Archive of Our Own ^beta

—

They say that the best place to live is the one where the mountains and the sea meet.

Maybe that’s what my parents were thinking about when they bought this house in Sokcho. It’s a house where an abai* used to live, one of the refugees from North Korea, my father says, so we have to treat this space with respect.

My dongsaeng** calls this house haunted. I can’t blame him.

Maybe the reason we moved to Sokcho is not as romantic as the mountains meeting the sea. Maybe it’s as trivial as that my aunt from my mom’s side is pregnant and needs our help in her raw fish restaurant; and then she loses a baby in the middle and needs our help with everything.

One reason or another, Sokcho only ever made me feel claustrophobic and trapped.

* The word “abai” is a dialect of Hamgyeong-do, North Korea, that means a friendly old man like a grandfather.

** Means “younger sibling”.

— Min Yoongi, Time & Travel Magazine. Cr. for translation: Lee Nina.

—

• MONDAY

Jungkook is the last one to arrive.

His heart is hammering as he pushes the gate open and crosses the yard. There are three stair steps of the porch that need repairing that he jumps over, and then it’s just a doorknob, a light twist, a step inside.

Silence.

Weird.

He toes off his sneakers, everything in him shaking, stomach squeezing in anticipation; he both does and does not want for the moment to come. He squeezes his sport bag in his hands, and moves to the living room.

Seokjin and Jihye are playing some Nintendo game on the TV, and the rest are mostly watching them: like Taehyung on the couch, Jimin curled up next to him, his head on Taehyung’s lap; Hoseok is on the floor, frowning at the screen, he always does it when he can’t catch up with the rules immediately. Yoongi and Namjoon are both on the phones, thumbs relentlessly sliding down the screens.

They must’ve waited for him for a long time by now.

They must be tired of waiting. Jungkook is always the last one to arrive.

Jungkook coughs, announcing his presence. The heads slowly turn at the noise’s direction.

For a moment, they all just stare at each other. How many years have passed since they’ve been together in one room like this, all eight of them?

Too many, Jungkook thinks, too many, as the whole house erupts in yelling.

They hop off from where they’ve been languishing, the game and phones abandoned. They form a circle around Jungkook, and they squeeze him in a hug, and they jump and can’t get enough of touching. It’s a bit too hot, a bit too stuffy, a bit too loud, but it’s home, and it’s good.

“Kids, are you okay here?” Jungkook’s mom asks fondly, stepping out of the kitchen.

Kids, she calls them kids. They’re at that point of their lives when it’s their turn to think about kids, and responsibilities, and commitment to a variety of things. It’s their turn to be adults.

It is their turn to be adults, just not in Sokcho. In Seoul, perhaps; or wherever they reside now.

But for Sokcho, they’ve stayed kids. They have been frozen in time as the little devils of the streets; have put the rolling camera on pause and never moved on from the frame of headaches of local ahjummas.

“Get off me, monsters,” Jungkook says, wiggling out of the limbs. “Let me get a look at the bride.”

Kids, Jungkook’s mom calls them, but they’re here altogether because —

Jihye beams at him, as sweetly as she always did, still does. She’s shorter than Jungkook remembers, or maybe that’s him who’s grown; she has her hair cut in the hairstyle he’s never seen on her before, not even on social media, so it must be recent; and she’s just —

“You’re beautiful,” Jungkook grins. His arms naturally wind up around her shoulders, tugging her into embrace, rocking her from side to side from how happy he is for her. “I hope you know I’m beating up Youngjae’s ass if he doesn’t treat you right.”

Jihye snorts, pushing him away — she doesn’t like the gushing, never did. It’s nice to know some things never change. “You really think you’re the first person to tell me this?” She points at the six guys behind her.

Jungkook quirks his eyebrow, a smile ghosting over his mouth.

“Each one of them,” Jihye confirms his thoughts.

“Y’all are lame.” Jungkook smirks at the boys, or maybe they’re men now, and the boys — the men — the kids wear a guilty and embarrassed expression on their faces at their own overprotective behaviour.

Jungkook hugs each of them, then; goes in a circle of different hands, different heights, different hairstyles and different smells.

“Hello, Kim Taehyung My Name Is,” Jungkook politely bows at Taehyung.

“Hate you I do,” Taehyung laughs, and almost chokes him in a way he hugs Jungkook, and Jungkook contemplates if it’s accidental or not. Knowing Taehyung, probably not.

And then, there’s Yoongi.

Yoongi is a bit of a problem.

If Jihye doesn’t like touching, Yoongi despises it, has never been the one to reach out first. So Jungkook is not sure if he should do it — he’s just happy that all of them are here, that Yoongi is here and he still looks at Jungkook so softly, like they’ve seen each other just yesterday. Jungkook doesn’t want to ruin it.

He extends his hand for Yoongi to shake, playing it safe.

Yoongi slaps it away. He tugs Jungkook into a hug, delicately, giving Jungkook a choice of pushing him away as if Jungkook would ever want that, but at the same time Yoongi tugs him into a hug with purpose — showing Jungkook that he’s fine with touching, that he’s fine with this hug.

Only Yoongi out of all people on this planet can do that, can move like this, can handle things and emotions and people like he does.

Maybe Jungkook is the one who’s not okay with this. 

“Hello, little punk.” Yoongi’s low slurring of the words echoes in Jungkook’s ribcage. Everything about him is unfamiliar; the weight of his arms draped over Jungkook"s shoulders is unfamiliar, he’s just so himself and not himself at the same time. He has gotten older, has gotten a new haircut, has gotten a new way of wearing clothes.

He looks so…adult. Put-together.

Jungkook feels so…adolescent, as if the baby fat hasn’t vanished from his face completely and utterly in the past years, as if he hasn’t gotten an arm that used to be pale and empty filled with ink and hurt; as if he’s still fifteen and acne-scarred, eyes and heart too big, too open, too trusting.

Jungkook knows it’s a mistake but he still shuts his eyes, holding his breath, and presses all of himself into Yoongi. “Missed you, hyung.”

He’s so quiet about these three words that he can allow himself to hope that Yoongi hasn’t heard them. But then Yoongi’s hand rubs at his back for the last time before Yoongi distances them completely, and Yoongi says, as quietly as Jungkook did, “Yeah. Me too.”

Jungkook catches these three words by reading his lips.

Jungkook is supposed to feel guilty that the first thing he does at his arrival is hugging his friends, not his family; but at the same time — these people are family he’s chosen, and he saw his mom not so long ago anyway, when she visited him at the Training Centre. The gang — it’s been five years of them all being in one room together, eight people who used to love each other the most. They still do, hopefully; it’s just that their adulthood has gotten the worst out of them, has turned them into busy people, into people who wake up and check emails before opening their eyes.

Into people who are scattered all over the world, carrying this love for Sokcho inside.

Jungkook’s mom has set the table for them. She was kind enough to let them have their reunion in their house, and cooked lots of goods for this evening, knowing Jungkook wouldn’t be able to make it. Wouldn’t be able to be the first one arrive.

Although he terribly wanted to — he’d been meaning to come early and cook himself — things have been hectic in the Training Centre. He had to stay for an extra round of practice, and then his coach was hit with epiphany that Jungkook needed some pep talk to perform better results, and Jungkook couldn’t just interrupt him, so he stayed, and listened, and… was late to the bus he initially paid a ticket for.

There’s some wine and soju Mom prepared for them as well, and they all exchange mischievous childish glances before taking out the glasses and popping the bottles open. They clink their drinks together, and it’s all warm and a bit bitter down Jungkook’s throat. Jungkook doesn’t fancy drinking this much, and he turns to Sprite right after the first round of drinks.

They talk about their lives. Jungkook met some of the others earlier this year, and some he hadn’t seen in ages. They all have very non-consistent schedule of coming back to Sokcho: sometimes, there are seven of them at a time, and other times, there are barely two of them who can make it for Chuseok.

It’s nice, being here altogether. It reminds Jungkook of the times when they didn’t have responsibilities. When each of them was in school, and their biggest concern was homework they were unwilling to do, or a failed test (and some of them didn’t even care about those). In summer, they’d spend their time at beach, swim in the ocean, eat fruit their moms packed. In winter, they’d flood one of the gang’s house, playing games and reading manhwas and laughing, laughing, laughing.

They laughed so much.

Jungkook never laughs anymore, not like that, to the point where his stomach aches and his mouth hurts and weird hiccupping sounds leave him. He thought he perhaps lost it, left it somewhere behind in his adolescence and never came back to pick it up.

This evening proves him wrong. He just didn’t have the right people to laugh with.

They talk and eat and drink until it’s deep into the evening. It becomes tangibly chillier in the room, and mosquitos appear out of nowhere. It’s a cue to put an evening to a stop but there’s just so much they haven’t discussed yet that it’d be blasphemy to end it now.

Taehyung still hasn’t finished his story about this one model he worked with at Paris Fashion week, interrupted by Jimin chiming in to add just a small little detail about a week they spent in Cannes recently, who was then interrupted Seokjin who had a shooting at New Zealand the other day, and Yoongi mumbles something about writing an article about Wellington last time he was there, and the two of them fall into banter why they didn’t meet up for drinks if they were in one fucking place, Yoongi-yah, do you not have hyung’s number?

“When’s the bridal shower?” Namjoon asks, forever a sweetheart, diverting everyone’s attention from Seokjin’s and Yoongi’s banter.

“I mean…” Jihye smiles. She seems to not be able to look away from Yoongi and Seokjin, now heated with their accusations at each other, something warm and fond gleaming in her eyes. Jungkook can’t blame her. “I thought this dinner could count as one?”

It makes Namjoon stupor. He frowns. “Isn"t a bridal shower, like, for your girlfriends? And we’re supposed to attend Youngjae’s bachelor party?”

“Yeah,” Seokjin adds, looking away from Yoongi abruptly. Jungkook barks a little laughter under his breath at Yoongi’s lost, puppy-like expression as he watches Seokjin completely abandoning their argument to butt in yet another conversation. “I think it’d be nice for us to meet him before, you know, the wedding.”

“Hm…” Jihye says slowly, carefully choosing her words. “I think all these parties before the wedding can be organised regardless of gender. Youngjae has his own friends he wants to celebrate with, and I, well… You know I only have you guys. You know I’m not…” Her lips form an even line. “You know I’m not good at being friends with other girls.”

“That’s such bullshit,” Yoongi drawls all of a sudden, and everything in Jungkook drops. He sounds drunk.

He is drunk, Jungkook realises as he gives Yoongi a better, throughout look over.

How didn’t he notice it before? Yoongi would’ve never argued with Seokjin like he did if he was sober or tipsy.

This is bad. Jungkook should’ve noticed and tried to put Yoongi to sleep, or maybe at least get some fresh air, because—

“You have one traumatic female friendship experience when you’re twelve, and then literally more than a decade later you’re still sulking over it.”

Because Yoongi’s drunk, and when he’s drunk, he just spits all of the feelings out of him. Shit.

“Oppa?” Jihye speaks up, voice quiet.

“Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin tries meddling.

“Listen, I’m only telling the truth. I’m tired that we keep avoiding the elephant in the room.” Yoongi leans back in his chair, crossing the arms over his chest. He measures Jihye up. For fuck’s sake, Jungkook has to get him out of the kitchen, he knows it’s not going to end well. “Let’s say, I have a girlfriend that I’d like to bring into the gang — “

Yoongi gets interrupted by widening eyes. Jungkook’s heart speeds up, it’s beating too fast, he’s about to have a stroke or cry, God, he wants to cry so much — Yoongi has a girlfriend, the one he hasn’t ever talked about?

“I don’t,” Yoongi answers the unasked questions of the suddenly deadly quiet room. “It"s a hypothetical situation. Okay.” He scans the people around the table. “Okay, let’s say, Jungkook has a girlfriend — “

“I don’t have one!” Jungkook protests, afraid Yoongi, or others, for that matter, are going to think he’s in a relationship —

“Fuck,” Yoongi breathes. “Who is fine with having a hypothetical girlfriend?”

Taehyung raises his hand.

“But you’re gay,” Hoseok says.

“And kinda dating me?” Jimin adds.

“Hypothetically,” Yoongi says. “We’re talking about a fake situation. Ok, Taehyung has a girlfriend. He wants to bring her into the gang. Introduce her. Have her over every time we get together.”

“As if we ever get together,” Taehyung rolls his eyes. Jungkook can feel him try to lighten the situation because only the two of them really know how to handle drunk Yoongi, and it is worrisome that Yoongi is so set on upsetting Jihye today.

“Jihye-ssi,” Yoongi says, “do tell… Would you treat Taehyung’s girlfriend as we treat Youngjae — which is, like she doesn’t exist — or would you let her in?”

“I,” Jihye swallows. “I mean, we’ve always been an eight. It’d be weird if — ”

“I don"t see a problem with being sixteen.”

“Fourteen,” Namjoon is quick to correct Yoongi. “Taehyung and Jimin are dating.”

Jungkook thinks how he doesn’t want to be fourteen, either, but Yoongi only snaps his fingers at Namjoon, like it’s just another thing that proves him right, and turns back to face Jihye.

“We could even be more once we have kids. But it’s you. You keep pushing these weird boundaries. And you have never let us even get to know Youngjae better. He’s literally a stranger to me, how am I supposed to let you get married to him?”

So this is not so much about Jihye not having girl friends. This is about Yoongi being worried for Jihye.

Yoongi has a point. Of course he does. Seokjin and Namjoon tried to say the same thing; Jungkook agrees that something in him is uneasy about this wedding, but Jihye —

“Yoongi-ssi,” her voice is suddenly so…calm. It’s calm, and it’s terrifying. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but you’re literally never fucking here. How am I supposed to introduce you to him?”

“I’ve been here last summer — “ Yoongi argues.

“You’ve been here for one night. You left the moment you realised that J—”

“Let’s stay civil,” Hoseok tries to intervene.

“—isn’t here. You’re giving me shit—“

“Jihye-yah,” Jimin calls out to her softly. He tries to hug her and lead her out of the kitchen.

This is a disaster, Jungkook thinks. This is almost like the world is ending right now, right in front of him.

“Look, we’re all in the wrong,” Namjoon says. He stands up, which is a mistake, because it gives Yoongi an idea to jump to his feet after him.

“You’ve been like this for the past three summers,” Jihye continues. She’s riled up, just like Yoongi is. They’ve always been like this. They’re made of one fucking temper. “Look, I’m forever stuck in this fucking shithole while y’all are traveling the world and grabbing these opportunities, so let me just have it, alright? Maybe if you were here, you’d know what I’m talking about.”

“Guys, you can’t be serious right now — “ Seokjin tries.

“Stop acting like you’ve never been accepted to SNU’s med school,” Yoongi scoffs.

“Hyung,” Jungkook warns. He tries catching on Yoongi’s sleeve to sit him back down. “Hyung, don’t start on this, c’mon. You both have a point, just hear each other out — “

Yoongi snatches his sleeve out of Jungkook’s fingers. “You had the opportunity to leave, Jihye-ssi. You did, you — “

Okay, Jungkook has had enough.

“I’m talking right now!” Jungkook yells, and the kitchen goes silent.

Jungkook doesn’t yell. He hates shouting, loud noises, and everything that comes with it.

But first and foremost, he hates fighting, and everyone knows that.

The Eight wear guilty expressions on their faces.

“Kook,” Taehyung reaches out to him, but Jungkook shakes his head to stop him. He’s not a child anymore. He doesn’t need this.

“You won’t even listen to each other.” Jungkook first looks at Yoongi, who keeps his mouth slightly parted, like he’s not done and ready to continue at any moment given, and then shifts his gaze to Jihye. “What’s the point of arguing just for the sake of fighting?”

At this, nobody says a thing.

That’s the problem with your childhood friends.

Sometimes you spend too much time away from them, and this time as if opens your eyes and forces you to see them without nostalgia blur.

They sit in silence until Jungkook decides it’s time for everyone to leave.

“Party failed?” Mom asks. She asks it gently, like she doesn’t want it to hurt.

It hurts anyway.

Jungkook’s sitting on the couch, a drama airing on the TV a background noise as he’s replaying the whole evening in his head over and over again; and she’s in the doorway from kitchen to the living room, a plate of watermelon in her hands. Jungkook’s drunk (he’s not, he never drinks enough to get to this state), and he needs to eat some more, she explains as she pushes the plate to his lap.

“Share it with me,” Jungkook says, pulling on her wrist gently. It’s an excuse to have her sit down next to him on the couch. An excuse for him to sigh, and lay his head on her lap.

“Aigo,” she whispers, her fingers running through his hair. “You’re still a baby.”

Only for you, he wants to say, but that would require further explanation and he’s not in the mood to talk anymore. Enough was said today.

“Tell me good things, Mom,” he asks.

Her fingers card his hair as she thinks of what to tell. Jungkook bends his knees to fit them on the couch — his legs are too long to be stretched out; but it’s nice, being here like this with her.

“Do you remember the day Taehyung and Yoongi moved in?” she asks, eventually.

Jungkook hums. “A little. I don’t remember much from my childhood.”

It’s a lie.

Here’s his first memory.

Like, the very first one. Jungkook’s sure that there are others that are supposed to follow before this one; after all, he’s about four or five years old when it happens, but…

He really doesn’t remember much from his childhood. There’s just black, black, and black, until —

Until it’s a bright summer day, and he comes down from their porch, the times when three stairs didn’t need fixing. There’s sun in his eyes, and there’s a car parked next to a house opposite Jungkook’s. The house has always been kind of empty, and all the kids around their street call it haunted. The story goes that once there lived a very old man, who talked all weirdly and lacked two limbs — either both arms or both legs. He lived there all alone, and died because he starved himself to death. Ever since, his ghost has been occupying the house. All the cool kids had already visited it once or two.

Jungkook hasn’t gotten around to stepping inside it yet. Hasn’t found enough courage.

He watches two people, a man and a woman, open the gate to the haunted house’s yard. They seem lively, these people, with their constant bickering and smiles directed at one another, heavy boxes in their arms.

Curious about the noise, Jungkook’s parents come out of the house. Jungkook presses his back against Mom’s knee, and her hand protectively curls around his chest, patting his tummy.

Two boys climb out of the car.

The older one catches Jungkook staring. He’s tall, this boy, his eyes sharp, squinted at Jungkook. He then scoffs, and walks inside the haunted house after his parents.

Just like that. Like he’s not afraid of the ghost inside it at all.

Maybe he doesn’t know there’s one, Jungkook thinks, and he wants to leap out of his mom’s arms and warn him, prevent him from doing something he’ll regret.

He’s stopped by the second boy, the younger one, who is… waving at Jungkook enthusiastically, lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Kim Taehyung my name is!” he yells, as if he and Jungkook are very good acquaintances at the very least, and Jungkook has no other choice but to hide himself behind his mom’s leg.

So does Jungkook remember the day Taehyung and Yoongi moved in?

That’s the problem. It’s the first memory of his life he has.

There are a lot of them after that.

“You used to be a quiet kid,” Mom tells him. “I’d leave you to cook dinner, and once I come check on you, you wouldn’t have moved even a single inch. You’d sit forever in one place, just watching TV or scribbling cats and dogs on paper. Remember, you liked drawing?” She laughs warmly. “‘Is my son going to be an artist?’, that’s what I kept thinking. And then you found running.”

Jungkook shouldn’t doubt her words, but somehow he does. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t remember being quiet. Shy, maybe, but not quiet. He’s always been the loud one in his friend group. When he laughs, his laugh comes from deep inside of him; when he talks, he’s usually so excited he slurs; when he eats, he makes sure everyone around him knows about it.

But then again, here’s this memory:

“Jungkook-ah,” his Grandma calls for him. She still lives with them in one house in this memory. She’s a bit over a hundred years old, so Jungkook needs to raise his voice when talking to her.

“Yeah?”

“You should go outside.” Her voice is scratchy, like it refuses to leave her. Like she’s been talking too much in her life, and her vocal chords got tired after being used for over a century. She talks a bit weirdly, just like the old man from the haunted house talks in Jungkook’s head, and Jungkook sometimes lets his imagination run and he thinks, what if.

What if it’s not just a coincidence that it’s their house that’s right on the opposite of the haunted one? What if Grandma and the old man were friends once, when Grandma was still a girl who could talk and hear and laugh?

When Jungkook brings it up with his mom, shyly sharing his concern, Mom says it’s northern dialect in her, laughs, ruffling his hair, and tells him not to worry too much.

“It’s summer. Go play with kids. When I was your age…” Grandma starts, and Jungkook immediately stops listening.

With all due respect, it’s not that Jungkook doesn’t have friends. He does.

He just doesn’t particularly fancy them. They’re boring.

“There’s a new boy around your age who lives opposite of us,” Mom chimes in, her voice coming from somewhere in the kitchen. Jungkook thinks she knows. “He might be fun to be around.”

“Kim Taehyung My Name Is?” Jungkook specifies.

Grandma tilts her head at him as she sits down next to him on the floor. She does it tiredly, slowly, with a low soft grunt.

“Who’s that?”

“The new boy. That’s what he calls himself,” Jungkook explains, but Grandma doesn’t seem to listen to him, instead dismissively waving her hands at him.

“Go, go,” Grandma pushes him lightly on his shoulder, shaking her head. “Jungkook-ah, where’s the remote?”

Jungkook stares at her, scandalised. She’s probably going to watch a TV show because there’s one airing soon, the one she and Jungkook usually watch together, and Jungkook is offended that she’s kicking him out now. He wants to know what happens in the next episode, too!

He passes her the remote, contemplating about throwing a tantrum.

But Jungkook knows what his dad would say if he was here. Don’t upset your Grandma.

So he goes to get his outside shoes on. He runs out to the street, barely catching himself by the lamppost outside their yard. The sun is blazing under his head, and he regrets forgetting a baseball cap at home.

At the same time, he doesn’t want to go back.

Their street is a hill that goes down to the car road. All the kids usually play on top, where the playground is, away from the cars. Even now, Jungkook can hear them playing Red Light, Green Light game. It’s a sound that travels down.

Down the hill. Down the memories.

Jungkook doesn’t want to go up, just as much as he doesn’t want to go back. He shifts his gaze from top of the hill to his left side.

There, Kim Taehyung My Name Is stands, his eyes peered into Jungkook. He’s like a statue.

Like he’s playing with the kids, going rigid at the Red Light, except he’s down here, and the kids are up there, their game perfectly fine without him.

Jungkook blinks at him.

“Do you like Melona ice cream?” Kim Taehyung My Name Is asks. He doesn’t waste his time on a greeting.

Jungkook frowns. “Yes.” Who doesn’t?

“Let’s go,” Kim Taehyung My Name Is says, already turned away. He waves at Jungkook blindly.

He beckons Jungkook to go after him. To go inside the haunted house.

Jungkook lets himself think only for a second before following him inside. He doesn’t know why he does it. He doesn’t know yet that it’s simply what kind of a person Kim Taehyung is: the one you string along with no matter what he asks of you.

“Mom,” he calls once they’re inside the haunted house. He has toed off his sneakers, and Jungkook hurries to do the same.

The haunted house looks weirdly normal inside. Like Jungkook’s house, only a bit more…furnished. They even have a DVD player, Jungkook notices as he trails after Kim Taehyung My Name Is, bypassing a living room.

“Mom,” Kim Taehyung My Name Is repeats, this time whinier, needier. They’re in the kitchen area: Jungkook hovers close to the doorway, almost hiding himself behind it, as Kim Taehyung confidently pads inside. “Mom, to eat Melona ice cream we want.”

Jungkook timidly bows to the woman who’s busy with wrapping mandu at the table. “Hello,” he murmurs. In his memories, her face blurs into his own mom’s face and back.

She smiles first at Jungkook, then at Taehyung. She has a warm kind of smile, the one Kim Taehyung will acquire later on.

“Ice cream in the fridge you’ll find,” she tells him, and oh God, does everyone in this family talk this weirdly?

Taehyung hums, and goes to the fridge.

She turns to Jungkook. “Jeon Jungkook, is it?”

“Yes,” Jungkook breathes. He’s relieved that this woman can talk like a normal human, after all. He bows again, this time lower, and she mirrors him, laughing.

Her hands are of flour and kimchi dumpling filling. Her fingers never stop wrapping dumpling after dumpling as she chats with Jungkook, deft in their motions.

“You’re very polite,” she smiles. “Your parents raised you well.”

Jungkook wants to thank her and bow again, but Kim Taehyung already has two packs of ice cream in his hands and he’s impatiently tugging on Jungkook’s wrist. “Let’s go,” he says, and throws over his shoulder, “Off we are.”

“Alright!” his mom’s voice reaches their backs. “Dinner in an hour! Jungkook-ssi, you’re invited as well!”

“Pay attention to her do not,” Kim Taehyung mutters.

They go back to the living room. Besides the DVD player, there’s also a sofa. It’s leather-wrapped, and slippery as Jungkook climbs on it after Kim Taehyung.

They share a silence as they both munch on the ice cream, until there’s an older boy from Jungkook’s first memory rushing inside the house. He breathes heavily, in harsh barks, beads of sweat gathered on his temples after a day spent under the sun outside. His hair is so sweaty it’s wet on its ends. He’s probably one of the kids who played Red Light, Green Light earlier.

He slips past them without noticing them. Jungkook hears him and Taehyung’s mom in the kitchen talking about something, laughing, sharing their excitement.

“Who’s that?” Jungkook whispers into Kim Taehyung’s ear, covering their conversation from others with his hand. His palms are clammy after the ice cream has melted on them, but Kim Taehyung doesn’t seem to mind it.

“Yoongi-hyung his name is,” Kim Taehyung says.

And Jungkook quietly repeats after him, just under his breath. Yoongi-hyung his name is. He doesn’t say anything for the rest of the evening, instead watching cartoons with Taehyung on the TV in his house silently. He’d prefer it to be the TV show he has missed this afternoon, but he doesn’t say anything.

So maybe he did use to be quiet. Maybe he really did change overtime. He doesn’t remember.

“You’ve lost so much weight,” his mom comments absentmindedly now, present day, her fingers tracing his cheekbone, the scar on it. Jungkook curls up deeper into himself, and closes his eyes, enjoying the touch. “Don’t fall asleep here,” Mom says. “If you’re sleepy, go back to your room.”

“No, Mom,” Jungkook protests. He doesn’t want to go yet. “No, tell me more of good things.”

She laughs quietly. Her laugh is similar to Yoongi’s — they both have silent kind of laughs, with their shoulders shaking, an earthquake. Jungkook likes their laughter so much. He wishes they laughed more.

“Do you really not remember much?” Mom asks.

“No, it’s just…” Some memories are clear, vivid, and prominent, like the one earlier. Other memories go in messed up order, flashes here and there.

How do you explain it to another person?

Jungkook sighs. “I do have some memories. I just can’t seem to connect them in one big picture.”

“For example?”

For example:

“Your name?” Yoongi asks.

In this memory, Jungkook is staying over for dinner at the haunted house. It’s probably just the start of his friendship with Taehyung: even through the memory fog, Jungkook feels unsettled, uneasy at the new place, not as secure and home-like he usually does now whenever he’s over at Taehyung’s.

There are chopsticks in Yoongi’s hand, he holds them elegantly carelessly, the way only Yoongi can, even at a young age. He’s nine, maybe a bit older, with a short uneven haircut. He’s chewing on the meat as he holds Jungkook’s gaze. They’re seated opposite each other at the table, so it’s easy for him to look at Jungkook, and it’s hard for Jungkook to have an excuse to avoid his eyes.

Jungkook licks his lips, and tries to hold his head low. He shyly reaches out for the side dish, and Kim Taehyung’s mom pushes the plate with radish closer to him, encouraging him to eat more.

“Don’t be rude to our guest, Yoongi-yah,” she chatters. Their dad is nowhere to be around; it must be a Friday night — he always worked overnight on Fridays when Jungkook was young.

“I’m not rude,” Yoongi pouts. “What’s rude about asking for the name of our guest when I don’t know his name?”

“It’s the way you ask,” Mother clicks her tongue.

“Jeon Jungkook his name is,” Kim Taehyung supplies helpfully as he wraps the meat into a lettuce leaf and passes it to Jungkook.

Or here’s another memory:

They’re crashing in Yoongi’s room. It’s bigger, nicer, brighter, all the -er’s that Taehyung’s room doesn’t have. At least, that’s what Taehyung tells his mom, and that’s what Mom tells Yoongi, and Yoongi doesn’t have the right to protest.

They’re older in this memory, but Jungkook can’t be sure by how much.

Taehyung is on the bed, sprawling like a starfish, reading a manhwa. Jungkook is on the floor, sitting up against the bed’s footboard. It’s an uncomfortable position, but he can’t bring himself to sit on someone else’s bed. Taehyung says he’s weird for that, and Jungkook snarls that Taehyung is weird for talking like he does.

Yoongi slips into the room.

“What’s up, brats,” he says. He doesn’t ask — he’s not interested, he just says it in passing. His hair and clothes are wet, and he smells of the ocean and sunscreen. He goes for his drawer when he stumbles upon Jungkook on the floor, and frowns at him. “Yah.”

Jungkook hugs his knees to let Yoongi pass him.

Yoongi doesn’t move. He is still frowning.

He points at Jungkook with his index finger. “You. Jungjoo. You should sit either at the table,” his finger shifts to the desk with a computer and loads of books on it, “or on the bed. It’s bad for your back, sitting like that.” A pause. “Understood, Jungjoo?”

Jungkook nods. Yoongi nods back.

“Jeon Jungkook his name is,” Kim Taehyung’s calm voice fills the room, reminding everyone. He’s still focused on the manhwa, barely sparing them his attention.

“Don’t care,” Yoongi barks, the dry clothes in his hands, and the door thumps after him.

The memory ends.

There’s also another one:

Jungkook is in the same room, only even older. He’s sitting at the table, his copybook full of remarks. It’s summer, but he’s doing an Algebra curriculum because he failed the final test and now has to try again.

Kim Taehyung offers him a Melona ice cream to cheer him up. Jungkook refuses.

“Weirdo,” Kim Taehyung scoffs, and jumps onto the bed, a manhwa book under his arm. “There’s nothing a Melona ice cream can’t solve.”

“It can’t solve this equation,” Jungkook snarls, his pen drawing circles around the said problem.

“Whatever.” And Kim Taehyung sails off to the reality called Slam Dunk.

Jungkook is left to deal with his equation. He’s on the verge of tearing his hair out or dropping out of school when the door opens, and Yoongi barges inside the room.

“Whatsupbrats,” he throws over his shoulder as he passes them, going straight to his wardrobe. He’s sweaty, with a headband wrapped around his forehead. Unlike his brother, he prefers real basketball to the Slam Dunk.

“Hyung,” Jungkook speaks up.

“Mhm?” Taehyung mutters from the bed, his voice lazy and muffled.

“Yoongi-hyung,” Jungkook specifies. He thinks it’s unexpected to everyone in the room, him included. It’s not that he and Yoongi aren’t close because they are. But it’s something about how whiny Jungkook’s voice is. He’s never used this tone on Yoongi before. “I can’t solve the equation.”  

Yoongi blinks at him.

Dear Hell, he’s even pouting now.

In his defence, it’s a really difficult equation, he has tried to solve it for the past hour and he thinks he’s going a little crazy.

“Is that so?” Yoongi sniffles. He looks into Jungkook’s copybook, hovering from behind Jungkook as he changes from his sweaty shirt to the clean one. “I can help, if you want.”

Jungkook nods. Yoongi nods back.

“Wait a bit, I’ll take a shower. Be right back with you.” On his way out, he ruffles Jungkook’s hair.

It’s a precious memory. Yoongi’s fingers in his hair are a bit like his mom’s, too, gentle and loving.

“I do have some memories,” Jungkook says, “but I can’t connect them. For example — why did you let me hang out at Taehyung’s and Yoongi’s house so much? I feel like I’ve spent most of my life there instead of here.”

“Because you seemed happier with them.” There’s a sense of regret in Mom’s voice. “Because at one point, the one I didn’t even notice until it was already done, their house became your home, too.”

Jungkook knows she’s right. The haunted house is his home just as much, if not more, as this one. It’s his home to the point where his house sometimes feels like only a place to sleep.

He keeps thinking about it even after he and his mom went to their respective bedrooms, getting ready to sleep. He keeps thinking about it as gets into shower to wash off the alcohol smell and this evening’s massive disappointment clinging onto him, and he keeps thinking about it as he brushes his teeth and looks at himself in the mirror he’s been watching himself grow up all this time, unable to recognise himself now.

He knows at which point exactly the haunted house feels like home for the first time.

It’s when Jungkook is about nine years old, and he asks Kim Taehyung My Name Is why he used to talk the way he did. Which is, extremely weird. Jungkook never asked this question before, accepting Taehyung as he was, but Taehyung recently started talking like any ordinary human being does, so Jungkook decides it’s time.

Taehyung, previously busy with stacking his cucumber pieces of oi muchim into one careful tower, turns around and peers with his stare into Jungkook.

“Are you saying that you’ve never watched Star Wars?”

“No?..” Jungkook tilts his head. “What’s that?..”

“Okay.” Taehyung takes a deep breath in, and smiles. “Okay.” Like he’s trying not to spiral into a break. “Okay, I’ll just… I’ll find hyung, and tell him to go to Cinetown, and… and… We’ll fix it. We’ll fix you.”

But first, they finish their lunch Taehyung’s Mom prepared for them.

They find Yoongi up the hill, on the playground, playing soccer with some other boys as girls sit somewhere in the back and cheer for them. Jungkook recognises one of the boys on Yoongi’s team as Kim Seokjin, the one whose parents own the BBQ restaurant with the best chicken in Sokcho; he and Yoongi are classmates, as far as Jungkook knows. 

“Hyung,” Taehyung yells, sprinting to Yoongi.

“Oh my,” one of Yoongi’s friends says. “Are you babysitting now?”

They’re thirteen and a bit disgusting.

Jungkook prefers not to deal with them most of the time, so he hides himself behind the lamppost.

“Shut the fuck up,” Yoongi grumbles. He turns back to Taehyung, breathing out tiredly. “Kim Taehyung, how many times I’ve told you to not—“

“Hyung!” Taehyung yells. “Jungkook,” he points at the lamppost, which tells Jungkook that he is doing an extremely poor job at hiding, “he — he never watched Star Wars!”

It actually makes Yoongi shut his mouth. He shifts his gaze from Taehyung to the lamppost.”

“Yah. Jungjoo.” He has to raise his voice a little in order for his words to reach Jungkook. “You’ve never seen Star Wars?”

Jungkook shakes his head no. He hears some of the girls giggling in the distance. They say he’s cute.

“Alright,” Yoongi squeezes Taehyung’s shoulder, tugging him closer, and they both beam at Jungkook. “We have to fix it. Fix you.”

Usually, Yoongi and Taehyung never seem like brothers to him. They have different surnames and completely different faces, taking after their fathers, nothing left to their mom. For God’s sake, even their mom is only Taehyung’s mom in Jungkook’s head, as if Yoongi is some sort of orphan. More often than not, Jungkook thinks of them as two unfortunate beings that happen to live together.

It’s the first time he notices how much alike they actually are. The way their bond goes deeper than a name or physical resemblance. 

Jungkook wants this, too, so badly.

So he tags along with them to the movie rental place, and he lets them show him Star Wars, and he lets them make him fall in love with this universe.

They watch first two movies that night, curled up on the leather sofa together, all three of them.

Jungkook likes that Yoongi is here with them, his mouth parted in awe every time a battle scene comes up. He laughs every time C-3PO whines, complaining that this is madness, how did we get into this mess?, and he gets unexpectedly serious every time the characters start getting political and say all the words meaning of which Jungkook doesn’t quite understand just yet.

If Jungkook watches Yoongi’s reaction to the movies more than the movies themselves, that is not true. He watches Taehyung’s reactions, too; the way he seems to be completely mesmerised with the universe.

“Do I still talk weirdly?” Taehyung asks when the credits of the second movie roll in.

“Not weirdly at all,” Jungkook says.

Yoda. He gets it now.

“I call it a night,” Yoongi says, standing up and stretching after spending hours in one position. His bones crack, an unpleasant sound.

“No,” Taehyung whines. “No, hyungnim, let’s watch more! Jungkook hasn’t seen—”

“We have all of the tomorrow to finish watching the movies,” Yoongi says. He reaches out to ruffle Taehyung’s hair, and smiles. “And all other tomorrows, too. Neither you, Jungkook nor I are going anywhere, are we?”

What Jungkook hears is that, you, Jungkook and I, we are going to stay. 

Already in bed, done with the memories, Jungkook opens his phone. He doesn’t think about it for too long before sending a message.

[Me] [11:32 p.m.] hey, sorry about today.

The reply comes immediately.

[Jung Jihye] [11:32 p.m.] that’s alright lol i cried to youngjae about you all and he said he’s gonna kill yoongi so it’s all good i think

[Me] [11:33 p.m.] is he really?

[Jung Jihye] [11:33 p.m.] oh no. he’s like a puppy. can never hurt another human being.

[Jung Jihye] [11:33 p.m.] he’s a good one, jungkook.

[Me] [11:33 p.m.] i trust you!! but you know. It still would’ve been nice if we met him at least once before the wedding. hyungs are right about that.

[Jung Jihye] [11:35 p.m.] i know. i agree. I’m sorry.

[Me] [11:37 p.m.] do you love him? are you happy? are you sure about that?

[Jung Jihye] [11:37 p.m.] i do. and i am. i think he’s the one.

[Me] [11:37 p.m.] hasthere been anyone else before for you to say that he’s ‘the one’ lol it’s your first boyfriend

[Jung Jihye] [11:37 p.m.] hey mind you i’ve had crushes before

[Me] [11:37 p.m.] do tell

[Jung Jihye] [11:37 p.m.] what if I said it was one of you

“Hello?” Jihye laughs into the speaker. She’s quiet about her laugh, and it reminds Jungkook of the times when they used to call each other late in the evening, trying to be discreet about it.

Some things really do not change. How nice is that.

“Yah,” Jungkook grumbles, sitting up on his bed. “Who?”

“Who?” Even her voice is smiling.

“Who did you have a crush on?”

Jihye stays silent for a moment. “Okay, how about this,” she says. “You have three tries to guess who it is.”

 “Hm, okay, maybe N—“

“No!” Jihye protests. “C’mon, you have to think about it carefully.”

Jungkook thinks about it carefully. “Yeah, no, I still think it’s N—“

“No!” Jihye protests once again, this time even louder, and Jungkook can hear someone shushing her on the other end. He thinks their moms used to scold them exactly the same way. “Let’s do it like this,” Jihye says, much calmer, voice only a little bit embarrassed. Is she really twenty-five and about to get married and settle down when she’s still a young girl, Jungkook’s classmate who’s good at drawing and bad at maths, just like he is? “You have three tries to guess who that is. Only one try is allowed per day.”

Jungkook purses his lips, and sighs. “You’re making it more difficult than it should be.”

“I’m making it fun,” Jihye argues, and Jungkook, for whatever reason, doesn’t have a way to object.

—

Growing up in Sokcho made me feel as if it was made for running. The hills that go up and down, the seawall, the market street, the track stadium at the back of the high school. Everything, just for the runners.

But then again, maybe it’s because growing up, I had to watch one boy run all around this town. Every morning I watched him from my room as I got ready for school: he’d stretch and warm up, then shift his gaze to my window and notice me. He always waved at me first, grinning as early as six in the morning. I always made sure to wave back, give a small gesture of acknowledgement, although at first I was embarrassed to get caught with my staring. Then, this morning ritual became something that belonged only to us.

Watching him get ready for a run, I thought that I wanted to run, too.

Run away from here.

That’s where the dream of travelling comes into the picture.

— Min Yoongi, Time & Travel Magazine. Cr. for translation: Lee Nina.

—

• TUESDAY

It’s seven a.m, and the air is finally free of humidity. It won’t be free for long, but for now the light breeze is sharp and nicely cold against Jungkook’s skin. He’s in basketball shorts and a black Puma shirt, stretching, yawning. His limbs aren’t cooperating, too sore, blood barely pumping from the early alarm. He’s on top of the hill, right next to the playground.

“Mind if I join you?” a voice comes behind Jungkook’s back.

Jungkook doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. “Not at all, hyung.”

“Saw you out of the window,” Namjoon explains. “Jet lag.”

“I get it,” Jungkook says, even though he doesn’t, not really.

They stretch together. Namjoon’s in a tank top, arms on display, the muscles he’s gained in Jungkook’s absence. He’s bigger, stronger, steadier than he used to be.

Jungkook remembers him as an older brother he used to admire.

Initially, he’s Yoongi’s friend. They’re closer in age, and Jungkook thinks that on the day his friendship with Kim Taehyung My Name Is begins, Namjoon is somewhere on top of the hill, too, playing Red Light, Green Light with Yoongi. He is playing soccer with Yoongi, they’re on the opposite teams, probably, when Taehyung runs to tell him that Jungkook has never watched Star Wars before.

He is everywhere, the same way Taehyung is everywhere.

What Jungkook is trying to say is that Namjoon to Yoongi is what Taehyung is to Jungkook: this one crazy human being that came across you once in your childhood and then decided that they were just going to stick with you for the rest of their life. This one person that has chosen you and owned up to that decision.

Jungkook thinks Namjoon is an OK person. He makes Yoongi laugh a lot: sometimes because he cracks a good joke, sometimes because he’s unintentionally funny and just does the things that make Yoongi burst out laughing, hysterically folding into himself. Jungkook likes Namjoon a lot, always did.

In his memories, before the Eight came around each other, Namjoon is in the background of a lot of them. He’s next to Yoongi or behind him as Yoongi slips inside the haunted house to have some water. He’s playing basketball with Yoongi as Taehyung and Jungkook pass the playground on top of the hill on the bikes. He’s swimming in the ocean, trying to get Yoongi into the water when Jungkook makes his evening lap around the beach. He’s a familiarity, and Jungkook has missed him, too.

 “How long can you run?” he asks curiously.

Namjoon tilts his head. “I’ll manage for eight kilometres, I think.”

“How about making it a ten? We can run to school, and then go back by the sea.”

“It’s not ten kilometres,” Namjoon argues. He’s finished stretching, and is now standing at his full height next to Jungkook. “It’s at least twelve. I think it’ll be better if we just take a lap around school and then come back by the market street.”

Jungkook purses his lips. Has he really miscalculated the distance? But he used to know every centimetre of this town, have it measured in his head. Has it really been that long since he’s last visited? Has the knowledge vanished away from him?

“You’re overthinking it,” Namjoon says kindly, his hand brushing Jungkook’s shoulder in a light squeeze. “Let’s just run. That’s what you do the best.”

It’s a lie.

That’s such bullshit, Yoongi’s voice rings in his head.

“Okay,” Jungkook says, and takes off. Namjoon runs after him.

Jungkook doesn’t remember the first time he ran, but he remembers the first time he was running.

It’s summer when Hoseok and Jihye visit Sokcho for the first time. Their family will move permanently here next year, a balmy town perfect for their sick father. But that summer, they’re just the tourist kids that happen to rent a place on the street where only locals live.

It’s August, hot August of some years deep into the new century. Hoseok and Jihye, for whatever reason, have managed to charm Kim Taehyung. So they spend time together, languish at the playground (Jungkook and Taehyung are at a seesaw, Hoseok is on a swing, and Jihye is hanging upside down at a climber) as they struggle to come up with the games to play. It’s August, the sun at its peak, and the air around the neighbourhood is humid, heavy, almost unbearable.

Suddenly, a bulb lights above Jihye’s head, and she drops herself on the sand, quickly collecting herself on her feet. “The last one to that tree,” she points with her index finger at the one a bit farther off, “buys everyone an ice cream.”

As soon as the words leave her, she takes off. Hoseok goes after her, as if he’s been prepared from the start. It takes Kim Taehyung a second to realise what is going on, but he jumps off the seesaw, Jungkook’s butt harshly meeting with the ground, and runs after them.

Jungkook is the only one who stays. He stares at their backs, and hates this mockery of their retreating footsteps. It’s the first time he feels like this, this absurd anger at the backs that get farther and farther away from him.

It won’t be the last.

He stays, frozen in time, before something nudges him into the heart, before something makes him move his legs, before something makes him go.

Jungkook barely finds the pocket money to buy the ice cream for everyone.

You see, Jungkook is the last one to arrive, has always been. The last one to arrive at the friend gathering. The last one to arrive at the finishing line.

Therefore, when Namjoon says that running is what he does best, that’s such bullshit.

Jungkook’s walking back home when Kim Taehyung appears in front of him out of nowhere. He has a cup of coffee in his hands, and a displeased, ‘I-hate-to-be-awake’ expression on his face.

“Good morning?..” Jungkook says, a bit unsurely.

Taehyung waves him in. “Come on in,” he says, already turned away. It makes Jungkook smile.

He follows Taehyung inside the haunted house. Inside, everything’s so familiar. Jungkook’s slippers are at their designated place, untouched from the last time he was here. He toes them on.

“Mom made gimbap,” Taehyung explains, his voice muffled, coming from the kitchen, but loud enough for Jungkook to hear him. “Your favourite kind.”

“How could I not?” the fond, surprised voice of Taehyung’s mom follows. She is sitting at the dining table, picking at the spinach, when Jungkook walks in. She smiles at him conspiratorially. “Jungkook has to eat well while he’s away from the Training Centre.”

“Thank you, Mother,” he bows at her, not sure what exactly he thanks her for: if it’s for the food or for thinking about his diet even when she doesn’t have to. He shows her thumbs-up, fond smile on his face, and she laughs and shows him thumbs-up back.

“I’m gonna go shower first,” Jungkook says. “Will be right back with you.”

There’s nothing about asking for permission because they’re long past that. Mom’s right, the haunted house is Jungkook’s home, too. He knows where to find Taehyung’s old clothes that’ll fit him, knows that he can leave his sweaty clothes from running in the laundry, knows this shower, the way you have to be careful with it not to fall because it’s way too slippery, and Yoongi once almost broke his arm in here.

In fifteen minutes, freshly washed, Jungkook’s back in the kitchen. Taehyung’s mom has left earlier, murmuring something about not wanting to interrupt them despite all of their reassurances that she won’t, that they want to spend time with her.

They’re sprawled over it instead of sitting at the dining table like normal human beings. Taehyung is standing up, leaning his weight against the kitchen island, and Jungkook is sat on the opposite of him on the counter, because he’s been sitting here ever since he was a child and it’s his safe place in his house, in this city, in this country, on this Earth. He might be a bit too big to be sitting up like this, but he likes the comfort of it too much.

He tells Taehyung about his conversation with Jihye yesterday.

“It can’t be Hobi-hyung,” Jungkook says, his mouth full, words barely comprehensible, “because Hobi is her brother, it’d be weird.”

“Remind me again, why did you feel the need to clarify this?” Taehyung asks, expression dead serious on his face.

Jungkook opens his mouth to explain himself when Yoongi slips into the kitchen. His hair is dishevelled, unstyled, and he looks warm, straight out of bed.

“Good morning,” Yoongi rasps, and clears his throat. His morning voice reminds Jungkook of all the times he stayed for the sleepover in this house. All the times he woke up next to Yoongi. Yoongi raises his eyebrows at Jungkook and Taehyung. “Did I miss something important?”

Jungkook sighs. He really doesn’t want to repeat himself but he’s curious what Yoongi has to say about it, too. So he talks about the way he texted Jihye yesterday, mentions that Youngjae said he’s going to beat up Yoongi’s ass (“Yeah, I’d like to see him try,” Yoongi says dryly as he stirs coffee), and explains the whole kid-crush-on-one-of-them thing. Yoongi hums all throughout Jungkook talking in all the right places, the right times, going around the kitchen, making a parody of a breakfast for himself — he doesn’t like gimbap, never did, so he settles for cereal.

At some point of Jungkook telling everything of that, he comes close to Jungkook, his hand slightly pressing on Jungkook’s thigh, and for a fleeting, absolutely stupid some sort of Pavlovian moment, Jungkook feels like spreading his legs and letting Yoongi come in-between.

The weight of Yoongi’s hand on his thigh is just…so familiar, in the best way of it, in the way that’s warm and gentle and just where it’s supposed to be.

Then, Jungkook realises that Yoongi only touched him in the first place because his leg is in the way of the cutlery drawer. He tried to move him without interrupting Jungkook.

Embarrassed, Jungkook scoots over to let Yoongi take out a spoon. The motion must come out so abruptly, Yoongi’s hand falling down harshly, that Yoongi looks up at Jungkook with worry. Jungkook locks eyes with him and he can see the realisation dawning on Yoongi, too.

They’re not supposed to be around each other like this if they want to make it work.

“Sorry,” Yoongi coughs quietly, only for Jungkook to hear, and takes a step back. He busies himself with shoving the first spoon of cereal into his mouth.

“It leaves six of us…” Jungkook concludes after clearing his throat. He sneaks a glance at Taehyung, but Taehyung looks to be blissfully unaware of what has just happened. “And I’m just thinking… It can’t be anyone but Namjoon, am I right?”

“Is he your first choice?” Yoongi smiles. It’s a bit of an awkward smile from their previous interaction, but it’s sweet and gentle and teasing nevertheless.

“If I was a girl, I’d have a crush on Namjoon,” Jungkook says defensively.

“You’re a boy and you had a crush on Namjoon anyway,” Yoongi rolls his eyes.

“Not true!” Jungkook protests. He looks at Taehyung to back him up but Taehyung just continues to munch on his gimbap, avoiding eye contact. Jungkook gasps. “Oh my God, do you also think I had a crush on Namjoon?”

“We all know you had a crush on Namjoon,” Yoongi grumbles, and Jungkook knows him well enough to recognise a hint of jealousy in his voice.

It’s cute, his grudge against his best friend at such a small insignificant thing, something that doesn’t matter any longer. Jungkook both wants to tease him more about it and reassure that no, it’s not true, wants to tell him his crush has never been Namjoon.

There are these memories. They are short, unlike the others. They all flow one into another, and Jungkook just… accepts them as they are. Fragile, scattered all over his mind, a kaleidoscope of them.

These memories are his proof that his first crush has never been Namjoon.

They’re at their school’s entrance. Everyone out of the Eight is here, so it must be high school, Jungkook and Jihye barely freshmen with their uniform ironed perfectly.

Their school’s uniform is red, and this colour suits Yoongi a lot. He doesn’t wear a uniform properly, and there’s always some cool t-shirt he wears under his white button-up.

Happiness suits Yoongi even better. He is laughing, just like the rest of the Eight is, his head thrown back, a hand covering his face. The spring sun catches at the ends of his protesting, dyed blonde hair, and Jungkook, he —

The door to Jungkook’s house flies wide open.

“Mother!” Yoongi’s voice travels through the rooms alongside the cold winter wind he brings inside with him. “Mother, our mom made cucumber kimchi for you!”

And then, it’s suddenly rainy weather, and Jungkook is in the middle of everyone as they sing ‘Happy birthday, our dear Jungkook’, and Yoongi holds a cake for him, the candles’ light reflecting on his face. He looks concentrated on not letting the cake fall. He holds it so carefully, as if it’s something precious to him, something important.

And then it’s summer, the beach, the breeze from the ocean in Jungkook’s lungs. There are all eight of them again, basking under the sun lazily. They’re all a bit younger in this memory, Yoongi must be around fifteen this time. They’re playing 20 Questions.

“The one with the prettiest smile?”

“Jihyo,” everyone says, except —

“Jungkook,” Yoongi says. It’s not true, and he probably says it solely because he knows that Jungkook is insecure about his smile and he just tries to lift his spirits up, but… It’s just something about the tone of his voice.

He says it as a matter of fact.

It makes Jungkook grin at him.

This memory makes Jungkook smile even now, a decade later.

“What are you smiling about?” Yoongi asks, head tilted, a fond smile on his face as he watches Jungkook. Jungkook can’t help himself but to grin even wider at him.

You.

You, a bit younger, with a ridiculous haircut still, not knowing how to style it better yet; you, with your heart worn on a sleeve when you’re still young enough to show it to others so carelessly; I smile about you and me, Jungkook wants to say, so ridiculously in love with you.

Jungkook is watching a TV show in the living room, munching on the grapes Mom has washed for him before heading out to the garden, when his phone rings.

He’s so absorbed into the drama unravelling on the screen that he doesn’t check the caller, and answers blindly. He’s probably picked up the phone too quickly to the caller’s surprise, because there’s a long moment of silence.

“Hello?” Jungkook says, eyes glued to the TV screen. Oh God. The male lead is about to do something stupid. Jungkook groans mentally. “Shit, you shouldn’t do it, for real.”

“I shouldn’t have called you?” the other line replies finally. There’s some sense of doom in the tone of this voice, like the caller had known from the start that it was a bad idea and Jungkook has only confirmed it with his words.

“No,” Jungkook hurries to say, sitting up straighter on the floor. “No, hyung, sorry, I was— I’m watching a TV show. I was talking…to the TV.”

“Oh? Am I disturbing you right now?”

Jungkook’s eyes wander to the TV screen for the last time, and he turns it off with a sigh. Yoongi is disturbing him, and one of the most interesting scenes of the drama is being aired as they speak.

“No,” Jungkook says, turning the TV off. “No, not at all. What’s up?”

“Would you like to go to the beach?”

Okay, this is…

This is not something Jungkook expected. Not from Yoongi, at least.

He checks the time. Four p.m.

“It’s just,” Yoongi mutters, and it makes him sound almost shy with his words, “Auntie asked me to take Hyejin and Ijun to the beach. I can’t look after the two of them by myself, and Tae is with Jimin right now, visiting some of their sacred places while they’re here, so…”

Yoongi continues, listing what each one of the gang is doing. He doesn’t mention Jihye.

Jungkook gathers that he’s the last one for Yoongi to call. Which he understands. Why he’s the last choice.

It doesn’t mean it hurts less.

“So… Do you wanna go?” Yoongi asks.

Jungkook bites on his bottom lip. If they go now, they’ll be back in an hour or two. It’s not that much of a time, and Jungkook’s not sure if he’s happy or disappointed about it.

When the pause gets too long and too ugly, Yoongi adds, and his voice is quiet and again doomed, “If you don’t want to go with me, it’s fine. I get it.”

He doesn’t get it, Jungkook thinks. He doesn’t get it at all.

“I want to,” he says softly. He’s the last choice, but he is a choice after all. “Let’s meet in fifteen outside, okay?”

“Okay,” Yoongi says. His voice is so full of relief it makes Jungkook’s heart squeeze in his ribcage and he’s not sure if it continues beating after that or not.

Jungkook can’t tell which one of them hangs up first.

He quickly changes into swimsuit shorts, throws a t-shirt over. He doesn’t like it the way it suits his frame and chooses another one, the one that fits him more nicely, but then quickly becomes unsatisfied with it, too, and just changes back into the shirt he’s been wearing before.

He packs all other things absentmindedly, as all people who have grown up near the seaside do: sunscreen, one towel to sit on, a towel to dry yourself with, some water and snacks for the kids.

“Mom, I’m gonna head out for sometime!” he yells, already in his outside slippers, ready to go out. He hears a distant hum of acknowledgement somewhere from the backyard, and decides that it’s more than enough.

Jungkook runs out of the house, pushes the gate open, barely catching himself on the lamppost not to fly out right into the haunted house’s door, he’s already late with changing his t-shirt millions of times, and —

Here he is. Yoongi.

He’s standing in the gateway, too, leaning his weight against it. He’s dressed in a light shirt and some old jeans, a baseball cap hiding half of his hair, the other half sticking out at the back of his head ridiculously. He has a backpack falling off one of his shoulders.

He hasn’t noticed Jungkook yet, too busy looking down at his phone in his hands. One of his hands is curled up at the top of his phone to create at least some shadow from the sun.

He’s on the phone because he’s busy, because he has emails to answer and emergency texts to reply, and he just… He looks like an adult.

Jungkook, on the other hand, feels so immature. He feels like he’s never grown out of his fifteen year old body; like it has been sewed into his skin.

Yoongi looks like an adult, and Jungkook can’t stop gawking at him, because like this, as he’s standing there and Jungkook is standing here, like this, only a few feet away from him, like this —

Like this, Jungkook feels — a little split open.

Jungkook can clearly see fourteen year old Yoongi passing through this gate, back from school, backpack lazily hanging off his shoulder just like now, can see sixteen year old Yoongi sneaking back inside the house late in the night; he can still see the car arriving to the haunted house and Yoongi scoffing at him. There are so many memories tied to just this place alone in Sokcho.

Jungkook teasingly clears his throat. Yoongi looks up from his phone, blinks at him. And then he smiles, softly and widely, and waves his hand at Jungkook.

Yes, a little split open, that’s how Jungkook feels.

He grins back.

“I was about to text you,” Yoongi says, sliding his phone back into his pocket. He takes a step forward, and Jungkook wants to protest, wants to tell him to stay right where he is so he and Jungkook could stay in this limbo of time just a little bit more, just a second longer.

“Sorry,” Jungkook starts, maybe he’s pouting, “I—“

“Did you run here?”

Jungkook’s smile falls off. “No.”

“Liar,” Yoongi teases, and then he pushes himself off the gateway, such an elegant motion. He turns away from Jungkook to go down the hill, to his aunt’s house, the distance quickly increasing between him and Jungkook.

Jungkook watches him go.

Watches his retreating back.

Yoongi’s back is the only back Jungkook is not tired of seeing. In all other aspects, Jungkook hates being left behind. Especially when it’s just a few metres away from the finishing line.

These backs are the worst.

Jungkook jogs again, catching up with Yoongi.

They stroll down the hill and past the seawall. Auntie’s place is a raw fish restaurant with the living space on the second floor, close to the city centre. It’s a good business and, as far as Jungkook remembers, a great place to get your homework done after school. He and Taehyung, later he and TaehyungJimin, would always crash the restaurant, getting fed the best stew Jungkook has ever had to this day and completing some of the homework.

When they’re fifteen, Hyejin and Ijun get born, and the restaurant is no longer the quiet place they enjoy so much. But it doesn’t stop them from coming here: no matter how much TaehyungJimin complain about the noise, Jungkook stubbornly drags them to the restaurant after school.

It has nothing to do with Yoongi working part-time in his aunt’s restaurant, and everything to do with the best stew Jungkook has ever had to this day. Yes.

As he and Yoongi go past the seawall, they pass some public beaches, all packed with the crowds of bodies. It’s a familiar sight, both when Jungkook is fourteen and jogging to the restaurant after his track and field practice in June and when Jungkook is twenty-four and walking to the restaurant to pick up Yoongi’s (and Taehyung’s, for that matter) niece and nephew in August. Nothing ever changes. It’s a tourist season, which means the town is suffocated with people from all over the country and even some foreigners, every year the same cycle.

That’s why Jungkook’s surprised Jihye has chosen August for her wedding — in his humble opinion, summer is the worst season possible for locals to get married. If Jungkook were to choose (not that he wants to marry anyone, no) — but if he were to choose, his wedding photos would be of autumn. It’d be too windy, their hair would be all messed up, but he and Y—

He and his partner would love autumn.

They would love it so much.

“I’ve forgotten how hot it gets,” Jungkook admits, just because the silence has been getting awkward.

“When was the last time you were here?” Yoongi asks conversationally. It makes Jungkook regret he’s spoken in the first place: he hates that stream of honesty in him earlier. It reminds him that he is not as saint as he likes to think of himself.

It reminds him he hasn’t visited Sokcho in summer for three continuous years.

“Last December, I think?” Jungkook holds his palm in front of his eyes, protecting them from the blazing sun. He should’ve brought sunglasses. Or a baseball cap, at least, like Yoongi did. “Hoseok and Seokjin were here, too. It was a disaster. In a good way.”

“You get along with them pretty well,” Yoongi hums, taking off his baseball cap and wordlessly putting it on Jungkook. “I bet you had fun.”

He doesn’t say it in a way that implies jealousy, or the bitter kind of undertone ‘I bet you had fun without me’. He just says it as he truly believes that they’d had fun, and hopes that they did; because that’s who Min Yoongi is, that’s the way his heart is, has always been: selfless, kind, and understanding.

Jungkook wants to tell him they did have fun, but it wasn’t as fun as it could be with Yoongi. Jungkook wants to tell him that nothing is as good anymore now that Yoongi isn’t next to him. That even the fish stew in Auntie’s restaurant tastes bland until it’s nineteen year old Yoongi, part-timing in the restaurant, who serves it.

Jungkook wants to tell Yoongi to hug him. To stop in his walking and to hug him, tightly and without allowing the doubt.

Jungkook wants to tell him that maybe they should talk. Not about this meaningless stuff. About something that actually matters to them.

“We did,” Jungkook tells him instead, fixing a cap on his head, hiding the hair inside. Fucking coward. “When was the last time you were here?”

Yoongi scratches behind his ear. “Last summer.” When Jungkook opens his mouth to reply, Yoongi adds, “Jihye’s right. I’m always here in summer.”

It sounds like ‘Hoping you would’ve come’.

Jungkook didn’t come. So they brush it off. Maybe it’s too late to talk. It’s been three summers.

(It’s been Jungkook’s whole life.)

The twins are waiting for them at the restaurant’s staircase. Hyejin is looking way too closely at her phone, eyes peered right into the screen, and Ijun has a dreamy look to him as he admires the ocean in front of him.

“Yah, don’t look at your phone like that,” Yoongi mutters, dragging Hyejin up. He scolds her, but she only beams at him brightly, the same way Taehyung’s mom and Taehyung and Auntie do, and hugs his leg tightly. Yoongi awkwardly pats her back.

Jungkook stays a few steps behind. He can’t name a rational reason why he prefers to watch this scene from aside: after all, Hyejin and Ijun are as much of his family as it can get when you’re not blood-related.

It’s just…

Yoongi. The kids. Jungkook’s heart, a bit broken. It’s been broken for a while. For three summers at the very least.

“Uncle!” Ijun notices him, finally, and waves at him.

Jungkook smiles and comes up to them.

“Oh?” He ruffles Ijun’s hair. “You’ve grown?”

“You say it every time,” Ijun pouts, and nuzzles into Jungkook’s palm. Hyejin, having gotten enough of Yoongi’s awkward pats, transfers herself to Jungkook’s leg.

“Aigo,” Jungkook murmurs, tucking a stray hair strand behind her ear. He finally feels his age with them. These kids are his anchor to reality that as they grow, he will now be getting old. “I’ve missed you.”

“Me too,” Hyejin murmurs. “Uncle should visit us more often.”

“Sorry,” Jungkook pouts. He tries to downplay it, but he knows she’s right. He should be coming back to Sokcho more often. After all, he’s one of the few in the gang who still lives in South Korea. It wouldn’t take him long to visit Sokcho.

The twins are ten now. Jungkook thinks every time he sees them, they grow at least a good dozen of centimetres taller. It’s a pity that he keeps losing time with them.

“Alright,” Jungkook says. He looks up at Yoongi, and catches him staring at Jungkook. There’s a remorse in his gaze, some softness, as he watches Jungkook.

Jungkook and the kids. Jungkook with the kids.

“We should go now,” Jungkook says softly, shifting his gaze back to the kids. He doesn’t want to startle Yoongi, doesn’t want him to know that Jungkook just saw the glimpse of them in Yoongi’s eyes.

“Yeah.” Yoongi’s voice is hoarse. He coughs to clear it, and places his one hand on the entrance’s door, almost ready to go in. “I’ll go tell Auntie that we’re leaving.”

They go hand in hand with each other: Jungkook holds Hyejin’s, Hyejin holds Ijun’s, Ijun holds Yoongi’s.

Jungkook remembers being seven and Yoongi always holding his hand (and Taehyung’s in his other one, for that matter, but Jungkook likes to focus on himself) as they cross the street. It feels suffocating and restricting back then, and Jungkook often drops Yoongi’s hand, scoffing. I’m not a kid, the seven year old baby says.

Then, as Jungkook grows up, holding Yoongi’s hand becomes one of the itching wants under his skin, the needles in his fingertips, that never quite goes away.

They must make a funny tandem, the four of them: Jungkook gasps exaggeratingly as Hyejin brags to him about her recent school play where she had a lead role, while Yoongi has the most miserable expression on his face as Ijun blabbers to him about quantum physics, an excited grin on his face, and he slurs as he gets to the most interesting part about quantum thermodynamics where, apparently, correlations between qubits can affect the way that entropy is calculated, can you believe it, Uncle—

They get to one of the beaches that supposedly only locals know about. It’s not nearly as crowded as the other beaches are, but filled with tourists nevertheless. If it wasn’t for the kids’ safety, Jungkook and Yoongi would never choose a public beach — instead, they would walk slightly longer, climb over the fallen tree, walk deeper into the wild branches, and come out to the empty, abandoned beach. That’s where the Eight spent their summers at.

Some taxi drivers and café owners can’t keep their mouth shut for shit, Jungkook thinks bitterly as they struggle to find a free space on the beach to leave their belongings at. There is some in the back, but both Jungkook and Yoongi would prefer to be in the front to be able to watch the kids play in the water.

“Hey. Here,” Yoongi gestures to a place in the middle, and they drop their backpacks. Not ideal, but will do.

Yoongi gets the towels on the sand as Jungkook helps the kids get into their swimming clothes. They work around each other as if they’ve been doing it for many years: Jungkook inflates the arm floaties Yoongi’s auntie has packed for the kids while Yoongi puts sunscreen on them, all about careful and deft touches. Hyejin laughs at Jungkook for making funny faces as he blows into the armband of the disturbing orange colour, and he smudges the white spot of the sunscreen on her nose for that.

“Yah,” Yoongi slaps his hand away, and it makes Jungkook laugh, genuinely and unabashedly, “don’t ruin my work.”

“Yessir,” Jungkook mutters, exchanging mischievous smiles with Ijun.

Yoongi checks the twins: the sunscreen, the arm floaties, the caps.

“Ok, all ready,” Yoongi announces, and Jungkook can feel Ijun and Hyejin vibrating, on the short start to run into the water. They’re seaside kids, they can’t live without it. “Go.”

The kids scream and throw themselves into the sea. Jungkook sneaks a peek at Yoongi watching them fondly, knees hugged, the corners of his mouth pulled up in the kindest manner.

When Jungkook had just received the invitation for Jihye’s wedding, back in March, right after Yoongi’s birthday and a night which Jungkook spent crying endlessly, heart aching, he wanted to refuse her.

He knew Yoongi would come. He knew that at the wedding, it was going to be impossible to avoid him.

Or, more like, Jungkook wouldn’t be able to resist himself.

He knows himself well. He’d known from the start that he wouldn’t be able to stay away from Yoongi the moment they met again. That this itch in his fingertips to hold Yoongi’s hand, to fix his bangs as the sea’s wind messes them up, is still there.

Some things never change. How fucked up is that.

“You won’t swim?” Jungkook asks. He knows for a fact Yoongi won’t. He’d grown out of water when he was around eighteen: he still liked the beach and basking under the sun and spending time here with the gang, but one summer the sea just became a big no, and nobody really pushed enough to get the truth why not.

“Sorry,” Yoongi says in English, an easy slide of a foreign language in him, and shrugs.

“‘S fine,” Jungkook mumbles. He takes off his slippers, his feet drowning in a warm sand, and passes Yoongi his baseball cap, not wanting to get it wet.

“Keep it on,” Yoongi says, standing up and pushing the cap back on Jungkook’s head. “Don’t want you to get a sunstroke.”

Jungkook blinks at him.

This.

There is this thing with Yoongi.

He has always made the whole world seem safer and kinder.

From the moment Jungkook met him, even though he could not fully appreciate it, Yoongi always made sure to hold Jungkook’s (and Taehyung’s) hand when crossing the street, and he helped Jungkook with the homework and he never once in his entire life acted ashamed of being friends with his younger brother and his younger brother’s best friend despite wry remarks from the peers.

Yoongi looks at Jungkook now, the same way he has always looked at him, because some things never change and it’s both fucked up and nice. He looks at Jungkook, and it almost feels like their past and mistakes and regrets have been frozen in them; buried alive; like all the northern endings and words didn’t grow up in them; like Yoongi never ran away from Sokcho, and Jungkook never discovered running.

Like all that actually matters is them, and the sun, and the sea’s breeze only.

“I’m off,” Jungkook says, because he’s afraid that if he won’t go now he might just stay here for the rest of his days. He waves at Yoongi, and takes striding steps deeper into the ocean, until he finally can lower his whole body into the water, push himself into it.

The twins immediately engulf him, climbing over him, trying to drown him. They jump off his shoulders and they show him how fast they can swim. They spend a long time here, in the water.

Jungkook looks at Yoongi from time to time, to see if he’s not dying of boredom back at the shore. Sometimes he finds Yoongi with a pen and a notebook, eyebrows knitted, tongue at the corner of his mouth, and other times he finds Yoongi looking back at them, watching them play in the water. Jungkook waves, and Yoongi always waves back.

Like this, it’s so easy. Like nothing has ever happened between them. Like everything has happened between them and ended in a happily ever after.

“Alright, you kids should dry up a little,” Jungkook announces eventually. The twins pout at him, but he doesn’t listen, hurrying them out the water.

Yoongi has prepared some fruit and the snacks Jungkook has brought with him while they were swimming. Wrapped in towels, Hyejin devours everything while Ijun politely munches on the banana.

Their faces are so miserable, home and sea sick, that Jungkook grants them the right to play in the sand.

“Don’t get into water, though!” he yells at them, but they’re already busy with making the sand castle. He hears Yoongi laughing quietly under his breath, like he doesn’t want Jungkook to know that he finds his parenting quite useless.

Jungkook sighs, wraps the towel around his shoulder tighter and plumps down next to Yoongi. He takes off the cap, runs his fingers through his hair, trying to fix it into something presentable, and, having failed miserably, puts the cap back on.

“What were you doing?” Jungkook asks, leaning into Yoongi’s side a little.

Yoongi doesn’t push him away.

There’s so much touching allowed now that no one is around to catch them, Jungkook feels high, drunk. He wants to find out how much he can do before the line is crossed.

Yoongi doesn’t push him away, but he does put the notebook a bit further. “Nothing,” he says. “I just wrote a bit.”

Jungkook doesn’t let himself think before he blurts, “I read your articles sometimes.”

A pause.

Silence. Kids chat in the background, someone sells steamed corn in the distance and makes sure everyone around them knows about it, the sea crashes at the shore.

Yoongi chuckles. “Sometimes?”

Jungkook forces a chuckle out of himself, too. “You don’t publish them often.”

“That’s how things are,” Yoongi says. “They send me off every month to a new city. I live there. I try to understand people. I write throughout the month. I publish. I am sent off again.”

“It sounds tiring,” Jungkook says. 

“It’s better than to run for a living.”

“You run, too.”

They’re talking. They’re talking about the meaningful stuff. Something that actually matters.

Yoongi turns to face him, a soft smile on his lips, such a familiar look to him. “Maybe I do.”

The problem with talking about it, is that unless one of them is willing to sacrifice, the talking is all meaningless, too.

Jungkook doesn’t know what he’d been hoping for. Nothing ever changes, he knew that, he does know that.

He looks away from Yoongi to the twins. Iljun decorates one of the castle’s towers with the seashells.

Yoongi finds a thin tree stick laid abandoned. He picks it up, and Jungkook shifts his gaze from the twins to Yoongi absentmindedly drawing circles on sand.

“So,” Yoongi chuckles again. His eyes are now trained on the ground, on these eerie circles his hand draws. “No girlfriend, huh?”

Jungkook purses his lips. “I mean.”

“A — ” Yoongi swallows visibly. Jungkook watches his Adam"s apple bobbing. “A boyfriend, then? Must be a lot of guys in the Training Centre.”

“Not really,” Jungkook says. He lies. There are some hook-ups in the spur of the moment, that always follow up by bitter aftertaste on his tongue and annoying prickling under his skin like he’s just done something dirty. He always makes sure to wash up after his one-night stands, but no matter how much he rubs his skin under the shower, it doesn’t go away for several days. “Don’t have anyone. You?”

Yoongi shakes his head no. “Not really,” he parrots Jungkook. He lies.

Jungkook doesn’t push.

He doesn’t want to know anyway. 

“I don’t even have friends out there, in the Training Centre,” Jungkook says suddenly. Anything but to think about the people Yoongi has spent his night with. “Let alone a partner. It’s just…hard. To make connections without intimacy.”

Yoongi has abandoned the stick, and Jungkook can feel him now studying the side of his face. Jungkook wonders if there’s itching under his skin, too; if he feels wrong when he fucks other people who’s not Jungkook, too; if he —

“But when I try intimacy and open up to people, I only feel fucked up,” Jungkook says, finally. “I carry too much within myself.”

“Don’t you think there are others who carry as much as you do?” Yoongi asks gently. He asks it like ripping off the band-aid and then kissing the scar immediately after. Like he doesn’t want it to hurt.

“There probably are,” Jungkook nods. “I’m not saying I’m the only one. I’m saying that most people are normal, and I don’t want... I guess I don’t want to ruin it for them.”

He carries northern dialect, the one he’ll have a hard time getting rid of once he moves to Seoul. He carries long nights of shouting he wishes he could forget about after so many years have passed and so people have passed, too, but some words still ring in his head from time to time. He first carries hours of hiding in the doorway, listening and listening and listening, you know you can’t intervene but you can’t go to sleep either, and then he carries Taehyung’s mom repeatedly telling him to sleep over in their house. He carries divorce, and then right after he carries a medical card with a disease doctors don’t know how to treat yet. He carries months of black settling like mould in his house, like smoke of his first cigarette in his lungs.

Yoongi finds him behind the school’s dumpsters and first yells at him and then cradles him which tells Jungkook that he’s as shaken from everything Jungkook has had to live through as Jungkook is. Yoongi says, Don’t ruin your health like that, kid. There are other ways to deal with the shit you’re going through.

Shit, that’s what Jungkook carries.

There are other things he carries.

Boys, for example, love for them; but lately it’s been the only thing that is getting easier.

“Every time I bring up something from my childhood, people just get this face — ” Jungkook imitates the expression. Yoongi’s eyes are so sad on him. “Fucked up, that’s how I feel. But I can’t… I can’t just keep silent forever about it. For people to understand who I am now, they need to know who I used to be, and it’s just —“ He closes his eyes, his head rolling back a bit. He says, addressing whether Yoongi or the sky, “It’s hard.”

Yoongi squeezes his hand. It’s nice. Warm. His touch. A bit calloused.

“You guys are the only friends I have,” Jungkook says. His face feels hot meeting the scalding sun, or maybe it’s his shame for saying these things. “The only ones who don’t make me feel fucked up for who I am. So I really don’t like it when you fight. I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” is all Yoongi says.

Is he sorry that Jungkook can’t make friends? Is he sorry that he called Jihye out? Is he sorry for everything that happened to Jungkook?

Either way, it’s pointless.

When Jungkook opens his eyes, Yoongi is watching the twins play. They should go back home soon, it’s getting chillier and darker.

“Please make up with Jihye,” Jungkook says, violating his power he knows he holds over Yoongi. “I can’t bear it if you guys are fighting.”

Yoongi sighs in defeat. “Alright.”

—

Sokcho is a tourist town, and like all tourist towns, it wakes at the end of the spring, blooms in summer, and dies around September.

Then, it’s just empty.

I remember January, going to school, strolling by the beach… The sea looked so lonely without people.

I am the sea.

— Min Yoongi, Time & Travel magazine. Cr. for translation: Lee Nina.

—

• WEDNESDAY

Jungkook blinks at the figure on the couch.

It lays, so unprotected, an opened laptop on its stomach; no blanket to cover the bared knees and no pillow under its head, which means when the figure wakes up, its neck is going to ache for the rest of the day.

“He fell asleep here last night,” Taehyung explains, munching on an apple. He gestures at the figure. “He was writing something. Came back after he dropped Hyejin and Ijun off, and went into his maniac writing mode.”

“And you just left him here?” Jungkook asks, bewildered.

Taehyung shrugs.

Jungkook huffs, and heads right to Yoongi’s room.

“…the fuck was I supposed to do?” Taehyung’s voice reaches him. There’s a genuine surprise in his tone, like he really has never even considered making it any comfortable for Yoongi. “Yah, do you even know how annoying his typing is? Click-click-click all night, my ass!”

Jungkook knows too well, that’s the problem. He has spent enough nights with Yoongi in one room as he was writing. It is annoying as hell, but that’s what you get for living under one roof with a writer. Click-click-click all night is better than them sitting in front of the opened laptop with a document unfilled with the words.

That just makes you feel miserable.

Jungkook grabs a pillow from Yoongi’s bed and a spare blanket from the upper board of the wardrobe. He comes back to the living room stomping, because he’s angry and upset, and Taehyung just watches him, his head tilted, his chewing sounds filling the otherwise silent room.

Not bothering to look at what has gotten Yoongi writing like a maniac for all night long, he saves the file on the laptop and closes the lid, passing the laptop to Taehyung. Taehyung accepts it reluctantly, as if he doesn’t know what to do with this thing in his hands. He awkwardly stands with it before he places it on one of the drawers, and Jungkook scoffs under his breath at his antics. He puts a pillow under Yoongi’s head and covers him with the blanket.

He only realises he’s doing something he might just not be supposed to when he meets Taehyung’s mom’s gaze. She is on the last step of the staircase, a pillow and a blanket under her arm.

“Uh,” Jungkook says, straightening up abruptly.

“Oh,” Taehyung’s mom echoes.

And they stare at each other, as if two criminals caught in the broad daylight.

She doesn’t know what happened three summers ago. No one does except Jungkook’s mom. Jungkook doesn’t think she would’ve been against it — after all, Jimin was accepted into Taehyung’s life with the ease Jungkook could never have dreamed of.

But it’s not about her acceptance. It’s about three months only for Jungkook and Yoongi to have; about the whole life spent in the quiet.

So when she smiles softly and warmly at him, like Taehyung always does, and says, “Thank you, Jungkook-ah,” meaning, Thank you for taking care of my son, Jungkook feels both relieved or not. 

Yoongi wraps himself into this blanket, turning over onto his stomach. He’s a sleepyhead, has always been. Jungkook is not a morning person either, but he made himself to be, has changed himself inside out for running. Yoongi, on the other hand, has always been lenient with his sleeping schedule.

He discovered writing when he was twelve, found out that he writes better closer to the night when he was fourteen, and then never grew out of the habit of staying up. Some things never change. Jungkook doesn’t know if it’s for the better or if it just makes everything more complicated.

He allows himself to sneak a glance at Yoongi, the last one he promises himself. He looks over Yoongi’s frame: in his sleep, he looks so much younger, less like an adult and more like a boy who’s tired of running. Who is glad to be home.

Jungkook wants to tuck a hair strand behind Yoongi’s ear. He wants to lie down next to him, like they used to in their afternoon naps. He wants to stay.

He looks away instead. He’s afraid he’s done enough damage for today, and it’s only nine a.m. so far.

“Are you hungry, Jungkook-ah?” Taehyung’s mom asks.

“No,” Jungkook says, shaking his head. “No, I’ve eaten at home. Thank you, Mo—“

“You should eat more,” Mom huffs, and she’s already turning him away from Yoongi in the direction of the kitchen. “You’ve lost so much weight. You look way too skinny. Are you trying to be an idol, with this face as small as yours?”

“Mom,” Taehyung whines playfully, padding after them. “Mom, what about me?”

Taehyung’s mom coos and confirms that Taehyung has lost a lot of weight as well, they must be starving you in the US, do they have no food? To make up for that, she makes a whole feast for them, and Jungkook, even with a stomach full, still manages to find some spare room to eat up.

It’s good, he thinks. The Training Centre can go to hell with its diet.

“What did you do yesterday?” Jungkook asks.

It’s a cold rainy morning that slowly drifts into even colder, grey clouds day. Jungkook has his hands down his short pockets as he walks lazily by Taehyung’s side. None of them cares if they step occasionally into a puddle left from the morning’s rain, but Jungkook still finds himself thinking that it won’t be nice if they catch a cold four days prior Jihye’s wedding.

Jungkook expected to spend his whole day in the haunted house, but since Yoongi needs rest and Taehyung and Jungkook are always way too loud when getting together, they’re headed to Jimin’s now.

Jungkook didn’t run today, and his muscles whine, the unused energy flowing and thumping in them.

“We just visited some places,” Taehyung shrugs. “Some places that mean…certain things to us.”

He’s cryptic and Jungkook suspects that if he asks further, he’ll be met with all the details about Jimin and Taehyung’s relationship he’s better off not knowing.

As far as Jungkook remembers, Jimin is the last one to join the Eight. Taehyung meets him in middle school, when they’re fourteen, both in the same class; one is a class president and the other is the class clown. Jungkook thinks he still remembers the way Taehyung couldn’t shut up about his new classmate, the way he’s so diligent about his studies, how neat his handwriting is, how patient and calm and oh, his smile, Jungkook-ssi, have you seen this smile? he is, which always makes Jungkook gag and turn away from Taehyung.

It’s not that Jungkook didn’t know Taehyung liked boys before. It’s just that Jungkook is jealous.

Of course he is. He’s the only child, he’s not used to sharing anything nor anyone. He thinks Jimin is trying to replace him. What’s more, he’s afraid Taehyung is going to let him.

Jungkook doesn’t know yet that Taehyung is simply never going away. That Taehyung will show up at every Jungkook’s competition the moment Jungkook joins the school’s track and field team. That Taehyung is going to check up on him constantly even when they have a twelve-hour of time difference. That Taehyung’s heart is big enough to have a place for everyone out of the Eight and more.

Jungkook is not close with Jimin. Within the Eight, he never shows up until there’s Taehyung by his side, which Jungkook understands. They treat him like he’s part of them and he is, but only because he has Taehyung.

Yoongi’s right, Jungkook realises. If Jihye listens to him and brings Youngjae to one of their gatherings, they’ll become a Nine. If one of them gets a partner in the future, they’ll be a Ten, then Eleven, then Twelve, and so on. For whatever reason, Jungkook is scared of becoming Fourteen.

Jimin doesn’t live on the same hill street as the rest of the Eight do, so Taehyung and Jungkook round a corner as they walk up to the top of the hill, to the playground they have spent their childhood at.

The playground where Seokjin and his dad taught Jungkook how to ride a bike, Taehyung always chiming in with his unasked advice. The playground where Yoongi broke his finger once when he participated in a basketball match with the kids from another neighbourhood. The playground where they had their first kiss; just under this lamppost.

A couple years ago, as Jungkook visited Sokcho, the paint was peeling off the seesaw, everything so old and worn out that it completely broke his heart back then. Now it’s brand new — the officials must have renovated it recently — and it doesn’t look at all as a place Jungkook has spent most of his lifetime at. Somehow, it breaks his heart even more.

Can it even count as a place they shared their first kiss at, when it doesn’t look like one at all?

“What did you do yesterday?” Taehyung asks, bumping Jungkook in the shoulder a little. The playground is now lost behind their backs.

“I watched a TV show,” Jungkook says immediately. Lying doesn’t require thinking.

Taehyung raises his eyebrows at him. “You know that Hyejinie talked about Uncle Yoongi and Uncle Jungkook when I asked her about her day?”

Shit.

“Mhm,” Jungkook mutters, unsure how to better explain his lying. He sniffles, pinching his nose. “Yeah, I went out with Yoongi-hyung and the twins to the beach, too.”

“And?”

“That’s all. It was evening, so we didn’t stay out for long. I’ve forgotten about that until you mentioned it.”

Taehyung scoffs, not unkindly. “Alright.” They’ve reached Jimin’s house, and instead of pushing Jungkook more, he pushes the front gate open.

Jimin is already waiting for them in the doorway. He waves at Taehyung playfully, and they sneak a chaste kiss Jungkook pretends he doesn’t see. He’s hovering behind Taehyung awkwardly until Jimin slaps his butt lightly and pushes him inside the house, and it’s only him and Jungkook who are left outside now.

“Hey, Jungkook-ah,” Jimin smiles.

Jungkook is not close to Jimin, but at the same time he feels like he is. Jungkook knows everything about Jimin because Taehyung tells him everything about him. He thinks Jimin knows everything about him because Taehyung might tell him everything about Jungkook. Jimin has always made sure to show up at Jungkook’s competitions, and he has always cheered for him alongside Taehyung. He texts him sometimes, mostly on social media when Jungkook posts something, comments under his photos with stuff like ‘Looking good, JK!!’ or ‘CONGRATS ON YOUR SECOND PLACE! YOU DID WELL!’, and he always pops up to say ‘Hi’ when Jungkook and Taehyung FaceTime.

Jungkook thinks they might be called good acquaintances.

“Hello, Jimin-ssi,” Jungkook grins, because something about Jimin warms him from the inside. Jimin embraces him shortly as a greeting, and Jungkook thinks that for a hug as tight and comforting like this, they might be good friends, even.

It drizzles for the most part of the day. Tourists must be upset: there’s nothing to do in Sokcho if the weather is acting up. You never know if this kind of rain will turn into a hurricane.

Three of them spend this day lazily: they watch a movie and eat some ramen and then just talk, and talk, and talk, until there’s nothing to talk about.

Jungkook sprawls on the floor of Jimin’s room. He lies like a starfish, limbs scattered in different directions. His gaze is directed towards the ceiling, where glow-in-the-dark star stickers are spread.

They don’t glow anymore. They have gone out years ago.

Jungkook remembers helping Jimin put them up. It’s one of the few times they hang out only as the two of them, no Taehyung at sight: Jimin was doing it for him as a surprise, because seventeen year old Taehyung was obsessed with space and stars and life outside Earth. Jungkook found it romantic. Nobody had ever done anything like that for him.

“Hm,” Taehyung clears his throat. “Guys, can we talk about Yoongi-hyung?”

Jimin and Taehyung are on Jimin’s bed, cuddling. Jungkook feels so lonely with them, and at the same time — the most safe and secured with their love.

“Of course,” Jungkook says, way too quickly and it’s fucking embarrassing and so obvious he’s surprised no one of the Eight knows.

“What is it?” Jimin asks softly, voice barely a whisper. Jungkook keeps catching shadows of his finger drawing hearts on Taehyung’s bicep.

It is jealousy that he swallows down his throat, just the different kind from before.

“Have you read his articles?” Taehyung asks. His question is followed by the hums. “Okay, good. Uh…”

“Just say it,” Jungkook grumbles, and it spurs Taehyung to blurt.

“Do you see yourself in his writing? Do you ever read his article about a random ass city and think, ‘Oh, he must be writing about me’?”

It beats the air out of Jungkok’s lungs.

He thinks about London and the way Yoongi complains about tourists sticking out like a sore thumb reminds Jungkook that it’s all the same on the other side of the continent, here in Sokcho, as well; it reminds Jungkook that hates crowds and usually prefers to be glued to someone out of the Eight when they’re in a public place. Salt Lake City and the way Yoongi writes about spending winter there reminds Jungkook that he has always dreamed of experiencing a snowy winter at least once in his life, unlike Sokcho where it never snows. Beijing and the way Yoongi talks that skyscrapers have no soul reminds Jungkook that he always preferred Sokcho over Seoul with its tiny lively houses; it reminds Jungkook that even the sight of Expo Tower suffocates him.

But Jungkook thought he was the only one. He thought it was because Yoongi was actually writing about him, that he missed Jungkook so much he didn’t know where to put his feelings down and as always, poured it out into his job.

And now —

“Because I do,” Taehyung says. “I see myself.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jimin admits. His voice sounds so tiny in the room.

Jungkook knows how Taehyung and Jimin come together: both of them have so much love stored in themselves to give to others. They’re compassionate and caring and loving. They accept their significant other’s best friends as they are, and they read their significant other’s brothers" articles, and they follow their significant other to the other side of the world.

Jungkook is not like that. He’s selfish and jealous and angry more often than not. He always thinks about himself. He always puts himself first.

He frowns at the ceiling. He thinks he can’t bear anymore with the bleak star stickers on it. He props himself on the elbows, and tilts his head at Jimin and Taehyung. They have sat up, have become two shadows of the sunset.

“What do you mean?” Jungkook asks.

“I think he writes about Sokcho,” Taehyung says.

Jungkook blinks.

About Sokcho?

“Every time he’s in a different city, he keeps comparing it to Sokcho, if it’s worth living there as much as it’s worth living in Sokcho, what Sokcho has and what Sokcho does not have…” Taehyung says. His voice sounds sad. “Jungkook-ah, I think he’s homesick.”

It makes Jungkook cry.

He cries on his way home from Jimin’s — Taehyung decided to stay over, so it’s a perfect opportunity for Jungkook to angrily sniffle a couple of times. It’s not that long of a walk: to the playground, then down the hill, seven minutes at its most.

Jungkook walks slowly, the realisation settling down in him. He breaks down ten steps away from Jimin’s house, and can’t stop crying somewhere in the middle on his way home.

He weeps, and weeps, and weeps. He can’t stop crying to the point he hiccups and forgets how to breathe for a short second.

He wants to yell at Yoongi.

Dumbass, if you’re homesick, then come back. Quit the magazine, and come back home.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

Jungkook’s steps grow angrier. He hits the puddles in his slippers, cold water hitting his ankles, and doesn’t care.

If you’re hurting, why won’t you tell someone about it? Why won’t you share it with me? Why would you hide your loneliness inside your writing?

At first, Jungkook cries because there’s so much hurt in Yoongi, and Yoongi’s hurt has always been Jungkook’s hurt, too. He cries because he doesn’t know how to make it better, how to make it easier for him.

But then, as he gets closer to his home, he cries because of Yoongi, period. He cries because Yoongi is so close now and yet feels so far away still. He cries because he wants Yoongi as much as he always does, always did. He cries because their relationship failed, and none of them were at fault for not making it work and now Jungkook can’t even be angry at Yoongi for letting him go because he let go of Yoongi, too.

All this crying brings up the memories.

The first time he makes Jungkook cry, Jungkook is about six years old. It’s a summer morning, and his dad, as always, nags him to finish his breakfast and go outside to play with the kids. He hasn’t bothered to remember that Jungkook doesn’t have the plural word of ‘friend’ anymore. That they’ve all been replaced by the weird boy next door.

He finishes eating quickly, bows to Mom in a thank-you-for-the-food, and runs out to their street. Kim Taehyung My Name Is meets him at the gateway.

“A good day it is,” Kim Taehyung says blankly, as if it’s the worst day to be living. Jungkook has learned in the past year or two that it’s just who Kim Taehyung My Name Is is.

Behind Taehyung’s back, Jungkook hears some bickering and bad words his Grandma sometimes shouts at the TV set. His mom always tells him that he shouldn’t pay his attention to them, so he doesn’t. (Although he really wants to because he’s curious).

Jungkook opens his mouth to reply to Taehyung when a toy shovel flies into his face.

Then, there’s just blood. Jungkook closes his eyes because like this, it’s somehow easier to comprehend what’s happening.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he hears someone cursing again, this time the sound is closer. Bad words are like music to Jungkook’s ears. There are warm hands on Jungkook’s face, wiping the blood off. “Yah, Kim Namjoon! I’m gonna kill you, and then myself!”

It is the moment Jungkook realises that he’s not supposed to feel this much pain. That something’s wrong. That it hurts so much. He snaps his eyes open, and in front of him, there’s a Yoongi-hyung His Name Is. His eyes are usually small, cat-like, but now they have peered into Jungkook all wide and big and scared.

It’s the first time Jungkook sees him so close. Feels him so close.

“Hurts,” Jungkook says, pouts.

“I know,” Yoongi says, his wrist pressing against Jungkook’s cheek, collecting the blood off. “I know, I know, hyung’s sorry.”

He calls himself hyung. An older brother. Jungkook thinks it’s the first time, too.

Jungkook starts crying slowly: at first a little unsurely, like he’s not allowed to; and then gaining more and more momentum. The more he cries, the more attention Yoongi gives him. It’s kind of nice.

“Him cry you made,” Kim Taehyung notes, quite philosophically for a seven year old. He looms over Yoongi’s shoulder, a deep frown to him. Jungkook would say he looks worried if not for the fact that Kim Taehyung is incapable of human emotions.

“I know,” Yoongi bites. “I fucking know.  Kiddo, you’re alright? Holding on?”

“Hurts,” Jungkook repeats.

“Fuck,” Yoongi says. “Kim Taehyung. Go fetch Jeon Jungkook’s mother.”

“Roger,” Taehyung says, disappearing inside Jungkook’s house.

It’s just Yoongi and Jungkook. And Namjoon, but he’s somewhere far away.

Yoongi wants to pull away his wrist from Jungkook’s cheek, to see if the bleeding has stopped, but Jungkook grips tightly on his hand, not willing to have him let go just yet.

Jungkook doesn’t let him go even as they put stitches on his cheek at the doctor’s. Yoongi sits next to him and his mom with the most miserable expression on his face, but he must feel too guilty. Jungkook knows he grips too tightly on Yoongi’s hand, but Yoongi bravely endures all of it.

It’s the first scar he leaves on him, but it won’t be the last.

There’s one from the air hockey’s puck when they all will go out for Taehyung’s 12th birthday to an arcade. Yoongi pushes the pluck with too much force, and it ends up right in Jungkook’s face, a bit above his eyebrow. Yoongi washes the blood off Jungkook’s face in the mall’s bathroom and he blows on Jungkook’s cut before applying the band-aid Taehyung buys at the pharmacy for them. 

This time he will be calmer, but with his eyes upset and so sickeningly sorry.

“I’m gonna be okay,” Jungkook will have to tell him.

“I know you will,” Yoongi will say. “I’m just not sure if I’m okay with hurting you.”

“You didn’t mean to hurt,” Jungkook will argue. “It doesn’t count.”

“You don’t hurt the ones you love. Whether you mean it or not.”

Another scar on Jungkook is left from the basketball when Yoongi accidentally hits him. He has meant to pass the ball to Namjoon, but Jungkook appears in the way, and the ball rips the skin just below his bottom lip. It bleeds only a little and doesn’t hurt at all, but Yoongi still drags him to the haunted house totreat his wound properly.

“So it won’t scar,” Yoongi says.

“It’ll scar either way,” Jungkook replies. He points to his cheek, then to his eyebrow, and grins at Yoongi. “I’m carrying hyung with myself. So it’s okay even if it leaves a scar. I don’t care.”

“I do. I care.”

“Then you’ll have to care for me and you both.”

Yoongi smiles. “Alright. That I can do.” Then, his smile immediately fades away. His thumb holds Jungkook’s chin to inspect first the recent wound, then two other scars. “Aish. Do you think girls will still like you even with a face like that?”

Jungkook slaps his hand off. “Don’t make it sound like I have some severe scars. You can’t even notice them until you get close to my face.” Don’t make it sound like I care about what girls think, he means to say.

Jungkook doesn’t cry at the arcade scar nor at the basketball scar because after the first scar accident, his father will teach him that boys do not cry.

So another time Jungkook cries is, ironically, the second time Yoongi makes him.

Jungkook is fifteen and Yoongi is nineteen and in his first relationship with a guy. It’s not that Yoongi didn’t date before. It’s just that out of all Yoongi’s partners (first girl, Taehyung said she’s way too good for Yoongi and is going to dump his ass the moment she realises it (turned out to be true), and second girl, Taehyung said she’s a fun one but they’re not going to last long (also true)), there’s never been anyone who Jungkook actually saw. They just existed somewhere in the background, Yoongi didn’t really show them to the Eight, didn’t really talk about them much, either, and Jungkook was fine with it.

This guy is as if Yoongi’s whole world. He can’t shut up about him. Taehyung keeps saying that he’s probably the one for Yoongi.

And then Yoongi brings him to their friend group gathering. And then Jungkook sees them sneaking a kiss as they’re both in the ocean. It’s chaste and innocent, nothing more than a peck. But it just hurts. Jungkook wishes he didn’t have to see it, and his chest contracts and he thinks he’s just going to die right here, under the sun —

He starts crying.

“Kook?” Taehyung frowns.

“Jungkook-ah?” Jihye perks up after Taehyung. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Jungkook shakes his head, doesn’t trust himself enough not to break. He cries hysterically, not being able to stop even though it’s irrational. Yoongi was never his to begin with.

“Alright,” Taehyung announces. He’s surprisingly good at handling Jungkook in this state. He’s calm and not overly sweet yet not pushing when he stands up, gets his slippers on, and pats Jungkook on his back. “We’re going home, young man.”

Jihye stands up after them, but Taehyung tells her to stay there. He whispers something to Jimin, waves goodbye to confused Namjoon and Hoseok, and then hugs Jungkook by his shoulders and walks them both home.

He doesn’t ask. Jungkook tells him later, when he’s finally able to speak instead of erupting crying sounds, it’s because he’s stressed of the finals.

He is thankful when Taehyung pretends to believe him.

A week later, Taehyung absentmindedly mentions that he’s changed his mind and Yoongi is not going to last with his boyfriend. When Jungkook asks why, hoping his voice doesn’t betray any emotion, Taehyung shrugs.

“He just isn’t.”

Yoongi breaks up with him a month later.

“Told you,” Taehyung says.

To this day, it’s the only time that makes Jungkook think that maybe Taehyung knows. That maybe Taehyung has known all along.

But then again, maybe it’s just a coincidence.

It must be some dumb coincidence or Jungkook’s dumb luck, too, that as he shakily tries to open the gate in the present day, sniffling and cursing under his breath (bad words turned out to be nothing more than just a bad habit), there’s Yoongi’s voice behind his back.

“Need some help?”

Jungkook harshly turns around to face him. Under the soft yellow light of the lamppost, he looks like home. Like Sokcho.

Jungkook lied back then, on Monday, when he said nothing of Yoongi is familiar.

It is such a big lie. Everything of Yoongi is so fucking familiar. It’s as familiar as all the streets of Sokcho are: with all its routes and shortcuts. He had memorised the traces of Yoongi’s shoulder scar, had learned all the ways to Yoongi’s gasps, had gone through the same route of down his throat, then his chest, then his stomach, countless of times.

He dares to stand now in front of Jungkook, looking so lovely, looking like everything Jungkook has ever wanted. There’s a plastic bag in his one hand, hanging loosely on his wrist.

“No,” Jungkook blurts. “No, I hate you.”

“That’s fair, I guess,” Yoongi nods.

No, it’s not fair. It’s so fucking unfair.

“Go away,” Jungkook mutters, and turns back away to fighting against the gate.

He doesn’t hear Yoongi leaving, so he must still be watching Jungkook.

“Where’ve you been?” Jungkook grumbles, somehow annoyed just at the thought that Yoongi might have been out. With people.

“Market,” Yoongi says. He leans his shoulder against the brick fence as if to have a better look at Jungkook’s struggles. He slips his hands in his shorts’ pockets. Such a dream, he is. “Mom asked me to buy some dried octopus.”

The damn gate won’t open. Jungkook slams it for the lack of better action.

“Fuck.”

He feels Yoongi squinting his eyes at him, measuring him up. “Are you drunk, Jeon Jungkook?” Yoongi smoothly moves to stand next to Jungkook, and takes the key out of his hands. Their fingers brush. Yoongi’s touch is so warm.

“No,” Jungkook says. He sceptically looks at Yoongi’s attempt. “No, I’m sober.”

Yoongi calmly turns the key. The gate opens. Fucking traitor.

“Then what’s up with your mood?” Yoongi asks, handing Jungkook the key back.

It’s such an annoying question. “Nothing is up with my mood,” he grumbles. “Thanks.”

“Head in,” Yoongi says. He reminds Jungkook of a sixteen year old Yoongi, of a twelve year old Yoongi, all the times he watched Jungkook head back inside his house.

It all started when Jungkook had just begun to stay over in the haunted house until late. At first, it’s Taehyung’s mom and Taehyung waving at him unenthusiastically who watch him cross the street and get to his house safely, Jungkook’s mom meeting him across the narrow street. As his mom and Taehyung’s mom become acquaintanced and trusting of each other, his mom just waits for him at home.

Sometimes there is shouting coming from inside Jungkook’s house. Taehyung’s mom once carefully mentions that he can stay over if he wants to, and Jungkook shakes his head and politely refuses. Next time when the night is filled with yelling, she only gently guides him back inside the haunted house and gives him some banana milk, explaining to him that his mom has given her permission for Jungkook to sleep at theirs tonight.

It makes Jungkook feel that maybe all this time his house was the haunted one.

Then, at some point, this task of watching Jungkook go home is handed over to Yoongi. Yoongi always watches him closely, arms folded, and grumbles every time Jungkook is too slow or takes a millimetre off in the wrong direction.

Don’t you know where your gate is, kid?

And if there are any fighting sounds coming from his house, Yoongi just wraps his arm around Jungkook’s shoulders and makes a U-turn to get him back inside the haunted house.

You. Jungjoo. How about Melona ice cream?

Sometimes, when the fighting is too fierce, to the point where Jungkook feels like he physically can’t stay over at the peace of the haunted house any longer and should be back at the war zone immediately, Kim Taehyung My Name Is hugs Jungkook tightly and doesn’t let him go, his head bumped into Jungkook’s shoulder. They watch movies Yoongi rented for them and stuff themselves full of ice cream until Jungkook’s heart stops bleeding just from thinking what is going on back at his house.

There’s nothing a Melona ice cream can’t solve, Taehyung keeps repeating over and over.

One day, as Jungkook’s being guided back inside the haunted house by Taehyung and Yoongi, he will mutter under his breath to no one in particular that his favourite ice cream is a corn one. He’ll catch Yoongi’s surprised glance, however, and, from then on, the haunted house will always be filled both with Melona and corn ice creams.

Taehyung stops coming to watch him head back home eventually, the fighting sounds move out with Jungkook’s father, and in the end, it’s just Yoongi and Jungkook and crickets against the whole world. Yoongi learns that standing while leaning against something (in their case, the haunted house’s gate) makes him look mysterious and cool, Jungkook learns that if he stays behind and chats with Yoongi for some minutes the world doesn’t end and Yoongi welcomes him.

He’s too old to be watched going back home late in the night now, everyone knows. Jungkook doesn’t need protection anymore. But they don’t talk about it, because it is a nice ritual. Something just for him and Yoongi to have.

It’s too shitty that Yoongi grows up so fast, and watching Jungkook head back inside his house also becomes a perfect excuse for him to sneak out of the haunted place.

Yoongi’s sixteen when it happens.

“You. Jungjoo,” he whispers, hurrying Jungkook in the direction of his gate. “You should head back.”

“Where are you going?” Jungkook asks, eyes wide. Not even a ‘How’s school?’, just straight-up ‘Fuck off, go home’?

“None of your business. Head inside.”

He’s going to the club, Jungkook knows it. He’s dressed like he’s going to the club. He’s a minor and he’s going to lie about his age, and —

“I’m not a kid,” Jungkook grumbles. “I can cross a fucking street without anyone watching me.”

It makes Yoongi frown. “I’m just watching you go back.”

No, Jungkook thinks. You’re getting rid of me.

Yoongi scratches behind his ear. “I’ve been doing this since you were like, seven. That’s fine. That’s to show I care.”

“Care about what?”

“That you get home safe and sound.”

“Maybe you should start with trying to remember my name.”

Silence.

“Jungkook-ah,” Yoongi says. So, so gently. He’s the only one who still can do it: call out Jungkook’s name like he does. “Go. Inside. Your. House. You. Brat.”

It’s something Jungkook wanted, but it feels shitty regardless. He turns away and makes a first stomping step forward. Yoongi is already with a cigarette in-between his lips when Jungkook whirls back around.

“You know what?” Jungkook spits. “Don’t pretend you care.”

Yoongi startles. “I don’t—?”

“I know for a fact hyungnim doesn’t care. Taehyung and I don’t matter anymore. You have other friends, which I understand. Hyungnim wants to be friends with people his age.” Jungkook clenches his hand into a fist, and breathes out, angry and disappointed. “I get it. I’m not a kid anymore, so I get it. But then I don’t want to see hyungnim put up an act that we’re still friends.”

Yoongi gapes at him, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth now.

Jungkook stares at him with his eyebrows furrowed.

Nothing happens.

“Good night,” Jungkook grits. He doesn’t know what he’s been hoping for to happen, but it’s definitely not this. He waves Yoongi off. “Have fun.”

He turns away and goes inside the house. He’s surprised how calm he manages to appear until he’s out of Yoongi’s sight, when all he does next, in fact, is just banging his head against the floor for solid hours.

God, why would he tell Yoongi that? What kind of closure did he talk about? Why did he feel the need to say it?

He blames himself all night for this, and wakes up with a terrible stomachache. He can’t even meet Taehyung’s eyes, afraid that Yoongi has told him everything.

However, the next day only brings Yoongi introducing Jungkook and Taehyung to Namjoon and Seokjin.

It’s not that Jungkook and Taehyung didn’t know who they were before. But it’s more like hanging out together, the four of them. They laze around on the beach together, and play basketball after. Yoongi doesn’t talk about what happened, so Jungkook doesn’t, either. 

Jungkook finds it nice.

Taehyung invites Hoseok and Jihye to their next hangout. Then, at one point, Jimin comes with Taehyung, their hands laced together, and this is how the Eight is formed officially.

That’s right. The Eight only comes to life because Jungkook hates to lose touch with Yoongi and Yoongi has never refused Jungkook anything.

As selfish as that.

Yoongi had always gone ways out to make Jungkook happy. He came to each of Jungkook’s track and field tournaments, Jungkook’s loudest cheerleader. He travelled from Seoul to see Jungkook’s high school graduation in the middle of his finals during his college years. He always paid for Jungkook every time they went out together, even when he had no money as a college student, and never once in his life made Jungkook feel guilty about it, unlike all the boyfriends Jungkook has had before.

He made Jungkook so happy, still does, and yet Jungkook can’t seem to provide happiness for him. He tried once (he tried many times), and he fucking failed.

Maybe it’s just not meant to be. Maybe he and Yoongi are simply not meant to be.

Still, despite all of this —

Jungkook grips on the gate’s handle, and sternly looks Yoongi in the eyes. “I want you to be happy.”

Yoongi’s mouth twitches in amusement. He raises his eyebrows. “Because I opened the gate for you?”

“Good night, Yoongi-ssi,” Jungkook says, turning away.

He’s opened the front door and is about to get inside when Yoongi’s voice reaches his back.

“Jeon Jungkook.”

The way he says his name still makes Jungkook’s heart skip a beat.

He turns back around, and tilts his head. “Yeah?”

“I want you to be happy, too.” Jungkook watches Yoongi chew on his bottom lip. Maybe there’s something else he wants to say, so Jungkook waits for him, but in the end, there’s only an awkward, quiet, “Thought you should know that.”

Jungkook hums in acknowledgment, and hurries inside the house. He slams the door shut, toes off his shoes, goes inside the kitchen.

He sits down on the chair.

For a moment, everything’s fine.

“Are you hungry, Jungkook-ah?” his mom asks, coming inside the kitchen after him. “I can fix something quickly for you.”

“Mom,” he says, voice blank.

She hums absentmindedly, fleeting around the kitchen, a bowl in her hand already filled with rice.

“Mom,” he repeats, and this time, the tone of his voice, seems to stop her. She looks at him. He clasps his hand against his mouth, looking up at her, eyes red, and whispers, as if he’s delivering the worst news possible, like that the world is ending and they only have three minutes left together: “Mom, I still love him so much.”

—

I think it was the third country I visited that got me into the doctor’s office.

“Am I sick?” I kept asking the doctor.

“Like many of us,” she said, “you’re heartsick.”

— Min Yoongi, Time & Travel magazine. Cr. for translation: Lee Nina.

—

• THURSDAY

It’s a little past six a.m., and he and Namjoon are out, stretching and warming up.

“Can you do ten kilometres?” Jungkook asks curiously. He studies Namjoon from top to bottom, and thinks that a body like his should definitely be able to do all fifteen.

Namjoon raises his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly up. “You want me dead, Jungkook-ah? I barely survived eight the other day.”

Hm. Alright.

Jungkook’s lips make a thin line. He’s stretching his right leg when he suggests, “Maybe… We could run to Seokjin’s parents’ place? It’s not this far, and they must be up already.”

Namjoon takes a long, mischievous look at him. “We could have some breakfast there, too,” he says slowly.

Jungkook snaps his fingers at him. “Bingo.”

“Let’s say… I’m not exactly opposed to the idea.”

“You’re loving it, hyung, just admit it.”

Instead Namjoon bends to fix a lacing on his left sneaker, and takes off the crouch instantly, leaving Jungkook to watch his retreating back and wonder if his running partner is actually as old as he claims to be, or is just a little Sokcho kid.

“The last one to get there talks to Seokjin’s dad!” Namjoon yells, probably waking up half of the neighbourhood.

“Yah!” Jungkook yells back to wake up the other half of the neighbourhood, and finally takes off, quickly gaining momentum. “Namjoon-ssi, you cheater! You know I don’t do sprints well!”

Seokjin’s parents’ place is a BBQ restaurant by the pier, slightly further away from Yoongi"s auntie’s raw fish restaurant. Ironically, despite being a BBQ restaurant, they’re most known for their dakgangjeong, spicy-and-sweet chicken. They have tourist troops lining up for it during weekends and holidays.

Once Jungkook asks Seokjin’s mom why they won’t change their restaurant’s name from BBQ to something that at least has some connection to chicken, and she tells him that it’s their marketing move now.

It’s almost like a brand, right? Sometimes I go to the market, and I hear tourists asking around about this one weird BBQ restaurant that sells one of the best spicy-and-sweet chicken in the country. Every local can immediately recognise that tourists look for our restaurant.

It’s bizarre, but it makes sense. Jungkook doesn’t ask this question ever again.

Seokjin’s parents are well off, but he has always easily blended in with the rest of the Eight. He enjoyed cheap beer and never complained about conditions others provided on the sleepovers. After all, they all grew up on the same hill, under the same sun, and it was — still is — more than enough.

“You talk to Seokjin’s dad,” Jungkook announces once they reach the restaurant.

“Dear God,” Namjoon, an atheist, pants. He’s folded into himself, hands against his knees, and Jungkook worries if he’s going to pass out on him or not. “Don’t do sprints well, my ass.”

Jungkook is a little out of breath, but overall, it’s nothing he’s not used to. He checks the time it took him to get here, and clicks his tongue mentally. No good. He’d be outrun in a blink of an eye if he was back in the Training Centre.

“I’m on the national team,” Jungkook reminds. “Our standards for not doing sprints well must be a bit different.”

“Yeah, sure,” Namjoon barks a heavy, out of breath laughter, waving him off. The drops of sweat drip down his temples. “I really, really hope South Korea wins all the gold at the Olympics next time.”

Jungkook laughs, and watches Namjoon for another couple of seconds. He seems to be doing better, and has his breathing under control again, which calms Jungkook down.

“Hey,” he mutters as he sticks his nose to the glass of the restaurant’s door, checking if there’s anyone inside. “If you’ll feel even slightly worse, don’t hesitate to tell me, ok?”

“Yeah, sure,” Namjoon mumbles. He comes closer to Jungkook, hovering behind his back. “Do you mind asking me what you’re doing?”

Jungkook unsticks his nose from the door, and turns around to face Namjoon. He blinks. “I was just checking if it’s open or not.”

Namjoon blinks back. He reaches out to tug on the door, and it opens with ease.

“Well,” Jungkook purses his lips, “or you can check it like that, too, yeah.”

Namjoon shakes his head — Jungkook can see that he does it fondly — and they come inside. The bells ring, announcing their presence.

“Oh?” Seokjin’s mom perks up from behind the bar. “Why are you awake at the ungodly hours, kids?”

“Water — ” Namjoon breathes, and goes inside the kitchen, completely ignorant of the sign ‘STAFF ONLY’. Only people who have spent their childhood around this place are allowed to do that. Jungkook catches himself thinking that the sign lacks one important thing.

It’d be better if it said ‘STAFF AND FAMILY ONLY’.

“Running,” Jungkook explains to Seokjin’s mom as he takes a seat at the table close to the window. “It’s nicer to run in the morning. Less hot.”

“But can’t you do it at, well, at least eight a.m.?” Mother asks curiously.

To this, Jungkook shrugs. He’s used to waking up early because of the Training Centre’s schedule, and Namjoon seems not to be able to come to terms with his jet lag, still.

Namjoon comes back from the kitchen with two glasses of water and Seokjin’s dad. They warmly laugh about something, and Seokjin’s dad squeezes Namjoon’s shoulder and Namjoon smiles and nods.

“Are you up for breakfast, kids?” Seokjin’s mom asks, coming out of the bar. She dries her hands on the towel thrown over her shoulder. “We must still have some dried pollack soup left.”

“That’d be great,” Namjoon smiles again, passing Jungkook his glass of water and sitting down next to him.

They mutter their thank-you’s as Seokjin’s mom disappears in the kitchen. Seokjin’s dad stays for some more, asks Namjoon about his studies, whether he likes teaching in Europe or if he wants to come back to Korea, and praises Jungkook for growing up into a handsome young man who brings honour to their country.

Jungkook bows politely, turning slightly away to the window.

He is not used to being around fathers, is not used to having their attention. Even at his age of twenty-four, it makes him feel uneasy, almost squeamish. Like another wrong second, and he’ll be back in his childhood room on the school night, knees hugged to his chest, listening to all the insults and threats and accusations again.

Namjoon and Jungkook mutter another round of thank-you’s and we’ll-eat-well as Seokjin’s mom hands them bowls of hot soup alongside various side dishes.

“Eat up, okay?” she says, and they follow with hums. This Jungkook is used to. This Jungkook can do. Mother’s love is easy and unconditional.

“Is hyung asleep?” Jungkook asks, slurping on the soup. It’s good, and hot, and perfect, like all August days in Sokcho are.

“Seokjinie?” Mother says. She’s back behind the bar, washing dishes from yesterday. “You guys missed him. Yoongi came over last night, and they decided to go fishing today. They left ten minutes before you came in.”

“Ah.” Jungkook doesn’t know himself what his answer is supposed to mean.

“I think our Yoongi is a bit depressed,” Seokjin’s mom continues talking absentmindedly. “He came over unannounced last night and looked very tired. He didn’t eat that well, either…”

“He didn’t look tired,” Seokjin’s dad argues. He’s polishing the tables, getting the restaurant ready for the opening. “He looked heartsick.” At this, Seokjin’s dad sounds gentle and genuinely sad. Jungkook’s father has never sounded like that.

It’s a reminder for Jungkook that not all fathers are like his.

“Our Yoongi had his heart broken back in… Where’s he now, remind me again?”

“He’s in Rome this month,” Namjoon supplies helpfully.

“Right,” Seokjin’s dad nods. “In Rome. He had his heart broken in Rome. You know, I wanted to cook him some jjajangmyeon yesterday. It fixes broken hearts, jjajangmyeon. But he barely even touched his chicken.”

“You almost took it personally,” Seokjin’s mom teases, laughing a little, and Seokjin’s dad waves her off, embarrassed.

“He and Seokjin just chatted all night long in that corner.” Father points at the further off table. “They were very secretive.”

Jungkook calculates quickly: if Yoongi and Seokjin chatted all night long, it means that Yoongi came here after he and Jungkook had their encounterment.

“Do you kids know what happened to our Yoongi?” Mother asks. She sounds full of concern now.

Namjoon shakes his head. Jungkook pretends that he’s never had a soup as good as this one, and busies himself with food.

Jungkook spends the rest of the day with his mom.

He helps her around the garden, does all the heavy lifting she usually can’t do when he’s not around — another nudge for him to come back more often — and they chat about everything and nothing in particular.

He gossips to her about his teammates. She tells him what local ahjummas have been up to in his absence. Jungkook talks about how much Ijun and Hyejin have grown up, and she sighs and says that the kids do grow up very quickly.

“Which reminds me,” she says, quite smoothly changing the direction of their conversation. “Jungkook-ah, could you please go to Yerim’s house and pick up some clothes from her? Her daughter is expecting a baby soon, and they asked me to do some embroidery for them.”

Embroidery. Jungkook’s mom can do it very well.

“Sure,” Jungkook sighs, pushing on his knees to stand up from the couch. He didn’t want to go out — it’s late, they’ve just had dinner, and Jungkook would love to just lie down on the couch and watch the rest of the episode he"s missed on Tuesday. But it’s his mom who asks and he never refused her anything.

He is coming back home, a heavy bag full of various baby clothes in his hand, when he sees a familiar figure sitting on the porch. It’s tiredly leaning its temple against the fence.

It’s drunk.

“Wrong door, Min Yoongi,” Jungkook says, slipping past him. “Yours is the opposite.”

Silence. Jungkook keeps his hand on the door’s handle, yet to twirl it open. He waits.

“It’s the right one,” Yoongi mutters, eventually. He smells a little like the sea"s breeze and salt and fish, and a lot like beer and more. “I wanted to see you.”

It stops Jungkook.

Why, he wants to ask. You shouldn’t, he wants to say. Me too, he wants to admit. Me too, so badly.

Jungkook sighs. “Why were you drinking?”

“I just had some beer with Seokjin and Namjoon,” Yoongi says. His words are slurring together, like he’s too tired to make any comprehensive sounds. “I’m not drunk.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jungkook scoffs.

“I would never visit you drunk,” Yoongi says defensively. “I know you. I wouldn’t do that.”

Jungkook’s not sure if Yoongi even heard him or not. He sighs again, and goes inside the house. He closes the door. He puts the heavy bag on the floor.

For a moment or two, he just stands in the entrance’s corridor. What he should do is take off his shoes and call Taehyung to pick his dumb older brother up.

Jungkook comes outside once again. Yoongi is still sitting where Jungkook saw him the last time. He has his head tilted upwards, looking up at the night sky. Jungkook trails with his eyes after Yoongi’s gaze, looks at the moon and the sky, but still eventually finds himself studying Yoongi’s red irritated elbows resting on his knees, the muscles underneath his t-shirt, the tired slope of his back.

He looks homesick.

“I thought you’d left,” Yoongi says quietly, gravelly.

“You should come in,” Jungkook says.

Yoongi hums, but doesn’t get up, instead still looking up at the moon.

Jungkook takes a step, another, and drags him up to his feet. It’s easy, Yoongi is light as feather.

“Come inside,” Jungkook repeats, this time more sternly. “It’s cold out here.”

“Mhm.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Jungkook mutters. “You’re such a baby when you’re drunk.”

He guides Yoongi home, like all the times Yoongi had guided him back into the haunted house. Yoongi sluggishly toes off his shoes, and gets the indoor slippers on. Jungkook closes the door after them, following him inside.

“Careful,” he warns when Yoongi almost bumps into one of the walls and barely avoids knocking off Jungkook’s medals from the shelf.

Jungkook’s mom comes out of her room at the noise.

“Yoongi-yah,” she smiles.

“Mother,” Yoongi smiles back.

“Drunk?” she asks.

“Tipsy,” he admits reluctantly, and plops down at the kitchen table in a way that tells that he’s at least, at the very bare minimum, wasted.

Jungkook scoffs at his antics. Mom sends Jungkook a smile, too. She looks amused, mischief lights flickering in her eyes. She doesn’t mention that she’s asked Jungkook to bring home clothes, not Yoongi.

“Yoongi-yah, would you like some more?”

“Mom,” Jungkook frowns. “Don’t indulge him.”

“Yes, please,” Yoongi rasps, and Jungkook’s voice of reason gets drowned in the soju bottle being popped open, two glasses at the table.

Jungkook’s mom shows him the third one, suggesting he joins them. Jungkook shakes his head dismissively. He’s not big on drinking, and the alcohol from Monday"s party still rings in his head unpleasantly. Mom puts the glass back.

Yoongi fills the glasses.

“Cheers,” Mom says, and Yoongi quietly repeats after her, clinking glasses, and turns slightly away from her to get the shot down his throat.

They both make the similar pleased throaty sound of satisfaction. Jungkook watches them, his head against the arch, arms crossed over his chest.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but there’s just something incredibly heart-warming about Yoongi and Jungkook’s mom sharing a drink.

He missed this, he thinks. Things like this simply don’t happen at the Training Centre. He loves running, and he loves the rigour of the Training Centre, but he also loves Sokcho and freedom that comes with it.

Jungkook’s mom fills up the glasses again, and Jungkook groans. He takes out his phone, finds Taehyung’s contact.

[Me] [8:32 p.m.] My mom and your hyung are drinking right now.

[Me] [8:32 p.m.] [Photo attached]

[Me] [8:32 p.m.] Save me.

[Kim Taehyung My Name Is] [8:34 p.m.] lol he’s your hyung too

[Kim Taehyung My Name Is] [8:34 p.m.] jimin and i will be over in a sec

In five minutes, Taehyung and Jimin come. Then, the front door opens once again, and Hoseok and Namjoon are here, too. Seokjin comes over after he learns that Yoongi didn’t stop drinking after leaving his house, scandalised and very vocal about his hurt feelings. Hoseok calls Jihye up, and she comes hand in hand with Youngjae.

She looks shy, her hand clutched on her elbow, as if embarrassed, as she introduces him to everyone.

“My fiancé,” she says. She moves her hand around the seven of them. “And these are… Well, you know everyone.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Youngjae bows. “Jihye told me a lot about you. Please take good care of me.”

“He’s cute,” Seokjin says. “I like him.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon agrees, tipsy and incoherent with his thoughts. “I think we can work with that.”

Youngjae’s cuteness doesn’t stop each one of the guys from promising to break Youngjae’s bones if he ever hurts Jihye as they exchange handshakes.

Mom takes out more drinking glasses. Taehyung runs to the haunted house and comes back with beer and snacks. Jungkook decides to fix up some more food quickly, and Jihye volunteers to help him.

Most of the guys are drinking beer Taehyung has brought, so they decide that tteokbokki won’t hurt.

“Can I have my first try?” Jungkook asks quietly as they work around each other at the kitchen counter.

Jihye, having been mixing the sauce previously, stops and frowns at him.

“The crush thing,” Jungkook explains.

“Ah, this.” Jihye tucks a hair strand behind her ear. Her hair is too short, and it falls into her eyes once again, making the previous motion pointless. “Yeah, sure.”

“It’s Namjoon, isn’t it?” Jungkook says, a winning smile on his face.

Jihye doesn’t say anything. She continues to mix the sauce nonchalantly.

The smile slowly fades off Jungkook’s face. “Right?..”

“Has the water boiled?” Jihye asks, and checks on a pan Jungkook has put on a stove earlier.

“Ok, I got the message, it’s not Namjoon,” Jungkook says with a sour face. He catches the glimpse of Jihye smiling devilishly as she adds the sauce to the water that has, in fact, boiled, and stirs it inside the pan.

“You still have two tries,” she reassures him, patting his arm in a teasing manner.

Jungkook scoffs. He adds the rice cakes, fish cakes and onion he’s chopped to the boiled sauce, and leans his back against the counter. Some of the guys are loudly arguing about some idol, whether she actually dates this one actor or not; and others are quietly discussing something else, their conversation muted.

“Youngjae and I are going to Yangyang tomorrow to check in with our wedding planner that everything’s ready,” Jihye says as she mirrors Jungkook’s pose next to him. “Do you wanna come with us?”

Youngjae is the one who’s on the quieter side. He and Yoongi murmur something to each other while Jungkook’s mom heatedly tries to prove to everyone that the idol is surely dating the actor.

“Do you really need me to accompany you and your fiancé?” Jungkook smiles. “Don’t you wanna spend time together?”

“We have all the time in this world,” Jihye says. Her voice sounds serious, and as Jungkook watches Yoongi and his smile at Youngjae and the way he keeps talking animatedly to him, his hands in the air, he thinks he gets it, what Jihye is trying to tell him. “You’ll be able to try some cake samples tomorrow. I thought you’d like it.”

Jungkook would. It’s still not a reason for him to come with them.

“Besides…” Jihye says. She’s turned away from Jungkook now, turning the heat to low. “I talked to Yoongi, you know.”

Jungkook stays silent.

“Yesterday,” she specifies. All that’s left to do is for tteokbokki to simmer before serving. “He called me up, and asked if I’d like to go to the Market together. His mother wanted some dry octopus. So I tagged along. We talked. A lot. He apologised. I apologised, too.”

“That’s nice,” Jungkook says.

“Yeah,” Jihye breathes out, smiling at him. “It felt really nice. And our conversation got me thinking… It’d be great if you and Youngjae could get to know each other better.”

“It would,” Jungkook nods. Now he gets it. “And I’d love to come.”

“Good,” Jihye says. Jungkook sees her cheeks pink, whether it’s heated from the cooking or something else. She gets the pan off the stove.

She places it in the middle of the table, and everyone’s arguments cut off in a loud cheer. They clink glasses again, diving into the food.

It’s good, Jungkook thinks as he looks around the kitchen table full of people he loves. This kind of life is good.

It’s past midnight when everyone starts to leave.

They leave one by one, in the reverse order as they came in. Yoongi, the drunkest and the slowest, is the last one to go. Jungkook comes outside to see him out.

“I’m sorry you had to see me drunk like this,” Yoongi says before he leaves. So he’s finally ready to admit it. “I know it reminds you of your father. I’m sorry. But I mean it. I just really, really wanted to see you. It was bigger than me.”

“You should go home,” Jungkook says softly.

Yoongi breathes out audibly. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I should.”

The night is chilly against Jungkook’s skin. He hugs himself for some warmth as he watches Yoongi take one step of the porch’s staircase at a time, disoriented.

It makes Jungkook worry, how much he’s drunk. Maybe he should walk him home. Maybe he should ask Taehyung to get Yoongi home. Maybe he should let Yoongi stay.

But all he does is watch him go.

Jungkook wants to stop him. He wants to come close to him, and hug him like this, let his forehead rest on this one junction between Yoongi’s neck and spine.

Jungkook wants to hug him really tightly and tell him that he loves him. That he loves him drunk and that he loves him sober. He loves him when loud and fighting with their mutual childhood friend and he loves him quiet and chatting with a new person in their friend group. He loves him even when they’re an entire world away and he loves him when they’re only a few steps apart, unable to breach the distance. He loves him despite and in spite of everything, he loves him without conditions, he loves him just because he is, because he has always been here, because he’s Jungkook’s first memory.

“Whatever you’re thinking of saying…” Yoongi mutters, his back still facing Jungkook. He’s so pretty like this, with Sokcho charm over him. “Don’t.”

Jungkook sighs. “Ok, I won’t. But can I ask you a question, still?”

Yoongi turns around. He does it too quickly, and grabs the gatepost, as if he can’t stand upright without additional support. He probably can’t. “Shoot.”

Jungkook steps down the porch, crosses the whole yard just to be next to Yoongi when he asks this question. He thinks he’s a masochist for that. A masochist to keep looking for something in Yoongi’s eyes.

“Well, you saw me. How did it make you feel?”

For a short second, they stand in silence as Yoongi studies his face. His gaze on Jungkook is unfocused, and warm.

And then he says, voice so honest, like it always gets when he has had enough of drinks, “Happy.” Breaking Jungkook’s heart just like that. “It made me incredibly, impossibly happy.”

—

My coworkers used to text me, asking where I’m going for my vacation. Having travelling as my job, they were curious what kind of place I’d choose to have a time off work.

I always told them, I’m going home. They stopped asking after a year or two.

I will always want to go home.

— Min Yoongi, Time & Travel Magazine. Cr. for translation: Lee Nina.

—

• FRIDAY

Seven a.m.

Jungkook has already stretched and warmed up and done a lap around the neighbourhood and Namjoon is still not here.

It’s not that Jungkook needs his company. He can run perfectly on his own. Running is for lonely people, after all. For people like Jungkook.

It’s just — Jungkook assumed that for a moment, he and Namjoon shared something special. That Namjoon wasn’t just a past friend.

Maybe that’s why he’s so persistent when he shows up at Namjoon’s door and keeps calling him until Namjoon first whines to leave him alone, and then promises him to come out.

“Yah,” Namjoon yawns. He’s topless, only pyjama shorts on. His eyes are small, sleepy; his hair messy. He fails miserably as he tries to suppress yet another yawn. “Do you like running that much?”

Jungkook blinks at him.

Running is the only thing he has.

He’s not good at school. He"s a slow learner, and even a slower reader. He has a voice good enough for a drunk karaoke night but that’s where the line is drawn. He can’t dance like Hoseok does, his body refusing to move to the beat the right way.

His body only knows this: moving one leg after another, this scalding feeling in his lungs as he pushes forward, a second, another. His body only knows running.

“Yeah, sorry, a stupid question,” Namjoon sighs. “Give me a second.”

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook says before Namjoon has closed the door.

“Don’t be,” Namjoon sighs once again. “I have been slacking off on my workouts while I’m in Sokcho anyway. It’s good to have someone here to keep me in shape.”

It doesn’t make Jungkook feel less like a burden, but he’s thankful for Namjoon either way.

They don’t run for long this day: Namjoon looks like if he has to do another kilometre, whatever desire to live and do sports he has will drop down to zero, and Jungkook has some mercy on him.

“Did you know Jihye had a crush on one of us?” Jungkook asks when they’re walking back home. They stroll by the seawall, and the sea breeze keeps messing up his hair.

Namjoon hums.

“What?! Really?”

“I mean, it should’ve been expected. But I know because Yoongi-hyung told me about the bet you and Jihye have.”

Right. Because they were together before Yoongi showed up drunk at Jungkook’s door.

Jungkook wants to ask him if Yoongi talked more about him, if there was something along the lines that maybe Yoongi misses him, or hates him, or still loves him — anything, Jungkook would like to know anything. But Namjoon is a good guy, and he’s Yoongi’s friend first and foremost. Jungkook doubts he’ll expose his best friend like that.

“Do you know who that might be?” Jungkook asks instead. “I’m clueless, to be honest, and I’ve already lost my first try.” 

“I have my suspicion,” Namjoon smiles. The dimples show up on his cheeks, and as Jungkook looks at him, he remembers that he did have a small crush on him. It was short-lived, and only happened because for a moment, Jungkook had lost all hope for Yoongi. He was maybe sixteen. “I think it might be Taehyung.”

Taehyung?

The Kim Taehyung?

Kim-Taehyung-My-Name-Is?

“That doesn’t make sense,” Jungkook admits.

“It does,” Namjoon argues. “He’s a goofball, kind, and very gentlemanly.”

“Are we talking about two different Taehyungs?”

Namjoon laughs. “Trust me. None of us want to believe that our best friends are attractive to other people, but it is a harsh truth. This weirdo your life had made you love, can be loved by others, too.”

Jungkook stares at him. He can’t depict if Namjoon is talking about Taehyung or Yoongi now.

“Besides,” Namjoon adds. “She just…always looked his way, I don’t know. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.” 

That’s what Jungkook keeps thinking about. 

He keeps thinking about it in the car with Jihye and Youngjae as she giggles at something he said, and it brings Jungkook back to all the times Taehyung cracked a relatively poor joke at the school’s break and she laughed like it was the funniest thing she ever heard.

He keeps thinking about it when they’re in the wedding planner’s place, and Jungkook sees Jihye’s eyes light up at the beautiful, three tier cake prepared for her, the same way her eyes lit up all the times Jungkook and Taehyung would come to their beach gatherings.

Jungkook remembers now.

Of course it was Taehyung.

It must’ve hurt her so much to see Jimin and Taehyung together.

They’re in the middle of trying the cake samples — the most basic ones since they didn’t book an appointment, and the planner only lets them do it because this old lady apparently absolutely adores Jihye — pretending it’s Jungkook’s wedding soon, too, when Jungkook’s phone chimes in with a notification, then another.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “I’ll take it.”

Jihye is too preoccupied with spoon-feeding Youngjae to care. Jungkook takes a few steps back, fishing his phone out his pocket.

[Yoongi-hyung <3] [02:31 p.m.] Beach?

[Yoongi-hyung <3 ] [02:31 p.m.] I have something to tell you.

Jungkook stares at the message. At the sender. At the goddamn heart he’s forgotten to erase, or maybe refused to, and now it hurts, it just hurts and aches and longs so much.

He doesn’t want to delete it even now, despite the fact that he doesn’t have the right anymore for it.

It’s not like Yoongi would know, right?

[Me] [02:35 p.m.] i’m with jihye and youngjae rn !! in yangyang ! but we’re almost done !!

[Yoongi-hyung  <3] [02:36 p.m.] Oh. Srry for bothering.

Jungkook groans mentally.

Fuck him. Literally fuck him.

Ok, Jungkook can do it another way.

[Me] [02:38 p.m.] um

[Me] [02:38 p.m.] can u pick me up maybe? i’m a bit tired after a whole day with them and they’re still not done

And just as a precaution, if Yoongi won’t catch up on that either, Jungkook specifies.

[Me] [02:39 p.m.] i’d like to go home

[Yoongi-hyung  <3] [02:40 p.m.]  K. Send your location.

Jungkook smiles.

Works every time. It’s nice to know it didn’t change.

[Me] [02:40 p.m.] can we visit my fav cafe on our way back too? >___<

[Yoongi-hyung <3] [02:40 p.m.] Ofc.

“Who got you smiling like that?” Jihye asks from behind his shoulder, in consequence giving Jungkook a jumpscare and causing him to yelp and almost knock down one of the cakes.

“Careful there,” the planner says, like they’re some annoying kids she has to tell off — and maybe they are. Jungkook and Jihye has always been like that: whenever it’s just the two of them, it’s an unstoppable force of life.

Jungkook is surprised they didn’t burn down the kitchen yesterday.

They bow to the planner apologetically, exchanging small smiles of mischief between each other. “Sorry.” They’re not sorry at all.

Youngjae looks like he tries to hold his laughter in. He knows.

“So..?” Jihye elbows Jungkook just slightly.

Jungkook scratches his nape. “Uh, I think I have… I think I’ll have to leave you two.”

Jihye quirks her eyebrow at him like he hasn’t provided enough information for her to let him off the hook so easily. Like he hasn’t provided any information at all.

“Yoongi-hyung — ”

“Ah,” she has a shit-eating grin on her face now. “I see.”

Jungkook’s stomach drops. What does she see?

His phone once again rings with the notification, saving him from coming up with a reply.

“Sorry,” he murmurs again, turning away.

[Yoongi-hyung <3] [02:46 p.m.] GPS says I’ll be there in 20. I’ll try making it 15.

[Me] [02:46 p.m.] drive safely

[Yoongi-hyung <3] [02:46 p.m.] ❤️

[Yoongi-hyung <3] [02:47 p.m.] Fuck, sorry. A habit.

Damn habits, aren’t they. Always the ones to blame.

Jungkook pretends it doesn’t hurt, and slides his phone back into his pocket.

Jungkook apologises to the planner that he has to leave early. He can’t come up with a reason right on the spot, and just keeps blabbering something about a person waiting for him and pointing at the exit door.

“Oh, is it your fiancée?” the planner asks enthusiastically. She seems to have a liking in Jungkook despite his clumsy behaviour, and is now pushing a small box of cake in his hands. He’s too skinny, she says, and has a face too small.

He tries to explain to her that he’s a runner, not an idol, and that he physically cannot eat so much of sweets, but she only waves him off. It reminds Jungkook of his late Grandma, how she always did the same with him. It used to irritate him, now it only presses against his heart bittersweet in longing.

They all come outside to bid their goodbyes. According to Yoonig’s text, he should be here already.

A car is parked next to Youngjae’s. At the sight of Jungkook, the driver’s door opens, and Yoongi climbs out. He’s elegant, like he’s always been, in a nonchalant lazy way only Yoongi can be, as he makes his way around the car.

“Oh, it’s your fiancé,” the planner says. Her voice doesn’t lose any enthusiasm, and Jungkook thinks that carrying love for boys has become almost a non-existent weight on his shoulders these days.

It is such a relief.

It is not a relief that Yoongi is actually not his anything.

(It’s a lie: Yoongi is Jungkook’s best friend’s older brother. Yoongi is Jungkook"s childhood friend. Yoongi is Jungkook’s constant in life. Yoongi is Jungkook’s first memory, and nothing can change that.)

Yoongi waves his hand. He does it lazily, and it’s more like he just raises his arm without any wave.

Jungkook waves back.

“Hyung is cool,” Youngjae whistles.

“He is,” Jungkook sighs. He is so cool it’s annoying. So handsome it’s revolting.  “Bye, guys. Have a safe trip back home.”

“You have a safe trip back home,” Jihye says, and whatever she’s implying, Jungkook doesn’t like it.

He makes his escape to Yoongi’s car.

“Hey,” Yoongi says, voice warm. He keeps staring at Youngjae and Jihye, and then a smirk forms on his face. “Had fun?”

Jungkook looks behind himself to see what got Yoongi’s attention.

Oh God, they’re making kissy faces now. The planner woman next to them is laughing quietly, clapping her hands.

Right. Because Jungkook never told her that he and Yoongi are not engaged.

“Just let’s fucking go,” Jungkook grits. He pushes the door to the passenger"s seat open. “Don’t pay attention to them.”

He catches Yoongi laughing before he bangs the door shut, and he watches Yoongi’s smile settling in the corner of his lips as he walks around the car and gets inside.

He starts the engine.

Jungkook opens his mouth. “The café is at—“

“I remember.”

That’s the problem, isn’t it.

Yoongi remembers Jungkook’s favourite café in Yangyang. Jungkook remembers how it felt to make out in the haunted house, Jungkook on the kitchen counter, his safe space, Yoongi between his legs, when Taehyung’s mom went to the market and they had some time alone.

Yoongi remembers that Jungkook hates when people get drunk out of their mind because it reminds him of his father. Jungkook remembers how it felt to hear Yoongi say ‘I love you’ for the first time, the way Jungkook asked him to say it again, again, and again after that. 

Yoongi remembers Jungkook had a crush on Namjoon. Jungkook remembers how it felt to share their first kiss, it happened at night at the playground on top of the hill, both of them were shy as if they were teens and not in their twenties; Yoongi had to stand up on his tiptoes and Jungkook had to wrap his arms around Yoongi’s waist and tug him in.

“I ordered you an iced Americano, is that okay?” Yoongi says as he sits down at the table of the café. The same table they were sitting at three summers ago. Jungkook held Yoongi’s hand and talked about his roommates back in the Training Centre, and Yoongi listened to him and drew all the little circles on Jungkook’s inner palm.

“Yes,” Jungkook says quietly, dryly, because he doesn’t trust himself not to cry if he lets any emotion show in his voice. He’s been fine all this time, but right now, sitting here on the opposite side of Yoongi is really hitting.

Yoongi remembers Jungkook’s coffee order. Jungkook remembers how it feels to love Yoongi through all the stages of his life: the kid who scoffs at Jungkook staring at him, the pre-teen who is too cool for Jungkook to be hanging out with him and yet he still does it without any second thought, the teen who loves Jungkook as much as he loves his little brother, the guy in his twenties who is just trying to figure things out, college and writing and normal job and military service, the man who travels the world and who wants yet can’t be with Jungkook.

The problem is that Yoongi is under Jungkook’s skin, and Jungkook seems to make a home out of Yoongi’s bones, too.

Jungkook knows how he and Yoongi come together: both of them share the weight of lonely professions. Nobody can understand a writer better than a runner.

Jungkook also knows why he and Yoongi can’t be together: both of them share dreams that are like parallel lines that will never meet. One is tied to his country and Seoul and the Training Centre, and the other is a spirit so free it can barely find time to come back to his hometown on vacation.

Yoongi’s hand is sprawled on the table. He keeps the lazy rhythm, his fingers tapping on the surface.

Jungkook thinks it could be so easy — to reach out and graze his knuckles. He wants to play with his hand, wants to lace their fingers, wants to move his foot so it’d stand right next to Yoongi’s. He just wants to touch, and he wants to touch badly. He wants to be allowed to touch Yoongi again.

Jungkook thinks it’s easy, to reach out. He thinks that maybe they’re making a mistake right now, keeping this polite distance between them. Maybe they’re losing days of closure; maybe they should’ve just gone all out and exploded the moment they saw each other and then left Sokcho as if nothing had happened.

They’ve done it before, a year and a half ago, in Jakarta. Jungkook was there to take part in Asian Games and Yoongi was there to write an article. He came to cheer on Jungkook, because that’s just what he always does. Whatever it is, he supports Jungkook wholeheartedly, without allowing any doubt.

They saw each other after Jungkook had lost the relay, but Jungkook thinks it doesn’t matter. He’d kiss Yoongi one way or another: out of the euphoria of winning or despair of losing. He likes to believe that Yoongi’d take him to the hotel room one way or another, too: whether it’s to congratulate him or console him.

It was just unbearingly difficult to exist without Yoongi back then, that’s why.

 It’s always been this way, when Yoongi left for Seoul to college and Jungkook stayed in Sokcho to finish high school; and it still is. The Jakarta incident only made it worse. The breakup was already bad enough for Jungkook: he couldn’t sleep without Yoongi for the better half of the year, couldn’t eat cold noodles without bursting into tears because Yoongi loves all dishes that include cold noodles; he couldn’t let others touch him, couldn’t breathe.

It’s for the best, Jungkook reminds himself, that they’re keeping this polite distance. It’ll hurt less this way on Sunday.

But Yoongi’s hand. Jungkook used to hold this hand all the time. There’s a safe space, somewhere between these fingers.

Jungkook looks and looks and looks at Yoongi’s hand.

Then, Yoongi looks behind his shoulder, and draws his hand away to push on his knees. “Coffee’s ready. Be right back.”

That’s it. Jungkook curls his hand into a fist on his knee underneath the table. He can do this. It’s Friday already. The wedding is tomorrow. He leaves on Sunday evening.

(He doesn’t want to leave, he wants to stay, right where Yoongi and the rest of the Eight are—)

Yoongi places two drinks on the table. Both of them are iced Americano, but Jungkook notices that one cup has a ‘DECAF’ checked on.

“What did you want to tell me?” Jungkook asks just to get it over with. He thinks his heart is going to explode right in this café.

Yoongi gawks at him like he doesn’t understand.

“You texted me saying you had something to tell me,” Jungkook reminds. He plays with the straw on his cup. Up and down, up and down, the annoying squeak. “That’s why we met up in the first place.” 

“Ah,” Yoongi says. He scratches the back of his neck almost bashfully. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m sorry for wasting your time.” He does sound sorry. Incredibly so.

Jungkook wants to tell him that it’s never a waste of time to him if it means spending it with Yoongi, but he’s sure it’ll just make things more complicated.

“Would you like to have your coffee here, or do you want to go home?” Yoongi asks.

Easy question. Jungkook will always want one thing.

“I wanna go home,” Jungkook rasps. “I wanna go home, hyung.”

“Okay,” Yoongi replies softly. Has his hand just jerked toward Jungkook like he meant to reach out and help Jungkook stand up, or is it just Jungkook’s imagination? “Ok, let’s go, then.”

They drive back to Sokcho in silence, an endless ocean in Jungkook’s window.

 It’s weird, being together like this, one on one, like it’s something for them to be ashamed of, something to hide. At the same time, it feels right. There’s nowhere else Jungkook would love to be more right now than here.

“Are you excited about tomorrow?” Yoongi asks eventually, when he seems to grow sick of silence.

“Did you tell Namjoon about Jihye?” Jungkook blurts back instead of an answer. He can’t talk about the wedding, not after pretending to be engaged today. And the planner lady didn’t even doubt Jungkook’s words. She immediately recognised Yoongi as Jungkook’s fiancé.

Yoongi looks embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to. I was drunk.” He cringes at his words right after that.

He knows Jungkook hates the ‘I was drunk’ excuse.

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi says quietly.

Jungkook sighs and shakes his head. “Do you know that Namjoon thinks Jihye had a crush on Taehyung?”

Yoongi hums. “Yeah, he told me.”

“You don’t sound like you agree with him.”

“It’s because I don’t.”

It catches Jungkook’s interest. He sits upright, and turns to his left more, to be able to look at Yoongi more comfortably.

“Really?”

Yoongi hums once again. It’s a warm, gooey sound that settles in Jungkook’s stomach.

“Who is it, then?” Jungkook perks up. “Jimin? No, Jimin doesn’t sit right with me at all… Seokjin? Seokjin is the oldest, maybe she liked that about him— Oh, wait.”

Yoongi smiles.

“Do you think it’s you? You think she had a crush on you?”

“Why do I hear a surprised tone in your voice?” Yoongi’s grin is enormous now. “Do you think I’m that unlikeable? Nobody can have a crush on me?”

He’s avoiding the fact that he’s perfectly aware of: Jungkook crushed on him for his entire life. They both know that Yoongi is likeable just fine.

Jungkook turns away. “You’re insufferable. I pity people who have ever liked you,” he mumbles, hoping this lump of embarrassment stuck in his throat isn’t too obvious.

Yoongi shakes his head. “You’re hopeless.”

They leave the car at the renting place, and take a walk back home. Their fingers keep brushing, and Jungkook thinks it’s annoying, this gravity their bodies still have.

They go up the hill. Jungkook notices that Jihye is already back home, with Youngjae’s car parked next to their gate. After today, Jungkook decides that he really is a good one. Jungkook kind of likes him, even.

He thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to become a Nine. Everything ends eventually, but there’s always a new chapter waiting to start around the corner.

Some things do change. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Having reached their houses, Yoongi and Jungkook halt in the middle of the road. It should be easy, to part ways. One goes back to the haunted house, the other goes back home.

But they only keep looking at each other, as if waiting who’s going to walk away first.

Jungkook looks at Yoongi and he can’t stop thinking that he still loves him so much, maybe even more than he ever did.

It just seems to bring out all the feelings, this week.

“Head inside,” Yoongi says. It warms Jungkook from the inside. This phrase is so familiar, it’s engraved in his heart. But —

“You first,” Jungkook says softly. “I wanna watch you go home this time.”

It’s against the rules. This is not how it goes. It’s Yoongi who watches Jungkook head back, not Jungkook. That’s how it’s been for his whole life.

Yoongi nods. “Alright.” He seems to understand something about Jungkook’s actions that Jungkook himself is unable to understand yet.

He has barely taken a step or two toward his gates when Jungkook speaks up again.

“Hyungnim,” he calls out.

Yoongi turns to him in an instant. “Yes?”

“The wedding,” Jungkook says. He’s afraid to give this word a possessive adjective, an adjective like your. Like our. He licks over his mouth. Yoongi keeps looking at him softly and waiting for him patiently. It gives strength to push out, “The wedding… When would you have it? Like, which season?”

“Autumn,” Yoongi says, no second thought. “Of course autumn.”

Fuck.

“Why?”

Yoongi smiles. It’s sad. “Your favourite season, ‘s all.”

“—Yoongi?” Jungkook asks, breathless.

“Yoongi’s not here, my friend,” Jihye says, like it’s nothing unusual for Jungkook to show up at her doorstep only to ask where Yoongi is.

Now that Jungkook thinks about it, it really isn’t. All the times he ran around all of his friends’ houses to find out where Yoongi was, all the times he banged on the doors and asked for one name only. It really is a surprise none of the Eight know.

But this time it’s different.

“Yoongi,” Jungkook tries once again. “Yoongi was your crush, wasn’t he?”

This thought has been stuck in his head for the entire evening now. Ever since Yoongi smiled and shrugged nonchalantly, as if it wasn’t a big deal at all, your favourite season, ‘s all; Jungkook thought that if any of the Eight was a crush material, it had always been Yoongi.

He’s a love material. He is perfect for big feelings. If there’s someone to give your heart to, it’s Yoongi.

Jihye breathes out. It comes out both softly and tiredly. “Would you like some tea, Jungkook-ah?”

“Actually, a glass of water would be nice.”

They go to the kitchen. Jihye’s parents are in the living room, Jungkook can hear the TV working. It’s a recap of one of the shows he’s watching these days, so he’s not this much interested in that. As Jihye makes the tea, she tells Jungkook that Youngjae is at his parents’ house, mentally preparing for tomorrow, and Hoseok is in his room, probably freaking out that she’s marrying Youngjae tomorrow.

By the time she sits at the table, Jungkook has convinced himself a thousand of times that it is Yoongi so she’s acting cryptic, and another thousand of times he has scratched all of it and convinced himself that it is not, in fact, Yoongi, so she’s cryptic, the same way she was with Namjoon.

Jihye adds sugar to her cup, and slowly stirs it inside. Jungkook thinks he’s about to go crazy.

“Ok, just tell me — it’s not… it’s not Yoongi, is it?”

Jihye sips at her tea.

“C’mon,” Jungkook whines. “Tell me!”

“No, it’s not.” She hides her smile behind the tea cup.

Jungkook sighs exasperatedly. “Alright. I still have one try, right?”

“Right.”

“I didn’t want to say it, but… is it Taehyung?”

Jihye blinks at him.

Jungkook thinks, Fucking bingo.

And then Jihye bursts out laughing. She laughs so much the tea comes out of her nostrils and she starts coughing. It is such a hilarious sight that Jungkook is lost in-between laughing himself and actually helping her out by providing the tissues.

Jihye hiccups. “T-t-taehyung?”

“Yah,” Jungkook grumbles. “He’s not that bad of a choice. He’s a goofball, kind, and very gentlemanly.”

“He’s not bad of a choice at all,” Jihye reassures him, the hint of the laughter still stuck in her throat. “He was just… absolutely smitten with Jimin. No one else ever stood a chance.”

“You’re right,” Jungkook agrees. “Who is it, then? Jimin? But Jimin was smitten with Taehyung, too… Seokjin—“

“Jungkook, it was you. I loved you.”

This can’t be right.

Jungkook in his teenage years is just a guy obsessed with running and his best friend’s older brother. Jungkook in his teenage years only gains more things to carry: divorce, absence of the father and then a question if he really was here in the first place, black mourning clothes on his shoulders. The shouting resonating in his eardrums as he runs in the morning: each step is another accusation, each kilometre is a drunken threat that may turn true or not.

There’s nothing to love about him. Jungkook’s broken.

“You said crush, not love,” is what Jungkook decides to cling on. He says it quietly.

“Kook,” Jihye says. “Let’s just not.”

“But — ”

“I’m getting married tomorrow,” Jihye cuts him off. “And you’re in love with Yoongi. Kinda always been. That’s why you’ve never noticed. You only looked at him. You still do.”

She doesn’t sound bitter about it. She’s just stating the facts.

The sun goes up in the east and goes down in the west. Jungkook is in love with Yoongi, has always been.

These are things that you don’t even have to prove; they just exist and you let them.

“You know what’s the best part?” Jihye asks. She wraps her hands around Jungkook’s palm — she’s smaller, she’s his age, she’s so much bigger of a person than him. “He only looked at you, too.”

“That’s — ”

“C’mon, don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

Jungkook’s lips make a thin line.

The thing is, it’s not that he didn’t know. He just wasn’t entirely sure.

“Oh, remember when you got your first boyfriend, and Yoongi was so mortified at the mere idea of it that he made sure to scare him off?”

It wasn’t like that.

Yoongi was just…a bit protective over Jungkook. Jungkook was nineteen when he got his first boyfriend. It only made sense that when Yoongi came back from college for a break and learned the exciting big news (Taehyung’s words), he raised his eyebrow and said gravelly, ‘Oh, really?’.

And he didn’t scare Jungkook’s boyfriend off.

“He told him that he was going to cut his balls off if he ever dares to raise his voice at you.”

Okay, Yoongi did scare him off, but that’s just what older brothers do.

“Or,” Jihye continues to blabber, “remember that one time you said you were craving Milkis soda, and back then, they only ever sold it at that store on the other side of Sokcho? You said you were too lazy to go there, but you wanted the soda so badly Yoongi had to run over there to—”

Yoongi didn’t run. He took a bus.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jihye says, even though so far, Jungkook hasn’t muttered a single word, “remember when on your 20th birthday he lied about getting his flight delayed because he just wanted to see you so badly — ”

“He didn’t lie,” Jungkook croaks. “It can’t be — ”

Jihye raises her eyebrows, and it’s the only gesture Jungkook needs to clasp his mouth shut.

Maybe Yoongi did look at him. From time to time. Not always. Enough times for Jungkook to hope for something once he’s older and knows what commitment means.

The only time Yoongi looked at him properly was three summers ago. His haze lingered for a second too long, and now he seems unable to take his eyes off Jungkook.

“Now can you please tell me what happened between you two? You’re acting extremely weird with one another,” Jihye says.

Jungkook doesn’t want to talk about it, but he’s tired of hiding it like a secret he’s supposed to be ashamed of, too. Loving Yoongi is not wrong. It’s never been.

Jungkook sighs. “It’s a long story.”

Jihye smiles. “We have all night before I have to get up and prepare for the wedding.”

So he tells her.

THREE SUMMERS AGO

The Eight break up, Jungkook believes, when he graduates high school.

After his graduation, he is immediately transferred to the Training Centre. Jihye leaves with him, on the same bus, waving at their mothers excitedly, having been accepted into SNU’S med school.

From then on, Sokcho is empty.

By that time, each one of the Eight is scattered all over the country, later all over the world, and it just…it takes time, to travel back home. It’s hard.

It’s even harder for everyone’s schedule to collide perfectly so each of them is there at the same time.

More often than not, it’s just the two or three of them. Four on the lucky occasion, and sometimes five on the big holidays. The last time they meet up as the Eight is when Jungkook turns twenty — somehow, everyone accidentally ends up in Sokcho on his birthday.

Taehyung and Jimin get late-notice invitation for Seoul Fashion Week, fly to South Korea in a rush, and think, Why don’t we go to Sokcho on Kook’s birthday while we’re here?  Hoseok has a dance class in Yangyang the next day, and following Taehyung and Jimin’s logic, he comes to Sokcho on Jungkook’s birthday, too. Namjoon has been in Sokcho for all August, getting rest before having to go back to school abroad. Yoongi shrugs and says that he has been having his connection flight in Incheon delayed over and over for several days, so he got tired of that and how he’s here.

Seokjin is the only one who has come to Sokcho with intention to congratulate his dongsaeng. And Jihye…

Jihye is just always here these days —  Jungkook learns through his mom that she came back to Sokcho not even two months later after she had enrolled to the med school, and to this day, they don’t know the reason.

It’s summer 2019 when Jungkook and Yoongi are the only ones in Sokcho. Even Jihye isn’t here: she finally took a vacation and left for whatever city Hoseok was at back then.

Jungkook has had his knee injured in the last competition, so the Training Centre doctors send him back home, to get a lot of rest, eat Mom’s food, and enjoy his summer off. Yoongi doesn’t tell him why he has three months off, and Jungkook doesn’t ask, only accepts.

This summer is hot and humid, sweaty, full of yellow spots under the armpits on their white t-shirts, and salty of the sea sticking to their skin. They’re a bit awkward with each other at first: Jungkook and Yoongi have never really gotten time to be alone, just the two of them. For their whole life, there always was at least one Kim Taehyung to accompany them.

They’re so awkward with each other that Jungkook’s mom has to physically kick him out of the house to go play with Yoongi, as if they’re kids who need a reminder to spend the summer outside with friends.

Yoongi starts running with Jungkook in the morning. Jungkook starts spending hot afternoons in the gloom of Yoongi’s room as Yoongi writes. Click-click-click for the whole day as Jungkook is sprawled on Yoongi’s bed, surfing the phone, napping, watching TV shows on his iPad.

Whenever Yoongi takes a break, he always falls down wearily and overly dramatically next to Jungkook, and whines that he hates writing and especially his writing. Jungkook soon learns that he doesn’t need Jungkook’s reassurances that Yoongi’s writing is the best thing Jungkook has ever read.

Yoongi only needs a shyly reached out earphone, and an episode or two to get distracted from his writing. Sometimes an episode or two turn into Yoongi napping against Jungkook’s side, puffing in his sleep quietly, his nose buried somewhere in Jungkook’s side.

Jungkook always falls asleep next to him, too. They wake up to the plates of fruit Taehyung’s mom leaves for them on Yoongi’s desk.

They usually get dinner in Auntie’s restaurant or Seokjin’s parents’ place, mostly because Jungkook enjoys walking home by the seawall with Yoongi, the sunset behind their backs, everything drowning in red and orange.

When Jungkook asks him what he’s writing about all days long, Yoongi shrugs. “Silly stuff.”

“Like?”

“I write about Sokcho, life here.”

“It’s not silly,” Jungkook says, and Yoongi just smiles at him, this sad pull of the corners of his lips, and they don’t really talk for the rest of their walk.

They just move their feet as the sun sets over the sea’s horizon, and they just exist around each other, and at the time, it feels like enough.

He and Yoongi go to the beach together. They visit all the sightseeing spots and pretend to be tourists: Jungkook always points at the nonexistent stuff, and Yoongi gasps exasperatedly, clicking the push button on his camera, and then they laugh so much the real tourists send them weird glances. They go to Yangyang. They accidentally stumble across the cafe that will later become Jungkook’s favourite one. They even go to Seoul once because Jungkook needs to have his knee checked by the doctors and Yoongi suggests he gives Jungkook a ride.

They talk about their dreams and fears, first shyly, like a joke in passing, then a bit surprised when they found a common ground, and then they talk open and unashamed. They share the thoughts they’ve hidden from other people all this time as they sit on Jungkook’s porch late at night and stargaze: the way writing for Yoongi is the only thing that keeps him sane sometimes, the way running for Jungkook is the only way for him to keep his father out of his thoughts; I want to win a gold medal at the Olympics and I want my novel to be the most well-selling book in history.

It’s the end of June when Jungkook finds himself thinking, Oh, I’m in too deep.

All throughout his life, his love for Yoongi has always been simmering somewhere in the back of Jungkook’s mind. Jungkook even hoped he outgrew his phase of crushing on his best friend’s older brother when he joined the Training Centre and got so busy with his new friends that he almost lost touch with everyone else (except Taehyung, because Taehyung is never going away, remember?).

But spending time alone with Yoongi has only shown Jungkook how much he missed this, how much he missed him, how much deeper his love for Yoongi can get. That it’s not a phase of life that has to be outgrown; it’s the whole life story that needs to be changed in order to uproot these feelings.

If only Yoongi wasn’t Jungkook’s first memory. If only he hadn’t left himself in all the scars Jungkook has on his face. If only he didn’t guide Jungkook inside the haunted house, away from the shouting, a pied piper to the broken boy.

Once deep into summer, they foolishly decide to go on a hike to Ulsanbawi on a weekend — to be fair, for them all days have been flowing into one never-ending Friday evening — and are met with the flow of people all over the trail. Some go down, some only start to go up.

Jungkook’s not good with crowds as big as that one. For a moment, he loses Yoongi, who’s slower at hiking, behind his back, and has to stand in the bulldozing stream of people, waiting for Yoongi.

He shows up with a disgruntled face, seemingly displeased to have gotten Jungkook out of his sight, too, even if it was only for a second. “It’s not too late to go home.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jungkook scoffs. “Why would we come all the way to Seoraksan to just leave the moment we got here?”

Yoongi opens his mouth, ready to argue. He’s going to say all the rational things, like that it’s not a big deal, that they can come back here on Monday, that he doesn’t mind driving back if it means not dealing with the crowd.

Jungkook is not going to have any of his rational thoughts. He’s tired. He has had enough.

He grabs Yoongi’s hand and tugs him forward. It shuts Yoongi up.

“Don’t get lost,” Jungkook says sternly, though maybe what he really means is, Don’t lose me. Don’t let me get lost.

“I won’t,” Yoongi says.

Jungkook feels his hand relaxing in Jungkook’s hold. He thinks that maybe Yoongi is about to let go, but all Yoongi does is link their hands together more comfortably.

They stay like this until they’ve come up and back down, to the car. Jungkook’s hand burns. He thinks Yoongi’s does, too; the way he keeps clenching it and unclenching it as he drives.

It starts with holding hands, and it morphs into an itching want to be closer.

Everything is an excuse to touch now, like testing the waters.

They sit so their thighs touch in the Auntie’s restaurant. They walk home so close next to each other their fingers brush. Yoongi’s palm grazes Jungkook’s back when they’re at the market to buy squid at the request of Jungkook’s mom. Jungkook presses himself against Yoongi’s frame when they nap at noon, buries his cold nose in Yoongi’s neck and hugs him, instead of leaving him alone to a blanket.

Their first kiss happens at night, with a sun long gone. They’re coming back home from the cinema: Yoongi let Jungkook choose the movie. It was just some action-filled film, but now Jungkook can’t seem to shut up about it for the whole walk home. Yoongi is quiet, which is a bit weird, like he’s not fully here.

“Jungkook-ah,” Yoongi interrupts him at some point, stalling them both. They’re at the playground, their houses are only some steps away down the hill. “Can hyung check something?”

Jungkook frowns. “Yes..?”

Yoongi takes one big step toward Jungkook. He doesn’t let the time go to waste, like any second and his courage will vanish. He stands on his tiptoes, fingers unsurely curled around Jungkook’s jean jacket, and presses their mouths together.

Jungkook wraps his arms around Yoongi’s frame and tugs him closer.

Yoongi’s mouth warm and soft on the chilly night.

Yoongi kisses him again at Jungkook’s gate, before parting them with a soft click, and tells Jungkook to head inside. Jungkook wants to ask him what all of this means, but Yoongi seems so out of it, as if shocked with himself, that Jungkook lets him be.

He knows that Yoongi would never do anything that would harm Jungkook. He trusts him. That’s why he only brings it up some days later, giving them both time to adjust and think it over.

“Why did you kiss me?” Jungkook asks when they’re going home from their morning jog. It’s a question out of the blue, said in one-go, because if not like this, if not bluntly and with a heart hammering as if it will give up any time soon, then never.

“It’s just…what felt right to do,” Yoongi replies reluctantly, his eyes focused on his sneakers, on his feet moving.

It’s not the answer Jungkook wanted to hear. But he can live with it. His love for Yoongi isn’t based on having his feelings reciprocated. It just exists and you let it, like any other thing that’s not under your control.

“We can pretend it never happened,” Jungkook says softly. “If it’ll be easier for you.”

“This… doesn’t feel right to do.”

It actually amuses Jungkook. The corners of his mouth quirk up. He stops. “What feels right to do, then, Yoongi-ssi?”

He watches Yoongi swallow a lump in his throat. “If you... If you want to, we can try.”

“Try—what?”

“You know.” Yoongi scratches behind his nape.

“I know. I want you to say it.”

Yoongi’s lips make a thin line. “Dating,” he huffs dryly. “We can try going out.”

“Isn’t what we’ve been doing all this summer, though?” Jungkook teases jokingly only to realise, as Yoongi’s eyes widen, reflecting his, that he’s right.

That’s what they’ve been doing.

Now, when Yoongi lies down next to Jungkook in his writing breaks to watch an episode or two with him, Jungkook holds his breath and anxiously counts the minutes before it feels more appropriate, what he does next.

It first happens at the end of the episode, and then Jungkook starts doing it at the commercial breaks: he kisses Yoongi shyly. It’s easy with Yoongi’s face so close next to him. More often than not, he just presses their mouths together, until Yoongi puts a hand at the back of his neck, as if giving permission, and they kiss deeper.

“Is that okay?” Yoongi asks breathlessly each damn time.

“Yeah,” Jungkook whispers, rolling them over. “More. Let’s kiss some more.”

It’s like they can’t get enough of each other. Like no matter what they do, it’s still going to be too little.

Yoongi catches up quickly. Or maybe he’s always known. Maybe he’s always wanted to ask this question, but never had the right before this summer.

“Is that why —“ Yoongi smirks, kissing Jungkook down the neck. “Is that why you never let hyung date in high school? Wanted hyung to pay attention only to you? Wanted him to kiss you, not them?”

Jungkook squeezes his eyes, pants, tugs on Yoongi’s wrists. “No — no — no.” Yoongi was never his to begin with, he had no right. But his brain still whispers, Yes yes yes, never wanted to share you—

“Is that weird?” Jungkook asks at the end of July. They’re at his gate already, back from Seokjin"s parents’ restaurant. Both of them are a bit tipsy with the glass of beer shared, stomachs full with ganjang-gejang, the raw crab marinated in soy sauce.

“Is what weird?”

Jungkook looks down at their linked hands.

Yoongi stares at him. “Do you want to stop?”

“No,” Jungkook says. “No, that’s not what I mean. I’m just asking if this is weird for you.”

Yoongi looks at him, studies each line and crease of his face. As though something has clicked inside of him, he leans in, his breath brushing over Jungkook’s skin. His breath is fishy and salty of soy sauce. Jungkook thinks he loves Yoongi regardless, mint of toothpaste or raw of food; it doesn’t matter. Jungkook’s breath isn’t any better anyway.

Yoongi kisses his cheek scar. “Sorry for that.” Then, he kisses the scar on his right eyebrow. “And for that.” He kisses Jungkook just below his bottom lip, another scar that has never fully healed, a white trace of hurt. “For that, as well.”

“You’ve left a lot of yourself on me,” Jungkook says. He closes his eyes, lets Yoongi ghost his mouth over his acne scars, all the imperfections.

“I have,” Yoongi agrees. “We’ve known each other for a long time. It’s not weird.”

Jungkook starts staying over in the haunted house, just like he did in the childhood, but this time it’s not because he’s afraid to go home, but because he doesn’t want to leave.

They don’t do anything they wouldn’t do when he stays. Yoongi writes better at night. Jungkook prefers to sleep at night.

It’s a bit impossible with Yoongi’s click-click-click, so Jungkook often whines for Yoongi to come to bed. Yoongi doesn’t listen to him, bites him to go home if he’s going to distract him from writing.

But when Yoongi does listen, it usually ends up with him first kissing Jungkook goodnight, and then his hand travelling down Jungkook’s chest and lower. It’s not that Jungkook is opposed to that, they’ve been very slow before getting to the bedroom part, maybe slower than Jungkook would like, but — 

“Hyung,” Jungkook gasps. “Your mother — ”

“—is upstairs,” Yoongi whispers into his mouth. “And you’ll be quiet, won’t you?”

Jungkook tries his best but he’s simply not the quiet type. He hisses into Yoongi’s mouth and whimpers into his neck and bites and whines into his collarbone. Yoongi whispers that Jungkook is perfect, perfect for him, the same way he shared his dreams and fears with him: at first coyly, more of a praise to get Jungkook worked up; then with a bad-hidden surprise, like he never expected for Jungkook to actually be so compatible to him, in what they like and in a way their bodies meet each other and how their kissing has always felt right and never awkward; and then he whispers it like he means it, and Jungkook knows that he does.

It’s not about sex, or kissing, or anything else. It’s the way their height difference is Jungkook’s chin against Yoongi’s top of the head, as if made for each other; it’s in all the little things like when Yoongi buys Jungkook a corn ice cream every time he goes out to the supermarket to grab more snacks for himself; and it’s the way none of neither Jungkook’s nor Yoongi’s partners had ever come close to this kind of connection they share.

It goes deep down the memories. Deep down the hill, from the playground to their houses to the beach.

“I’m going to say a terrible thing,” Yoongi announces mid-August. They’re at the abandoned beach, and Jungkook is wet and a bit cold from today’s swimming. He and Yoongi sit next to each other, thighs pressed together, and he’s shivering even wrapped up in the towel.

“W-what i-is it?” Jungkook asks, teeth clamming, and Yoongi laughs and rubs his shoulder sympathetically like he wants to keep Jungkook warm — which he probably does.

“I think I’m in love with you, Jeon Jungkook,” Yoongi says casually. He doesn’t meet Jungkook’s gaze, instead looking somewhere in front of him, as if trying to find something in the ocean. “I think I can love you, too. Not that I didn’t love you before — but. You know, like — ”

“I get it,” Jungkook interrupts him, because damn writers and their need to use as many words as they can in their speech — “I love you too.”

Yoongi turns his head around from the ocean and lights up at Jungkook. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook smiles, and realises he’s not cold anymore. “Really.”

He’s never been kissed the way Yoongi kisses him then. It’s just the press of his mouth against Jungkook’s, and it shouldn’t feel as euphoric as it does, but it is, it is everything Jungkook has ever wanted, so he pushes himself a little over Yoongi, finds his jaw with his wet soggy hands and deepens the kiss, and it’s love, of course it’s love.

“Say it again,” Jungkook says.

“What? ‘I love you’?” Yoongi laughs in-between the kisses. It’s hard to kiss him like this, with all of his smiling. It doesn’t stop Jungkook.

“Again.”

“I love you.”

Jungkook presses him into the warm sand. In this world, it’s just them. “Again.”

“I — love — you.”

“Again, again, say it again.”

—

“Okay,” Jihye says, a horror (or disgust) all over her face. “Okay, I got it. You two are tremendously in love, good for you. What’s wrong now?”

“We broke up like, ten days after that.”

Jihye’s smile fades off. “Why?”

“Our dreams are not meant to be with each other,” Jungkook says. “He has to travel in order to write for the magazine. And I can’t do that. I’m tied down to Seoul.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jihye scoffs. “Long-distance exists.”

“I can’t do long-distance.” The last time he said this phrase, he yelled it into Yoongi’s face, and now he’s crying. “Yoongi said that we should try it, because he had — he had to go to Sydney, and I didn’t… I didn’t want him to go but I also didn’t want to be the reason for him to hold back. And he didn’t want me to stop running, either, because — ”

“Because running is the only thing you have.”

No, Jungkook wants to tell her, because running is the only thing that doesn’t suffocate me. Because otherwise, I feel trapped in my father’s words.

He’s not ready to talk about that. Only Yoongi knows. Only Yoongi can understand.

“So we,” Jungkook sniffles, “we broke up, and I thought that now that I had him at least for one summer my feelings are going to subside, but — ” He smiles bitterly, as if to say, What an idiot, am I? “It all just grew even bigger.”

He’s talking incoherently, all over the place. He’s not sure if Jihye even understands half of what he’s telling her. He thinks his chest is going to blow up, how hard he cries.

God, it just sounds ridiculous now, all of their excuses.

Eventually, after calming him down, Jihye makes him go home. Her last words are, “Idiots. Giving up each other because of that? Are you fucking crazy? Fucking go home and think things over.”

—

I was taught how to love here, in Sokcho.

— Min Yoongi, Time & Travel Magazine. Cr. for translation: Lee Nina.

—

• SATURDAY

The wedding morning is hectic, but so is the ceremony itself.

It’s mostly hectic because the six of them are seated in the front row, and still fight to have a better look at Jihye. The ceremony has just started. The first tunes of Canon in D play.

Youngjae comes out first. The crowd, which feels like the whole Sokcho, cheers him on, the wave of excitement going over the heads. Youngjae looks happy. Content.

Canon in D gains momentum.

“Okay, okay, here she comes!” Jimin exclaims quietly, and —

Here she is.

Hoseok is walking her down the aisle.

Jihye is on good terms with her stepfather. He’s a nice man. Her mom remarried quite quickly after the father of the family had passed away, but it’d never really been a problem. Jihye couldn’t forgive her mother for a couple of years, but eventually outgrew it and warmed up to the man.

Jungkook still thinks it was the right choice to let Hoseok do it. The siblings have always been close to each other — Jungkook can’t remember a time he saw them separated until Hoseok grew up and went to Seoul to achieve his dancing school dream.

“I think I’m about to cry,” Namjoon announces suddenly.

“Me too,” five voices say in unison, and Jungkook is almost surprised he’s one of them. He hasn’t even noticed, but he is tearing up. 

“Get a grip, folks,” Seokjin tuts, though when Jungkook glances at him, he’s the most affected one, noticeably so, his face all red.

Jungkook can’t blame him. He’s a mess himself.

Is it really Jihye, the local hurricane of a girl, or is it some beautiful woman Jungkook can’t even recognise now?

She’s glowing as Hoseok passes her to Youngjae.

Jungkook doesn’t know if he’s crying because he’s happy for her or because he’s just terribly, tremendously, staggeringly jealous.

He was supposed to get married first. He’s loved one person for his whole life. This person loves him back; this person has spent their whole life around Jungkook, this person wants to marry in autumn because it’s Jungkook’s favourite season, because this person has always gone all ways out to keep Jungkook happy.

This is just unfair. 

Jungkook feels a tissue pushed into his hand, and he accepts it gratefully. Yoongi sends him a soft smile and grazes his shoulder ever so slightly.

Jungkook can’t look away from him.

It’s been so hard to look at Yoongi today. Firstly, he’s in a suit that fits him perfectly, the white expensive shirt with a collar widespread. Secondly, Jihye’s words keep resonating in Jungkook’s head, and even a glance at Yoongi makes Jungkook think, How could I ever let you go?

Running?

How stupid.

He won’t be running forever. Life in sport is short. He’ll be kicked out the team by the young blood soon. And if there’s anywhere Jungkook wants to be when he’s kicked out of sport, it’s next to Yoongi.

Jungkook is staring at him, and Yoongi is now staring back. They blink at each other, as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist, as if Canon in D is not on its faltering note, about to end.

All of a sudden, Yoongi leans in, his breath ticklish on the skin behind Jungkook’s ear, popping the bubble of their world open. “Yah. Jungjoo. Quit staring,” he whispers. “You should be looking in another direction.”

It’s been a while since Yoongi called him that. It’s not annoying anymore, somehow. Just incredibly warm, another reminder that they have a history, that there’s a whole hill of the memories.

Jungkook scoffs, pushing him slightly away, catching Yoongi laughing quietly. He turns back around, right at the time to witness Youngjae putting a ring on Jihye’s finger.

The reception begins. It’s mostly just about food and drinks and the speeches of all the close friends and family.

From afar, Jungkook notices that some girls Jihye’s age come up to her, congratulating her and chatting to her. For the first time in his life, ever since the incident, Jihye doesn’t push them away as she normally would.

She seems unnatural, a bit too serious and uptight, not the way Jungkook knows her. But she is trying. That"s all that matters.

She’s bright, Jihye is. She has a lot of love to give. She got hurt once, but Yoongi is right. It doesn’t mean she should be pushing away every other girl who wants to be friends with her. She can’t know if it’ll end up as a blessing.

She’ll get hurt one day again. All of them will.

Jungkook can only hope it won’t be another girl who’ll badmouth Jihye behind her back and rattle all of her secrets to the whole middle school that hurts her in the future. They’re past that now. At the very least, they’ve graduated middle school.

“Hey.”

Jungkook shifts his gaze from Jihye to the guy talking to him. Jungkook doesn’t recognise him, so he’s probably from Youngjae’s side.

Jungkook bows slightly. “Hello.”

The guy raises his eyebrows. Now that Jungkook thinks about it, it’s kind of an annoying gesture. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll use formal speech, too.” And the guy bows.

Jungkook smiles. The redemption was quick.

“I’ve never seen you before,” the guy says, his head tilted. He comes a step closer to Jungkook.

“Well, I’m—I’m from the bride’s side. I’m Jihye’s friend.”

Something like recognition shadows over the guy’s features. “Oh, are you — ”

“Yeah,” Jungkook laughs. “Yeah, I’m the one from the — ”

“The Eight,” the guy snaps his fingers. He’s laughing, too. He has a loud warm laugh. “Yeah, I remember, Youngjae told me.”

Oh. That’s interesting. Jungkook shifts to stand a bit closer to the guy — the music is getting too loud, and Jungkook wants to hear everything about it.

“Really? What did he tell you about us?”

The guy shrugs. “He only said nice things.”

Jungkook stares at him, not impressed.

The guy puts out his hands in a defensive manner. “That’s true! He just said that he really admires that you guys were always there for Jihye. That he wants to be here for her now, too. And that he wouldn’t mind if he could become friends with y’all, you know.”

This is not what Jungkook expected, but he likes it. He can definitely tolerate being a Nine. 

“What’s your name?” the guy asks. Even his eyes are smiling at Jungkook now. He has a nice smile, the one that makes the corners of your lips pull up involuntarily, too.

“It’s Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook.”

“It’s a pretty name,” the guy says, which is — okay. He reaches out his hand to Jungkook. “I’m Jungwon. Lee Jungwo—“

“And I’m Yoongi. Min Yoongi.”

Jungwon’s palm is grabbed and shaken by the most familiar hand on this Earth. Jungkook feels his chest with his back, the warmth, the way Yoongi reaches out from behind him.

Jungwon’s eyes widen at Yoongi’s antics.

Yoongi’s arm curls up around Jungkook’s waist.

Oh. Jungkook knows what this gesture means.

It means, Back fucking off. He’s mine.

Jungkook likes to be Yoongi’s. Even if there’s no right for him anymore.

He’s the most possessive one. He’s an only child, he’s always had things to himself only. He never had to share them with anyone, and he doesn’t want to get used to sharing, either.

Yoongi is the one who’s usually more laid-back about it. Jungkook didn’t mean to make him jealous, would never play with Yoongi’s heart like that. He didn’t even catch up on Jungwon’s intentions well until the ‘pretty name’ part.

Nobody ever said Jungkook’s name was pretty. For God’s sake, Yoongi has been calling him Jungjoo since the childhood.

“Oh,” Jungwon says. His eyes trace Yoongi’s hand, settled comfortably at Jungkook’s waist. “I guess I should’ve started with asking if you were here alone or not.”

He seems to be waiting for confirmation from at least one of them, but neither Yoongi or Jungkook say anything. Technically, Jungkook is single.

“Yeah,” Yoongi breathes out. Technicalities aside, in reality, Jungkook’s heart has been in Yoongi’s hands from the moment an eight-year-old Yoongi climbed out of the car parked next to the haunted house. “Yeah, you should have.”

So here’s that. Here’s that decision.

“I’m sorry,” Jungwon says. He backs up. “I’lls, uh, see you around — ”

“Sure,” Jungkook nods with a polite smile.

“Better not,” Yoongi grumbles, and it’s when Jungkook realises that he’s drunk.

Third time in a week, which should maybe alarm Jungkook, and maybe for a second it does, it does worry him, but —

He knows that Yoongi is not like his father. He doesn’t drink for the sake of drinking. He doesn’t drink alone, and Jungkook knows that if not for this week in Sokcho, if not for celebrating all of the Eight gathering together, if not for the wedding, Yoongi’s maximum normally would be a can of beer.

If Jungkook asked him, he wouldn’t even touch beer, either.

So it’s okay. There’s nothing to worry about.

“Fucking hated the way he looked at you,” Yoongi mutters. He looks behind his shoulder to watch Jungwon leave. “Heart eyes and shit. Who does he think he is?”

“Surely he thinks he can replace you.”

“And he can’t?” There’s something broken about Yoongi’s voice. Hope.

“He can’t,” Jungkook says. “Nobody can.”

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Nobody can replace Yoongi. There’s no other boy who had scoffed at Jungkook when meeting him for the first time; there’s no other guy who runs to the other side of their hometown to get Jungkook the soda he usually never drinks but suddenly craves so much; there’s no other human being that Jungkook has loved for his whole life.

Maybe that’s why it felt so wrong, being touched by others back in the Training Centre.

Yoongi hums, pleased, like a cat purring. “Good.” There’s just zero filter in him.

“Dear God, you’re hammered, Min Yoongi,” Jungkook laughs. “You’re completely and utterly wasted.”

“No. Not that much,” Yoongi argues as Jungkook pulls him away. He doesn’t think he wants to talk to Yoongi in this state in the middle of the wedding’s venue, with music and eyes and ears all around them.

Jungkook’s fingers tug on Yoongi’s wrist, and Yoongi, despite all of the childish arguing, lets him guide him away.

“Why did you drink so much?” Jungkook mutters, an annoyed scoff just under his breath. He doesn’t expect an answer, but —

“Couldn’t look at you sober,” Yoongi says, which stalls both of them.

They’re in the venue’s corridor. The lights are dimmed here, unlike the bright white of the main hall. The music is muted.

Jungkook hovers over Yoongi, his fingers still pressed against Yoongi’s wrist, against his pulse point. He looks down, and Yoongi looks up. It’s been the sweetest part of growing up, gaining this height over Yoongi.

“Kiss me,” Yoongi says. “Kiss me, Jungkook-ah, please.”

Yoongi tastes like all three summers they’ve never gotten, the years they’ve lost, all the texts they haven’t sent. His hand settles on Jungkook’s neck, then slides up, to his jaw, fingers curled under Jungkook’s ear. He tugs him closer, and Jungkook goes.

“I’ve missed this,” Yoongi whispers between the short kisses. His breath is of wine, something bittersweet, like pomegranate; like missing someone endlessly. “Have missed you.”

“Me too,” Jungkook says, “me too, missed hyung — ”

Yoongi presses his mouth against Jungkook with a little more force, with a little more longing, and Jungkook kisses him back the same way he’s kissed him for the first time — with so much relief and love that’s been persevering for years.

Yoongi’s forehead meets Jungkook’s, and Yoongi whispers, “Love you, love you, love you still so fucking much.” And he kisses him again, and Jungkook doesn’t have time to reply that he loves Yoongi too, still, that he loves him even more than he ever did, that he loves him so much that any obstacle they might encounter from now on doesn’t scare him.

They would’ve made it work, Jungkook realises. They could’ve been together all this time. Sometimes it"d be tough and unbearable, but they would always make it through. They would’ve made it through.

This makes him first shudder, take a deep shaky breath, and then break the kiss and step back.

Yoongi’s eyes go out immediately. His hands fall idly against his sides.  “Hey, what’s wrong? Is it about what I said? Jungkook, I’m sorry—”

“Hyung,” Jungkook whispers. “We should’ve… We should’ve tried long-distance.”

Silence.

Blood thumping in Jungkook’s eardrums is louder than the music in the background.

“But we didn’t,” Yoongi says softly, and all Jungkook hears is that, But we didn’t, and it’s too late.

They didn’t try long-distance. Never gave it a chance, even. And it was Jungkook’s fault. Everything is Jungkook’s fault. This longing and misery in him all come from within him.

“Let’s not regret our past. We were both in the wrong,” Yoongi says. He takes a step forward, gains this one step Jungkook has put between them back. His fingers ghost over Jungkook’s knuckles, then Jungkook gives him a nod, and Yoongi’s hand walks up his arm, to the neck, to his cheek. Jungkook nuzzles into the warmth, wants to burrow his face in Yoongi and just stay with him forever.

Yoongi’s thumb slides over Jungkook’s cheek scar. “You see,” Yoongi starts, “I tried to move on from you.”

Everything in Jungkook stops.

“I swear I tried. I tried many times. But you, Jeon Jungkook, you just — you got the best of me, I don’t know. I love you, I really do. I love you so much. I love you to fucking death. I can’t imagine myself without loving you.” Yoongi’s hand drops down from Jungkook’s face. Without him, it’s so cold. “There’s no me without you. I’m sorry it took me years to figure out.”

Yoongi’s eyes find Jungkook’s.

“Remember you told me you want me to be happy? I’m only happy when I’m with you, Jeon Jungkook.”

This is just an extremely unfair thing to say.

“So I’ve just… I’ve been thinking,” Yoongi says. He looks shyer, especially when he scratches behind his ear. “If I… If I still have a chance, if you — if you give me one, I’ll… I’ll quit the journal. I’ll find a job here. I could move in a town close to Training Centre. We — we could move in together, even, if that’s something you would like.” Yoongi stops. “Why are you not saying anything?”

“I don’t…don’t know what to say,” Jungkook says frankly. 

“This bad, huh?”

“No,” Jungkook shakes his head. “No, this good.”

Yoongi smiles. “Really?”

“Yes, it’s just—”

The smile falls off Yoongi’s face, and Jungkook rushes to reassure him, “Min Yoongi, I would love to move in with you, it’s just that I don’t want you to quit because of me. I don’t want to be the reason your dream failed.”

Yoongi scoffs. “Don’t take too much upon yourself.” Immediately, his face softens, and he adds, “I’m tired of running, Jungkook-ah. It’s enough travelling for me. I wanna go home.”

If it’s something Yoongi wants, then Jungkook is fine with it.

He smiles, and leans into Yoongi once again. He catches with his lips Yoongi grinning, too, kisses him slowly and barely there, with Yoongi’s hands gently cupping his face.

And then, there’s a screech that remotely resembles Taehyung’s voice. “Oh my god, my eyes! My eyes!”

Jungkook and Yoongi part, sighing heavily. There’s an explanation they owe.

—

I don’t think I feel less trapped.

The mountains and the sea still make me believe I have a severe claustrophobia. Although my aunt has recovered and has two wonderful kids on her own who can help her around now, I still shudder when I go to her restaurant for dinner, my hands itching as if it’s another wrong moment, and they’ll be forced to scrub at the dirty dishes.

I’m learning there’s another thing in Sokcho that makes me feel trapped: memories.

Sometimes when I’m leaving my house, I’ll glance behind my shoulder, and I think I see an eighteen-year-old me watching the running boy warm up in the morning. When I go up the hill, I pass the lamppost I’ve kissed my first love under. When I go to the beach, I see the ghosts of me and my friends, forever laughing, forever young, forever loved by the sun.

I’m frozen in time.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t scare me. Actually, it feels kind of nice, even.

There are things worse to feel trapped in.

— Min Yoongi, Time & Travel Magazine. Cr. for translation: Lee Nina.

—

• SUNDAY

The last day goes lazily.

Having been partying till the morning, Jungkook wakes up late. Though Yoongi, who is sleeping peacefully (for most part) next to him, grumbles that he’s insane, go to fucking sleep, Jungkook starts feeling antsy around ten and finally gets out of bed at eleven o’clock.

“It’s cold,” Yoongi whines as he rolls over to Jungkook’s side of the bed. “Come back.”

“It’s almost noon!” Jungkook argues. “I’ve lost half of the day already!”

It makes Yoongi realise that this kind of fighting is pointless, and he only burrows his face into the pillow instead of giving any kind of reply to Jungkook.

Jungkook thinks it’s not that bad, spending the last morning of this week in the haunted house. He didn’t warn his mom that he wouldn’t be coming back home last night. She probably knows where to find him either way. There are not that many places on this Earth for him.

One of them is his kitchen counter. He’s sitting up there again, eating cereal. Some minutes later, hangover Taehyung comes in, groggily nods to Jungkook in acknowledging his presence, and fishes out the Melona ice cream out of the freezer.

When he catches Jungkook staring at him, not impressed, he says, “Nothing a Melona ice cream can’t solve.”

“Fair.”

They eat their respective breakfasts in silence. Taehyung leans against the table, and spaces out into the wall. Jungkook keeps thinking about all the good things. The new memories. All of the Nine at the abandoned beach, taking pictures of Jihye and Youngjae on the sunrise. Yoongi sending him a short smile. Seokjin laughing obnoxiously at drunk Hoseok napping under the bush. Namjoon and Jimin trying to talk Taehyung out of skinny-dipping in the ocean.

“Oh my god,” Yoongi barges inside the kitchen. His hand holds onto the side of his head as if it’s going to fall off soon. “For Christ’s sake, my headache is killing me.”

“You shouldn’t have drunk so much,” Jungkook shrugs.

“Never again,” Yoongi promises. He’s crossing the kitchen to access the drawer where Taehyung’s mom keeps all the pills when Jungkook stops him with his stare.

And a pout.

“Oh god,” Yoongi mutters, and beelines to Jungkook. He leans up to peck Jungkook, and Jungkook meets him halfway, “Good morning, bab—“

“Uhem.”

Jungkook purses his lips, and moves Yoongi to the side. “C’mon, Kim Taehyung, it’s not that bad. I’ve seen you and Jimin do things much worse.”

“It absolutely is that bad,” Taehyung says. “I’m still traumatised from yesterday.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Jungkook breathes out, tired of repeating the same thing over and over again.

“You weren’t supposed to make out in the venue’s corridor!” Which is, okay, maybe he’s right.

But it all ended well, didn’t it?

Yoongi and Jungkook got back together. They discussed future plans. They told everyone of the Nine about them, and Seokjin suggested that from now on he was going to take bets on who was going to marry next — Jimin and Taehyung, or Yoongi and Jungkook. It’s all good.

Jungkook is supposed to leave today, go back to the Training Centre, but Yoongi will join him soon — as soon as his last article is out. They’ll go see all the different apartments, and eventually, they will choose one; the one where they will live together.

All the plans make Jungkook’s stomach curl in the most pleasant way possible. He’s excited.

Yoongi helps him pack his things, until Jungkook grows tired of him and his absolutely terrible system of packing, how did you even manage to move countries every month? and scolds him to go back to the living room.

Yoongi sighs, asks to be kissed for the last time, gets his wish granted, and leaves. The room feels empty and too big without him, but Jungkook doesn’t let this thought settle too deep in him. He packs the rest of his things quickly, and proudly zips his bag.

When he comes out of his room to see what Yoongi’s been doing all this time, he finds Yoongi writing in his notebook. He looks so focused Jungkook almost doesn’t want to distract him.

But, very selfishly, he wants to spend time with Yoongi while they still have it.

“What do you keep writing in here?” Jungkook asks cheekily, looming over the notebook. He presses his nose against the paper, his vision cross-eyed. “Is it about me?”

“No,” Yoongi scoffs. He flicks Jungkook’s forehead, so gently, and pushes his head slightly away. “The world doesn’t revolve around you alone, Jeon Jungkook.”

“That’s a lie,” Jungkook says. He curls up on the couch next to Yoongi, lets his head nest in Yoongi’s lap. God, it’s so good to be home.

Jungkook finds Yoongi’s hand, and laces their fingers together. He tucks their joined hands under his chin.

“What are you writing, then?” he asks quietly.

Yoongi sighs. Jungkook hears him closing the notebook with one hand and putting it aside. “It’s for the magazine.”

Jungkook frowns. Yoongi told him yesterday that he had already quit. Turns out, it was the thing Yoongi wanted to talk to him about on Friday when he went to pick Jungkook up in Yangyang. But I chickened out, Yoongi said. I thought you’d… I don’t know. I didn’t think you’d laugh in my face for hoping that quitting the magazine could change something between us, but I just wasn’t ready to be rejected by you.

As if Jungkook could ever reject him. The person Jungkook has loved for his whole life. Someone who’s Jungkook’s first memory.

“It’s for my last article,” Yoongi reassures him immediately when he feels Jungkook’s distress.

“What city is it now?”

Yoongi smiles. “It’s Sokcho.”