centre of attention.
jungkook wants to be like that with yoongi. it feels like he can only act around him, be either overly cute or overly silent. he wants to be the way he dances, with yoongi – has something to prove for himself. but there is undermining fear if it ever comes out;
dancing like this, it makes him feel sensual – wanted. like he could be enough if he ever chose to go anywhere near the waves. the attention is deafening in his head. it cuts his breath short – losing his consciousness to the songs he moves around.
there is a kind of awe – distant – when he looks at himself in the mirror, sweaty but still full of energy; and it is an odd feeling, but it feels right, too. to accept some unconscious strings. the way he looks and acts is not an invitation. he wants to experience all that he is capable of, wants to connect, to be enough with who he is and the whole that he can and wants to give.
when hope world does not show up to dance anymore, jungkook does not cry, does not get angry. there is a newfound sense of determination in the fire down his chest – an urge to replace lack with the hopeful light hope world was able to provide under the winter bridge.
it is incredibly cold outside, but jungkook cares too much – does not feel like he could ever do justice to the hope he had been feeling growing inside of him; he starts dancing where hope world used to dance nonetheless. there are no mirrors like in the studio, nothing to face him directly but the crowd that has become partially familiar. there is safety under the bridge, now. there has been ever since winter started.
jungkook’s backpack is black; the only thing that covers his head under the snow after his dances, away from the bridge, is the hood of his black jacket. jungkook will never replace hope world; it is not his intention. he barely waits for applause when he is done. he bows, keeps his head low, stays hidden behind his mask. but he has rarely felt so much like himself –
it has been so long.
(then, only then – maybe)
the atmosphere is not different – jungkook dances like fire around distant snowflakes and it is like nothing has changed; because life is not a romantic fiction;
the atmosphere is not different when yoongi stumbles upon jungkook’s world. the latter does not notice immediately.
jungkook floats rhythmically to beats and whispers under the bridge, completely immersed in significant melodies – it even takes a double-check for yoongi to realise that this is him.
jungkook might never know that, in this moment, yoongi sees and watches jungkook for who he is.
yoongi comes back the following day – jungkook is still here, dancing his heart away. this time, right before the music ends, yoongi walks over to him.
jungkook feels the presence – expects a few words of encouragement. the song ends – nothing else starts,
he meets the eyes of the person in front of him – and stops.
the café they go to is different – one song away from hope world, if he were still there. it is a bit cold but jungkook does not mind. he keeps his fingerless gloves on, chooses a spot under fairy lights that remind him of poems he used to read when he was young. yoongi is silent for a while, and this is different, too. jungkook is afraid he messed things up before even having attained complete honesty; regrets would start flowing in like tears if he were not doing his best to keep them at bay,
(i’m made to feel guilty there /is/ something i lack of and if i don’t want to kiss you and sleep with you then it’s all done before it can begin there’s nothing valuable to it nothing valuable in what i’m offering and all of this will break and shatter in piles of internal cries that will never reach anyone but myself and if i say ‘i’m sorry i can’t be here for you in the way you want me to be’ then i admit that i regret who i am and who i can be but i wish i wish i truly desperately wish that what i feel would be as valuable as someone who wants to give you what i can never be)
–
“you never let me see your dancing.” somehow, hearing it this time hurts more than the others. “i thought we were close enough…?” uncertainty.
jungkook cannot bring himself to look away as he watches yoongi taking a sip of his coffee to keep himself occupied, seemingly embarrassed after having admitted that.
we were too close and not close enough. “we—” the waitress brings a small cup of sugar to their table. they both say thank you at the same time. jungkook does not know what he wants to say, does not know which parts of himself are out and which are kept untouched. “i wanted to. really i did – it’s just. it’s me – about me.” his fingertips unconsciously reach out for yoongi’s, a natural gesture that means nothing and everything. “hyung, i didn’t want you to become a reason for me to dance.” he pauses again, wonders if yoongi knows what this truly means in his own context. “i wanted a bit more – time—” but the word does not taste right in jungkook’s mouth; time is not what he wants. what he wants is not constructed; it is felt.
maybe it is a bit selfish – definitely illogical, in a sense. yoongi frowns, but he looks calm.
“hyung… are you mad?”
“no, of course i’m not.”
“you're upset?”
yoongi smiles, then, a small sadness caught on each side of his face.
“i’m not upset, jungkook,” but there is hesitation in his tone that does not go unnoticed; yoongi adds, “it’s just difficult for me to understand. it’s hard for me to place you.”
and that last fragment rings deep within the complex shape of jungkook’s self. it is hard to place him – to define him – because his semantics are abstract shapes merely ready to be conquered through metaphors and empathy. but in this moment, in yoongi’s statement, jungkook does not feel like his existence is denied. the aporia is here, mentioned – even if only implied. both looking at each other, caressing each other’s fingers under soft stars.
“you could’ve—” yoongi starts,
“i didn’t want to.” jungkook finally lowers his gaze, pulls back his hands. there is nothing to hold onto, he does not like coffee.
yoongi nods, takes another sip of coffee, and places his hand back where it had been intertwined with jungkook’s.
“you seemed happy, earlier,” yoongi whispers, then. and jungkook meets his gaze once more, expects to see something strong and assertive, but finds comfort in his expression; a bit louder, “you’re doing well.”
(the only thing i lack of is mutual understanding.)
jungkook realises that he does not have any regret.
he keeps dancing when his schedule allows it. yoongi has not gone under the bridge since that late afternoon at the café.
jungkook shyly texts him one night,
>you can come by if you want to hyung
>yeah?
>yeah
nothing changes, and jungkook is okay with it, is not looking for anything in particular but validation and hope that someday, he will feel free all the time.
when jungkook officially meets hope world for the first time, it is also under the bridge, on a day that is particularly snowy. jungkook’s cheeks are purple; the other dancer’s eye shine;
“i’m hoseok,” hoseok says with a bright smile, “but you can call me hobi. i’ve seen you around before, maybe we can dance side by side, someday?”
jungkook was not searching for it, had not truly listened to society – never looking for the right person. to a certain extent, jungkook’s search only begins after having found them, in an environment where he has already learnt about acceptance, and can move from there. only then.
the song jungkook was dancing to comes to an end;
look at me, everybody, i’m smilin’ big
on a road right now that i can’t predict
tell me “tone that down,” but i can’t resist
y’all know that sound, better raise your fist
the search begins, i’m back, so enjoy the trip
“hobi-ssi.” jungkook eventually stutters, utterly affected, “i’m – so glad you’re here. i’m jungkook. i’m truly so happy you’re back.”
hoseok laughs with his entire body – it is genuinely fond; jungkook’s eyes get brighter.
“i’m glad, too.”
hoseok reaches out his hand, jungkook looks down and stares at it – he stares at the black ring on hobi’s right middle finger, eyes widening, and swears he could cry happy tears right here on the spot.
he shakes hobi’s hand, and there is a source of alleviation in the cold, soft winter night – jungkook’s entire body shudders with pure and undeniable emotion.