Jungkook’s eyes are closed, and he’s lying in bed.
He can feel the filtered sun through his thick clothes. His feet are bare, and he keeps moving them, enjoying the cooling sensation from the ceiling fan.
Jungkook’s eyes are closed, and he imagines.
He can hear the door opening, the soft pitter-patter of Jimin’s footsteps toward him. He can feel the bed dip and the arms that lay around him, the soft hair that tickles his chin, the press of a light weight over his. He can feel the gentle curve of his waist on his fingers and his natural scent still remains as vivid as it’s always been.
Jungkook feels a smile tease involuntarily at his lips. He can hear Jimin asking for cuddles so he rolls over to wrap his arms around him...
Empty.
His arms close over nothing, landing dully on the mattress.
Jungkook opens his eyes, and it feels like they’ve been shut for hours. It’s no longer day time, dusk shining in through the windows and bathing the room in a peachy glow that shouldn’t be so quick to yank him down to reality.
Jimin isn’t here.
He isn’t ever going to be.
Jungkook sits up. His head feels heavy, spine sore against the thin wood of the headboard. Jimin’s bed would always creak, and it still does now.
He looks over at Jimin’s things. The dressing table, his makeup and skincare that has long since expired but will never be discarded. His armoire filled with his clothes that have gathered dust over the past 4 years. They’re losing his scent.
He wonders if Jimin's things miss him. Do they wonder where he is? Why he disappeared one day? Does he miss them?
Jungkook doesn’t think he can be selfless enough to return them.
Jimin doesn’t need his things anymore. He has lots of new things.
Jungkook has nothing. This is all he has, this apartment filled with Jimin’s old furniture, products and clothes. Sometimes, he looks through Jimin’s pictures. He has this photo album, and Jungkook even found an old digital camera full of Jimin’s pictures from when he was a teenager. He’d spent the entire day going through it, wishing he could turn back time and ask his father to send him to a small public school in Busan rather than the prestigious institution he went to.
Maybe he wouldn’t have turned out so fvcked up then. Jimin and him, they would’ve been childhood sweethearts. He knows Jimin didn’t have a good time in school. Jungkook would’ve saved him, protected him from everybody, killed anybody who looked at him with anything but admiration in their eyes.
Stop
Yes. Jungkook isn’t supposed to have those kinds of thoughts anymore.
He can’t meddle in Jimin’s life. He can’t.
He has his own life to live.
Jungkook isn’t allowed to be here. If his family and doctor found out, he’d be in big trouble. As far as they know, he’s let go of that part of his life. Jimin is his past.
But Jungkook can’t see a future without him. He can’t. Not when it feels like his existence is rooted in him, his solar plexus strung up tight as Jimin’s existence orbits around him like an inescapable omen.
They don’t know about this apartment. Jungkook visits intermittently so that he doesn’t raise suspicion.
He had to, after seeing Jimin with Taehyung.
Seeing him so happy, as if everything were right in the world. Jimin doesn’t seem to bear any scars from him.
It’s like Jungkook never existed.
He gets up and off the bed, walking out of the room and toward the front door. He wonders if Jimin’s furniture heard his screams, this apartment being right next door to the one they used to share. Were they privy to his breakdowns, his collapse down to nothing but a fragile body with a weak mind? To what he used to be put through every day?
Is Jungkook going to hell?
He knows he is. He’s come to terms with it.
Jungkook picks up the old digital camera before leaving. He turns it on and presses the buttons, going back to the first picture it ever clicked.
It’s one of Jimin, smiling shyly into the camera. He looks so young and his hair falls into his eyes. He’s still wearing his school uniform, loose and baggy over his frame.
Jungkook looks at the date. It was taken on Jimin’s 13th birthday. This camera must’ve been his birthday gift.
He scrolls through the others, some of Jimin taking shy mirror selfies, some of vague scenery, a few of some animals. He sees Hoseok in one, a shot of him cycling and then another with their heads pressed together, smiling into the camera by a bridge. They were friends back then, too. Jungkook remembers Jimin telling him.
These memories belong to him now.
Jungkook sets the camera down, putting on his shoes and leaving. He’ll visit another time.
He hasn’t gone into his old apartment. Not since everything fell apart.
Jungkook looks at the door as he calls for the lift, looking at the doormat. That’s where Jimin lay when he’d thrown him out, sobbing his heart out.
'No no.'
'Don’t think about that.'
'Think about how happy Jimin was with you'
Jungkook smiles.
He can still love Jimin.
Even if it’s from a distance.
-
Jungkook makes it home just in time for dinner.
There’s someone to open his car door and someone else to park his car in the garage, so he lets them. He walks up the stairs and heads straight to the dining room.
“Hi, son.” His father greets immediately, sitting at the head of the table. Jungkook’s eyes fall to the seat saved for him, right next to his Hyung who smiles at him warmly. His sister and brother-in-law continue to eat.
“Hi,” Jungkook says quietly.
He then eats with them, listening to conversations about work and some client. His Hyung tries to change it up, proposing another family holiday. He has a new girlfriend and Jungkook is the only one who knows. He’s going to meet her next week.
Jungkook shouldn’t want for more, and it feels wrong when he does.
He can’t help but feel like he’s going to float through the rest of his days here, his feet carrying him through a foggy path till it eventually cliffs off to the embers of burning hell.
In some sense, he can’t wait.
He knows that what waits for him isn’t salvation
-
Jungkook loves to drive.
He always has. He likes driving through the city, stopping wherever he likes and walking around. Once, he even drove all the way to Daegu and ate lots of food from a small family restaurant. He stayed in a motel too. He hasn’t done that again since his family gets upset when he doesn’t tell them where he goes.
Jungkook is being treated the way he always wanted to be growing up. His father takes an active interest in his life. He’s suggested that Jungkook can come back and assimilate himself into the business but he’s unsure about when he’d be ready for that yet.
Right now, he’s driving through Seoul.
He also knows where he is and what time it is, but he’s convincing himself that there aren’t any ulterior motives to today’s plan.
As he drives past Jimin’s workplace at 4:30 pm, he’s still surprised when he sees him walk out the doors. Objectively, there’s no reason for him to be nervous. Jungkook doesn’t drive the same car as before and he’s now parked across the street, so Jimin can’t recognize him.
He wouldn’t have to find out the truth of what the dancer feels for him.
Jimin is as beautiful as he always is. His platinum blonde hair suits him, and he seems confident.
"I didn’t know he was going to be here", he tells himself.
"I didn’t know where I was driving, I had no idea", he tells himself.
''We’re meant to be", he tells himself.
But then something happens, and everything comes crashing down.
There’s another man, probably another fellow dancer. He sneaks up behind Jimin and throws an arm around his shoulder.
He clearly didn’t expect the reaction he got.
Jimin recoils heavily, falling over his bicycle that he was about to get on. It sends the ones parked next to him crashing down to the ground as well, and Jungkook notices the way Jimin is already tearing up, body trembling. He wraps his arms protectively around himself, looking up at the other man with wide eyes from where he lays on the ground.
Jungkook feels hollow.
He’s never ever seen Jimin react that way to physical touch before.
The other man seems extremely apologetic, helping Jimin up with a firm hand, apologizing continuously and picking up the rest of the bicycles. He watches as Jimin continually reassures him that he’s fine, apologizing in turn for his reaction. Jungkook can still see the way his fingers shake, a touch of uneasiness to the way he carries himself. His leggings are torn at one of his knees from the fall and Jungkook sees a hint of blood.
Why did he react so violently? The other man is clearly a friend, given by the way Jimin treats him.
'It’s because of you'
'You’ve ruined him forever'
It suddenly hits Jungkook all at once.
Jimin doesn’t love him. How could he, after everything he’s done?
'You hurt him'
Jungkook forced Jimin to stay. He forced Jimin through hell and back and even though he’s survived, Jimin still carries his scars that run deep.
If he reacts this way to a friend, how would he react if he ever saw Jungkook again?
They can’t ever be together again.
Jimin won’t ever love him again, not when all that’s in his heart when it comes to him is fear. He hadn’t seen it that time when he’d spotted him with Taehyung, and that’s a testament to how different, to how better Taehyung always has been.
Jimin is suffering.
He’s suffering just as he is, even 4 years later.
Jungkook wanted to leave an impression, for Jimin to remember him.
But not like this.
This isn’t what he wanted. Jimin is supposed to be happy, just in case they ever meet again. Not like this, scared and afraid. He’s supposed to be the same as he used to be. He’s supposed to love being touched and hugged, love being kissed and making new friends. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
Not like this. It's supposed to be the same. Why has everything changed?
Jungkook drives away, mind numb.
The destination is clear because he has to see it for himself. Accept his reality for what it is.
Jungkook parks his car across the street from his old apartment building, taking the elevator straight up their floor. He walks toward the door unhesitatingly, pulling it open despite the screaming in his mind telling him to stop out of self-preservation.
He opens it, and it unlocks a million memories all at once.
There’s a stale smell, and the floor is dusty and cold. Nobody has touched this apartment. The police weren’t involved, and everyone treats it like a sealed-off memory.
Jungkook sees the shoe cupboard and knows Jimin’s slippers are in there. The suitcases that are still by the door, full of Jimin's clothes that he'd bought him for their trip.
He walks into the apartment, looking at the kitchen first. It’s messy. He sees the blender full of dark grey dust, remembering distantly that it was Jimin’s phone that he’d grinded up in a fit of anger.
He sees the dirty spoon and the syringes discarded across the kitchen counter, the sink piled high with stale dishes half-filled with water. Jungkook’s maid quit long before the demise of everything. She’d seen enough.
Jungkook looks down at the hallway floor, noticing the dried rusty splotches of blood over the tiles. He remembers when Jimin had cut himself by accident with the kitchen knife that time when he’d told him that they were going to Greece.
It wasn’t an accident
He looks at the sofa, where everything ended. There are still some stains on the floor from when Jimin was struggling, right before he was taken.
The worst is the bedroom. Jungkook doesn’t think he ever changed the sheets, not in the last few months when they were together.
They’re all streaked with blood, on Jimin’s side of the bed.
How did he not notice? How did he not see it back then?
He remembers when Jimin wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, in constant pain when the rough sheets would press against his fresh bite marks. The open wounds must’ve leaked onto the bed.
Jungkook doesn’t know why he used to bite him. His therapist had helped him decode it- that he wanted to see evidence of his existence and presence on Jimin. That it felt like claiming him in some sort of way, like a seal of ownership.
Jimin was powerless to stop it. He grew too weak, too feeble and too resigned to even attempt to stop it or escape.
They can’t ever be together again.
It isn’t a surprising revelation, yet it still rings deeply in Jungkook’s core. He doesn’t realize that he’s screaming, tears streaming down his face as he looks at the bloodstains.
He’d been cooking up happy memories of the both of them, but this is the reality.
Jimin suffered, every single day, at his hands.
He thinks about happy, sweet, young Jimin from the digital camera, smiling happily as his father clicked a photo of him on his 13th birthday. How he’d destroyed that innocence and trust.
No amount of denial can wash it away. He thinks about how Jimin recoiled, reacting so violently at simply being touched.
Jungkook did leave an impression. It was only the worst one possible.
_
Jimin is extremely happy with Taehyung.
In some ways, Jungkook is thankful.
He likes seeing Jimin happy because it helps alleviate some of the painful crushing of the deadweight over his chest. He likes remembering happy Jimin when they were together, and he’ll take anything to write over what he saw earlier.
He watches as Jimin cuddles close to the other man on their way home from the grocery store, arms full of bags of veggies and meat and everything else you would need for a cosy homemade dinner.
They disappear into the entrance of Jimin’s new building, and Jungkook only sees Taehyung leave several hours later. Jimin drops him off to his car, as he always does.
Jungkook wants to talk to Jimin.
He doesn’t know how, or why - what reaction he’s hoping to get but he wants to. One last time.
It’s terribly selfish, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing here and the odd moments of realization he has every 10 minutes send him reeling.
He’s following Jimin again.
But he can’t help it. It comes so naturally.
But it’s okay, right? He doesn’t mean any harm. He doesn’t have any motives.
He just needs to see it, is addicted to seeing it - Jimin happy. It’s because all he can see when he closes his eyes is his suffering, his screams that resound in his ears, his agonized cries of hurt that went unheard to everyone except him.
Whenever Jungkook looks at his hands, he sees blood.
He sees blood that isn’t his, and Jimin’s face the night they were ripped apart. Gaunt, broken, lifeless.
It’s all he sees, even if Jimin has fought his way back to being alive.
Why does it feel like he killed him?
-
Jungkook gathers together his bravery on one of Jimin’s happiest days.
He had a nice day at work, judging by how he skipped out of the academy with a smile, running happily into Taehyung’s car. The couple went to Taehyung's animal shelter and then to a drive-in theatre, finally having dinner in a nice Italian restaurant by the river. Taehyung is earning well now, and so is Jimin.
Jungkook couldn’t hear it, but he assumes they had some sweet music playing in Jimin’s apartment as they slow-danced together that night by the window. It started off funny and goofy, the both of them laughing, Jimin jumping around only for Taehyung to catch him with gentle arms around the waist - all that contagious energy simmering down to something so intimate it warms you down to the bone. They sway together, Jimin tucked underneath Taehyung’s chin, the both of them moving slowly, eyes closed, falling into their love.
One that Jungkook isn’t a part of.
He finds that he doesn’t hate Taehyung. It’s because he makes Jimin happy. He erases the nightmares that flicker through his mind, because Jimin is alive again, even more so when Taehyung is around.
He hopes Jimin doesn’t cry or scream anymore. He hopes he never has to.
When it’s past 11 pm, Jungkook gathers the courage.
He enters after somebody else as he doesn’t know the passcode to the building. He takes the stairs up to Jimin’s apartment, and he can hear their conversation through the door. Something hushed about cat food and a movie, some clinking of glasses, Jimin’s sweet giggle and the soft sounds of a kiss.
Jungkook can’t bring himself to ring the doorbell.
He stands there, forehead pressed to Jimin’s door long after they fall asleep too.
He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Hours? Time passes as he’s lost in his fantasies, nothing but a vacuum as he stands in Jimin’s corridor. His legs ache with holding up his weight, and his eyes are wet.
That could’ve been them. All of this, the sweet whispers, the slow dancing, the romantic nights out and days in, the smile on Jimin’s face - it could all have been his.
Jungkook is undeserving. He stands there, right outside Jimin’s door, wallowing in the reality he’s built for himself.
“Who’s there?” Jungkook hears suddenly, soft and delicate.
A wave of happiness washes over him at Jimin’s voice, even though it’s clearly afraid and stout with apprehension.
Jimin knows he’s here. They’re so close now.
Jungkook smiles, pressing his face into the wood, waiting for Jimin to open the door. He’d hug him, give him lots of kisses, promise to never hurt him again-
“Who are you?” Jimin asks again. “I’m not alone, and I won’t hesitate to call the police.”
Ice.
He’s whipped back to reality so quickly that he’s frozen.
Jimin doesn’t want to talk to him. He doesn’t ever want to see him.
Do what you came here to do
Apologize
Say goodbye
Jungkook’s fists clench and unclench, tongue heavy and useless in his mouth. He can’t say it. The words don’t form. He tries several times to no avail. It doesn’t work.
His hands are deep in his pockets, and that’s when he feels a paper. He pulls it out, along with a small pen, the pen he uses to sign his attendance slips for therapy. It’s his answer, a lit-up path.
Jungkook scribbles onto the paper, rushing to slide it underneath Jimin’s door.
The moment he does, all he feels is euphoria.
Jimin will know how he feels.
Jungkook walks out the corridor, out of the building, down to his car and then straight back home.
As he lies in bed, all that he can wish for is that the devil welcomes him with open arms.
THANKS FOR READING ♥️♥️♥️
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE FULL STORY...I WOULD RECOMEND YOU TO READ MY " BROKEN HEARTS" CHAT STORY....
