Chapter Text
“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight,
somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
— Fëdor Dostoevskij, Crime and Punishment
Jungkook raised his right arm and almost tossed his phone on the ground. His abdomen, which had been so beautifully arched for a couple of seconds, found the strength to stop the motion of his arm just a little before his fingers clenched around the case of the phone.
“Damn,” he cried. Damn, he repeated inside his mind. Damn.
Just that single world - endlessly. His face could be covered by tears, his mind dizzy, his heart heavy with pain, and yet that word would still continue echoing through every fibre of his body screaming for help.
Damn. He hated all of that. He hated himself, he hated that stupid phone and he hated that semblance of normalcy. He hated that it hid all the mess that he was going through without anyone noticing.
The more he hated, the more he pitied himself. The more he pitied himself, the more all that negativity came back to him like that one and single curse - bouncing from wall to wall in search for its next target.
Jungkook opened his eyes and watched the screen.
Still no messages.
“Jungkook?” someone knocked at the door.
“I’m coming,” he murmured, hoarse, trying to conceal the wet hiccups that have been silently shaking his chest.
“No, don’t worry, just—” Namjoon hurried to say, embarrassed, before halting for a second. “Is everything alright?”
And then, without any ill attempt of making Jungkook feel worse: “It’s your birthday, but you have been in the bathroom all this time. Do you want us to go home?”
Jungkook didn’t like to talk about himself. Not when he was hurting and aching from head to toe. But he did have invited his friends over for his birthday and then avoided them like they were pestered from the moment they had stepped foot in the living room, so it wasn’t surprising Namjoon had guessed something wasn’t right.
Damn.
What a terrible friend he was.
He opened the door and let the phone sink into the pocket of his jeans.
“Have you already ordered?” he smiled meekly - a hand already on his hair, as he sneaked away from Namjoon’s motherly and worried stare into the corridor.
Namjoon followed him closely. Jungkoook walked ahead of him like he wasn’t scared of anything in the world.
“Not yet,” Namjoon told him, as he scratched his nape. “Or at least, I think so? Seokjin and Taehyung were still waiting for you when I left—”
Once reached the living room, it was easy to understand that a lot had happened in the few minutes he had let the others enjoy their freedom alone. Everything - from the pillows on the sofa to the picture’s frames on the wall - was a mess.
Jungkook remembered Seokjin standing in front of the PlayStation and Taehyung checking the kitchen - eating some biscuits - when he had left for the bathroom, but now they were arguing and clicking buttons randomly on the phone as they fought about what order from the shop.
“—yes, both ketchup and mayonnaise. Hyung— I told you, stop biting me! No, sorry, I wasn’t talking to you—”
“Taehyung,” Namjoon groaned.
In Jungkook’s opinion, it would’ve been better to try stopping Seokjin, who was trying to drag Taehyung to the ground by lacing his arms around his hoobae’s wrist; but luckily for Namjoon, Seokjin was his boyfriend, so he could kind of accept it where he was coming from.
“About the delivery?” Taehyung smiled, self-consciously. He looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. “Since we’re celebrating here, can I ask you for a favour?”
He tilted his head, locked eyes with Jungkook and grinned even harder.
In that second, Jungkook connected all the dots.
A terrible, terrible hunch crossed his body.
The next moment, he was joining Seokjin and Taehyung in that wrestling - fighting to make Taehyung put down the phone.
“Taehyung, stop.”
“Not pizza again!” Seokjin agreed with Jungkook, not knowing what were the real reasons behind his sudden behaviour.
“Send us your most handsome delivery man, wouldn’t you?” Taehyung said with strained vocal cords, struggling for hair.
“Taehyung, I won’t tell you again,” Jungkook gritted his teeth. “Put the phone down! Now!”
“Someone with mint hair and a poker face! Yes, Yoon—”
“TAEHYUNG.”
Jungkook stood still in the middle of the living room. His scream had been so loud that it had made Taehyung, Seokjin and Namjoon freeze on the spot.
“We broke up,” he murmured.
His voice trembled a little, displaying all the sadness and the bittersweetness of what he was feeling.
“W-what?” Seokjin stammered, shocked.
His hands were still pressed around Taehyung’s waist.
“Yoongi and I,” Jungkook murmured. “We broke up.”
Silence. Unnatural silence.
“It’s not funny so order and then close the call.”
Before Namjoon could say anything, Jungkook walked past him and closed himself in the bathroom again.
⌘
Feeling things was undoubtedly hard. Feeling heartbreak was even harder.
Because there were many things unsaid left inside that little muscle called heart; because he had tried for days to avoid mentioning Yoongi, or simply talking about him, whenever the guys had called him or invited him over to party together. The last weeks have left him numb, wondering about the fleetingness of every human relationship; he wanted to know where it had gone wrong, why it had to happen now and why had it happened to them in the first place when they had always been the perfect couple.
Needless to say he hadn’t found answers - only an endless circle of unresolved questions. Forgetting everything would’ve been easier, and that’s what he had sought during the long and cold afternoons, but the problem was that Jungkook remembered. He remembered it all too well, the warmth of their bodies pressed together. The smell of his shampoo. The mint Yoongi always added to his chocolate, the endless playlists he shared with him on Spotify, the mornings spent under cosy blankets binge-watching their favourite tv-series on Netflix. The holidays they had spent together at Daegu. The casual words he used to glide over the most tedious matters. The days fighting and the nights making up. The parties with their friends. The dinners with their parents. The wet kisses and the pressed foreheads.
He remembered Yoongi. He remembered everything that had happened between them. He remembered the heartbreak, the painful goodbye and the curses and the objects Jungkook had thrown at him as he ran away in the night. He was there. He had been left alone, hardly breathing, through all of it.
And now he just felt like slowly disappearing.
So when the others knocked at the door and gently called his name, he felt both happy and sad.
Happy, because he finally didn’t have to lie anymore. Sad, because he hardly recognized himself.
It was his birthday and here he was - crying and scolding himself for being so unfair with his friends, who had only tried to make the atmosphere more lively.
He hadn’t locked the door - not with the key. Seokjin and the others quickly realized it and came inside, little by little - hugging him closely, patting his back, not asking him anything. Just staying.
When they moved to the sofa - wrapping Jungkook with blankets and hugs - they quickly apologized.
“I’m sorry,” Namjoon placed a hand on his knee. He looked sad, but also a little bit hesitant. He had no idea how to address that matter without hurting his feelings. “We had no idea that— Well, that had happened.”
“I know, hyung ,” Jungkook shook his head and darted at him with an apologetic look. “I exaggerated. I’m sorry.”
He tilted his head, trying to grasp the sight of Taehyung on the closed sofa, and smiled at him.
“Sorry for startling you, Tae.”
Taehyung pressed his lips tightly and gravitated toward Jungkook like tree branches.
“No more delivery from that place,” he sulked, upset.
Seokjin chuckled softly and messed up Taehyung's hair. “What will you do without your adored pizza?”
The pizza and the snack prepared by Yoongi’s family were the best in town, after all.
“I can survive without their pizza,” Taehyung said without a problem. “What I can’t do is survive without Jungkook.”
Jungkook tried to not show it, but that sentence made his tiny heart squeeze with warmth for the first time in a while. So he hugged his best friends harder and closed his eyes - nurturing that feeling and the knowledge he was safe, at home, with the only people in the world he knew would never let him down.
“Are you okay?” Seokjin asked after a while.
Jungkook let them go. “I feel stuck.”
Stuck in a negative circle of emotion. Stuck in his head. Completely paralyzed. They had probably already noticed it, but the shiners under his eyes were quite terrible to witness. No matter how much lotion or make-up he put on them - they were a stain that wouldn’t wash away regardless of the time spent sleeping in the afternoon, or staying up all night.
Seokjin frowned. “Did you two break up because something happened, or…?”
Jungkook bit his lip. “I don’t know. It was completely random. One day he was with me, and the day after he said he couldn’t do that anymore.”
Taehyung’s head swayed from Namjoon to Seokjin in a second.
“Did you know?” he asked, curious.
After all, Jungkook and Yoongi had met thanks to those two. Namjoon was Yoongi’s childhood friend, while Seokjin’s sister was in class with Yoongi’s younger brother. He must have told them something.
Seokjin’s eyes grow a little bit pensive. “He had always been quite reserved. I didn’t ask anything because I took it for granted he was busy with something else.”
Jungkook’s last hope disappeared. If they didn’t know, then no one could tell Jungkook what had gone wrong.
And perhaps, he shouldn’t even have had to ask. After all, even during break-ups there has always been a tacit understanding about talking it out and trying at least to explain the respective positions, right? It was only natural for couples - even divorced ones - to be truthful, avoiding leaving anything behind.
Yet, Yoongi had completely bypassed that part and broke off with Jungkook without giving him the time to digest it.
Jungkook suddenly realized that deep down, he didn’t want to know anymore.
After all—
“It’s not like Jungkook did anything bad!” Taehyung let out. “I know him - he wouldn’t hurt an ant! I don’t care about Yoongi. Let’s just forget about him.”
It wasn’t as simple as Taehyung said, but Jungkook found himself agreeing with him.
“Taehyung is right,” he said mostly to himself, rather than to others. “I didn’t invite you to mope about it. I invited you because I’m 22 and I want to have fun.”
“Are you sure?” Namjoon worried. “We could just—”
“Watching Titanic again? Cry all together and waste my evening?” Jungkook stood up and put the pillow back on the sofa. “No. I can’t accept it.”
Everybody exchanged puzzled glares, but Jungkook forced himself to smile confidently and hide the uneasiness still creeping in.
“Namjoon, put some music on,” he tossed at him the remote control connected to Alexa. He then faced Seokjin. “ Hyung , please, can you turn on the water for some noodles? Taehyung can think about the snacks.”
Taehyung clapped triumphantly and jumped toward the kitchen. “Now you’re talking!”
Like little soldiers, they all moved to their respective stations.
Left alone near the door, Jungkook was left alone. The bell rang twice, as he wondered what to do next - signalling him that the delivery had already arrived.
“They were quick,” he murmured, surprised.
“What if it’s Yoongi?” Seokjin’s head popped up from the kitchen.
Namjoon was already secretly stealing glances from the window. “It doesn’t look like him.”
Yoongi or not, someone had to pay for the food. And since it was Jungkook’s house and party, it was his duty to fulfil.
“Hurry,” he told his friends. “I’m hungry.”
He picked his wallet, put his coat on and went outside.
It was only the first of September, but it was surprisingly cold. The delivery man had probably hurried to go outside, because he was waiting for him jumping on his two feet to warm himself up.
“Delivery!”
Jungkook was momentarily blinded by such an enthusiastic smile. He felt so down, despite the chat he had just had with his friends, that he didn’t know how to reciprocate it.
But more than that, something familiar was in the eyes of the boy looking at him.
Jungkook found himself blinking, struggling to remember.
“Sorry, but—” he murmured, awkward. “Do we know each other?”
The boy watched him intently in the eyes. Only after a few seconds did he carefully talk.
“No.”
“Is that so?” Jungkook almost sighed in relief. “My bad, then. Here.”
He handed him the bill and took the food. Just like he had expected, Taehyung had ordered everything he could. Nothing to do about it he guessed, but it truly weighed a lot - way more than he had imagined.
As the boy prepared to depart, Jungkook checked the bag and almost had a heart attack.
“Hey. Stop—!” he screamed at the delivery man - running on the bed of dry leaves like his life depended on it.
“There must be a mistake,” he caught his breath, when the motorbike stopped in the middle of the street. “I’m quite certain we didn’t order tteokbokki.”
He was sure of it because Namjoon was the only human being in Korea loathing tteokbokki.
There was no way Taehyung had ordered it.
“There’s no error, Sir,” the boy smiled at him. His eyes sparkled in the dark. “It’s for your birthday.”
Again, Jungkook found himself quite baffled.
“Are you sure? Won’t you get in trouble because of this?”
“With such a handsome smile?” the other teased him. “There’s no way.”
He saw Jungkook’s worried expression and immediately straightened his back.
“Just kidding,” he laughed nervously, and quietly pushed back the shop to its original owner. “Please, enjoy it on the house.”
Jungkook nodded, not knowing how to thank him.
That’s when a thought suddenly crossed his minute.
“Wait for a second,” he told him, before running inside the house.
When he got out, he was strangely happy by noticing that the boy had done as asked and waited for him. He placed around his bare neck and shoulders a long, red scarf - adjusting it under his chin to be sure the boy wouldn’t get cold.
“Here,” Jungkook smiled at him happily. “It will keep warm.”
The boy lowered his eyes and made a strange face. That’s when it occurred to Jungkook that perhaps what he had thought was a kind gesture wasn’t as easy to accept as a dish of delicious food.
Was he making him feel uncomfortable?
“It’s not that cold,” the boy said, before smiling at Jungkook. “But thank you. I will return it to you.”
Jungkook simply nodded and stepped back. He waved at him and returned inside the house feeling like a good person.
“He was cute.”
Just like he had imagined, every single one of his friends was perched in the living room - watching dreamily the boy go away with his bike.
“So cute,” Seokjin nodded along with him.
Jungkook snorted and removed his coat.
Namjoon was the only one who remained silent.