Archive of Our Own

He was in the frozen meals section, choosing between the BBQ-style chicken and lean beef in savoury teriyaki sauce, when his life turned upside down.

“Hey,” someone exclaimed behind his back, their voice high-pitched and child-like. Jungkook felt goosebumps creeping up his spine as an index finger pointed at him obnoxiously. “You’re the guy in the poster on my dad’s wall!”

Fuck.

Jungkook stilled. The frozen food packages looked pathetic in his hands, almost mocking him with promising pictures of dishes that definitely would not look as enticing as after Jungkook microwaves them.

The stranger's light footsteps treaded closer. It was a kid. Of course it was a kid; no adult would be so careless as to approach him just like that — just because they could. The child stopped with barely a foot between them.

“You’re JK-oppa, aren’t you?”

Jungkook’s stomach curled into knots. What the hell was he supposed to do with a kid? He had never been good with them in the first place. Hell, his hyung used to not let him stay alone with his daughter; how could Jungkook handle a stranger’s child? 

He curled deeper into himself, trying to fix his bucket hat in hopes that maybe this child would believe that it wasn’t really him, that it was just one big misunderstanding —

“Min Jiyoon, please stop harassing strangers in the supermarket.” It was said so tiredly, yet so softly. Sternly, yet not cruelly. “I’m sorry.” The apology seemed to be aimed at Jungkook. He shook his head, and turned away even more.

A sigh followed. The corner of Jungkook’s eyes caught a bow, barely ninety degrees. Then, another sigh followed by footsteps. Finally, Jungkook’s personal space, free.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to talk to strangers?”

“But oppa isn’t a stranger. He’s the one in your posters! In the living room! I swear it’s him!”

“Jiyoon-ah — ”

“Dad.”

Jungkook fought a shudder. He imagined being addressed in such a horrifying manner, such seriousness and terrific pressure coming from your own child. Poor father. Jungkook would shit his pants if he was addressed like that.

The father laughed, a breathy, easy sound escaping him, deep and lovely. Jungkook thought he’d heard it before, like a piece of this laughter had been stored inside his mind, inside his heart, like his body was familiar with it, like his body had come across it before.

And then it clicked.

Min Ji-yoon.

Okay, Min Jiyoon.

There is something you need to know about Jeon Jungkook.

Never once in his life had he not gotten what he wanted.

When he was ten, he asked his parents for a guitar. When they refused, citing their reasoning to him not being disciplined enough to learn how to play, he pleaded and whined for months. He climbed from the bottom of his school’s student ranking to the top twenty. He started washing the dishes after dinner. He woke up earlier on the weekends to help his mom carry her bags from the open market, typically having hated wasting  his precious sleeping time. Jungkook proved to his parents that he was serious about pursuing the instrument, that it wasn’t just a random spark of a new hobby and, on his next birthday, he got the guitar.

When he was fifteen, he wanted to start his own band. He thought the songs he was writing were pretty decent, but they lacked something else. Еhe sound of his guitar alone wasn't enough. So he befriended two upperclassmen, who were talked about by nearly everyone in the school. A pianist and a drummer. It was easy; they had a lot in common — from school, computers and movies, to singing, playing instruments, and music.

He was very careful with approaching the topic of forming a band. It was a plan perfectly executed, and when his friends refused his initial request, he wasn’t surprised. He knew it would happen, and he was prepared. 

He urged them, came up with all the possible pros and cons, followed them around for weeks. He whined, made them listen to other rock bands and, most importantly, dreamed aloud to the point that his friends got sick of him. Finally, they tried playing together for the first time.

From that moment on, they never really stopped.

When he was eighteen, he wanted to release an album and get their band signed under a label. When all the companies in both Busan and Seoul refused, he dragged his bandmates to his mom’s hometown, Daegu, and found the crappiest label. It took little to no persuasion to get the CEO to hand out the papers for them to sign.

When he was nineteen, he wanted his band to succeed. He wanted them to make it big, become known nationwide. The nation’s treasure. Everyone would love them. And if to speak honestly, if to look through all of his dirty laundry, all the dreams inside his head, if to try to cover everything of his greed —

He dreamed of all three of them being on top of the world.

And he had never once in his entire life not gotten what he wanted.

Except —

“Min Yoongi?” he rasped, reaching out with his hand — to grab onto the figure’s sleeve, maybe, to keep it from leaving; he wasn’t sure. His hand twitched.

The man turned to him. Half of his face was hidden behind a black mask, but these eyes —

Oh.

When Jungkook was nineteen, he desperately  wanted this one producer to work on his band’s first album. Initially, another group of mixing engineers and producers were assigned to work with the band, but Jungkook knew that the one they needed was him. Jungkook had heard of him before — the producer’s kid photos were in Jungkook’s mom’s photo album, reminiscent of her time spent in Daegu with her friends before she met  Jungkook’s dad and moved to Busan. Jungkook knew of him pretty well — for as long as Jungkook could remember, the producer’s name had always been on his mother’s tongue after the phone calls with her Daegu friends.

He’s four years older, but he’s making music, too. If you came to know him, you’d be great friends.

He’s very successful. If you really want to pursue your dream, I wish you could become like him, too.

Jungkook listened to this four years older , very successful producer, and fell in love with his songs just like that. There was something about the way he mixed the harsh sounds of a bass guitar with the gentleness of a piano that got Jungkook hooked, something about the way he layered voices of artists he worked with together until the melody felt almost too personal, until it resonated everywhere in Jungkook and blew his chest to pieces. 

So, of course, Jungkook wanted him. So, of course, after Jungkook came to Daegu, he turned to him for help, and he got him. It might’ve taken some childish wheedling, one mom from Busan calling another in Daegu; but Jungkook needed him, he needed him desperately, because only he could understand Jungkook’s music, Jungkook’s heart.

Jungkook got him. Just not the way he truly wanted.

It’d been years, however, and Jungkook was completely content with himself now.

But —

A hand lowered the mask, revealing all too familiar, all too forgotten lines. “Jungkook-ah?”

When Jungkook was twenty-eight and Min Yoongi, for the first time in nine years, called out to him so softly, so home-like, called out Jungkook’s name as if he was still Jungkook and not JK from one of the most popular bands in the world, that for a fleeting second, Jungkook had thought that maybe — just maybe — the years didn’t do him justice.

The years didn’t change his feelings at all.

“Yeah,” Jungkook breathed. “That’s me.”

Yoongi’s face softened, and Jungkook’s insides made this flip that called back to his teen self. “Long time no see.”

After that, the fleeting second of delusion was over.

Yoongi and the kid hadn’t gotten far away from Jungkook, so it was easy for Yoongi to reach out his hand to Jungkook. Jungkook shook it, light and careful, not quite believing that this was real, that this was happening. Yoongi’s palm felt warm, rough; father-like.

The touch lasted three seconds.

“Told you it was him,” the kid muttered, crossing her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes.

Yoongi chuckled. “Sorry for not believing you.” He looked back at Jungkook, just a tiny glance, almost as if checking Jungkook out, but most probably taking him in after nine years of not seeing each other. Then, Yoongi’s hand settled on the kid’s back, lightly pushing her forward so Jungkook could take a better look at her. As if his heart wasn’t bleeding enough. “My daughter. Min Jiyoon.”

Jungkook was surprised how soft and warm his nod of acknowledgement appeared. Something to do with years of being in the show business industry. He placed both of the frozen meals into his shopping basket, and squatted so he and Jiyoon were on the same eye level. He wasn’t that great with kids but he heard that establishing a sense of equality with them helped. He did it with his hyung’s child, and she never complained.

“Hello,” Jungkook said. “I’m — ”

“Jiyoon-ah, this is — ”

“JK-oppa,” she interrupted both of them.

Yoongi scratched behind his ear. “Well, one can call him that.”

Jungkook smiled, lost. He didn’t know if he was supposed to reach out and shake her hand, or if he was supposed to do something else entirely. Maybe it’d be for the better if he simply stayed back.

“Jungkook,” he said, then. “My name’s Jungkook. My friends usually call me by my real name, not my stage name.”

Jiyoon hummed. She suddenly seemed shyer, hesitating to meet his eyes.

Jungkook looked up at Yoongi, silently begging for help. Yoongi made a small odd gesture in the air with his hand and nodded shortly. Let it go.

“Uh, okay, good,” Jungkook murmured. He pushed on his knees, rising back to his full height. He grabbed his basket from where he’d left it on the ground.

Yoongi pointed at it with his chin. “Not-so-healthy food decisions?”

Jungkook almost cursed. Fuck, the last thing he needed was Yoongi pointing out his pathetic food choices. He really didn’t want Yoongi to think of him as lazy, someone who couldn’t cook nor take care of themselves.

Because Jungkook could. It was just a bit harder these days.

“I mean — ” he started, having no idea where this sentence would lead him.

“What if you came over for dinner?”

It sounded as if  this question came out as a surprise even for Yoongi himself. Like he didn’t expect to blurt it out but did it regardless. Jiyoon’s eyes widened, and she stared at her father with something that Jungkook couldn’t quite read — she was a complete stranger to him, not a trace of Yoongi in her. Did she take  after her mother?

God, who on Earth was her mother?

Jungkook wiped his sweaty palm on his jeans. Should he take up the offer? Or should he stay back? The woman Yoongi loved was waiting for these two at home after all, and Jungkook, ever since he parted ways with Yoongi after their first album had shaken the world to its core, was doing relatively okay in the last nine years. He could be doing okay for much longer.

Jungkook didn’t get Yoongi no matter how much he wanted him; it was fine, Jungkook was over it. But he didn’t need this heartbreak. He didn’t want to see the woman, Yoongi's wife, his daughter's mother. Stumbling upon Min Yoongi with a daughter by his side in a random supermarket in Seoul was more than enough, a gnawing reminder of all the things Jungkook had lost.

Jungkook waved his hands dismissively and shyly, a small smile on his face so Yoongi wouldn’t think of him as rude or ungrateful. “It’s fine, really,” he blabbered. “I don’t wanna be a bother, Jiyoon’s mom must already be having a hard enough time cooking for the three of you — ”

“Mom’s in New Zealand,” Jiyoon interrupted. “She and Dad are divorced.”

Jungkook’s heart went up his throat, clogged his hearing a bit, narrowed his tunnel vision.

Yoongi cleared his throat. He didn’t seem keen on talking about that. “We’re having kalguksu. You wouldn’t be a bother, and I would love to spend an evening with you to catch up on everything. If you’re busy today, let’s set any other day, if you want to.”

Kalguksu, knife-cut noodle soup, was perfect to have on a November day as cold as that one was.

Jungkook sneaked a glance at Jiyoon. She was a bit further away now, on the other side of the fridges, curiously staring at the ice cream choices.

And then there was Yoongi. An older Yoongi, someone Jungkook hadn’t seen in years, someone Jungkook should’ve been avoiding at all costs, someone who shouldn’t have been talking so softly and understandingly to Jungkook after everything he’d done.

Yoongi couldn’t have not known. It was all over the news.

After seeing the news about him, Yoongi was still  willing to spend time with Jungkook? Let him come close to his daughter?

“Don’t you want to know how I've been, too?” Yoongi asked gently. “Not even a teeny, tiny bit curious?”

Of course he was curious. He was so curious he’d be better off not knowing. But it was tempting. It was so tempting it was impossible to say no.

“Okay, then,” Jungkook said. “If you and Jiyoon don’t mind, I’d love to have dinner with you guys today. I’m not busy.”

He hadn’t been busy since the first news article was released.

Min Jiyoon,

Just one question.

Why were you so quiet on the way home that day?

“Okay, so, here we are.”

Yoongi let him enter, after Jiyoon. Jungkook felt big and hefty and unlike himself as he stilled in the foyer, like he was a giant who couldn’t fit into the space of a human's home. Jiyoon had already toed off her sneakers, got into slippers, and padded deeper into the apartment, all while Jungkook was looking around helplessly, arms tugged down with the weight of his grocery bags.

Coming in after him, Yoongi barked a warm puff into Jungkook’s neck. He slipped off his shoes with the same ease Jiyoon did, moving around the foyer and a frozen Jungkook seamlessly. Yoongi dropped his plastic bags in the free space of the entrance and fetched slippers from the shoe rack, dropping them at Jungkook’s feet.

“Here, wear these. If you don’t want your sneakers peed on, I recommend putting them up here.” Yoongi pointed at the shoe rack. He picked up the bags again, quick, so deft in his motions, then snatched Jungkook’s bags from his hands the same way and padded after Jiyoon.

Jungkook stared at his emptied hands. He rubbed his fingers, a thumb over his index, felt the tightness of his body, like the skin wasn’t quite his own. Like it was tugged off another person and pulled onto Jungkook instead, the size twice as small.

“You coming?” The muffled voice reached him.

“Yeah,” Jungkook croaked out, throat dry. He pressed the toe of his sneaker to the heel of the other, slipped out of one, did the same with the left shoe. He put the slippers on and placed his sneakers on the shoe rack, where Yoongi had shown him earlier.

He was feeling  lost in Yoongi’s apartment, having no idea where to go, how to move, heart too tight in such an unknown and alien space, when Jiyoon, having changed into her comfortable clothes, appeared out of nowhere with a cat in her arms. Jungkook wasn’t sure if it was breathing, not with this tame expression on its face, completely indifferent to its fate.

“It’s Sugar,” Jiyoon said. She walked closer to Jungkook, holding the cat as if she wanted to give him to Jungkook. “He’s my cat.”

“It’s — ” Jungkook cleared his throat. “Nice. Very cool.” He squatted down to be on the same eye level with Jiyoon again, and reached out to pet the cat gently. His fur was all white and silky, pleasant to the touch.

“Dad got him for me,” Jiyoon said.

“Neat,” Jungkook said, smiling up at her. “Does Dad get everything you ask from him?”

“Most of the time,” Jiyoon nodded. The corners of her lips quirked up abruptly, like this thought gave her joy. It changed her face completely and utterly, revealing a smile with gums.

Oh. Not that Jungkook had doubted it before, but now it was as clear as the sky was blue. She was Yoongi’s — of course she was. Inside and out.

“You wanna hold him?” Jiyoon offered, already shoving the cat into Jungkook’s hands.

Sugar must’ve been used to this treatment, and hadn’t protested before. But once he felt the looser hold of Jungkook on him, he slipped out of the trap easily. He jumped to the floor from Jungkook’s hands and padded back into the depth of the apartment, all the most careful steps, his white tail up in the air.

“Sorry,” Jungkook told Jiyoon. He pouted, exaggerating his reaction a little. Was that what you did with kids?

“It’s okay,” Jiyoon reassured him, like she pitied him. “Sugar is always like that with strangers.”

Right. Jungkook was a stranger. Even Jiyoon, albeit addressing him with the warm familiarity of oppa, didn’t know who he was, what he meant to her father once. If he had meant anything at all.

It hit him that he was completely in the dark about Yoongi’s life. He had been so focused on himself and avoiding any information about Yoongi that he didn’t know this house, didn’t know Yoongi had bought an apartment here, in this area; he didn’t know Yoongi had a white cat named Sugar, and Sugar didn’t know Jungkook and didn’t recognise him; and Jungkook definitely didn’t know Yoongi had a fucking child.

“Yah, Sugar— go the fu— heck away, I’m not going to feed you.” Yoongi’s grumble reached the corridor from the kitchen.

This grumble stirred up so many feelings in Jungkook. So many unwanted feelings, ones he thought he’d shoved away and exiled to never arise again. He got ahold of himself quickly but, for a second, just for a fleeting second as he heard this grumble, such a domestic sound, his chest exploded, all the memories flowing back.

The all-nighters spent together, crouched over a notepad, writing in a frenzy, Yoongi would grumble that Jungkook needed to go to sleep. The countless hours spent in the recording booth, more fooling around than recording, laughing so hard until their abdomens ached, Yoongi would grumble that they had to do work.

Okay. So Jungkook was a stranger. But he could not become one. He could do it if he tried.

“What else can you show me, Jiyoon-ah?”

Jiyoon pouted in deep thought, eyebrows scrunched.

“Oh!” She lit up not a moment later, and hurried somewhere without checking if Jungkook was going after her or not, as if she was sure he couldn’t not be following her.

And Jungkook really could not.

Yoongi’s apartment appeared spacious yet hardly lived in, decorated almost impersonally. It must’ve been recently renovated, the way everything still had the gleam of a new purchase. Milky white walls, glossy polished  flooring, some paintings. It seemed to be maintained perfectly, pristine throughout.

But it didn’t look like a child lived here. It didn’t look like anyone lived here at all.

Jungkook had imagined Yoongi’s life a bit differently. Not that he thought about Yoongi a lot for the past nine years, no, of course not, but… This huge, expensive, spacious apartment in the better neighborhood of Seoul, all the nicest words that you could apply to this apartment, was something so absolutely not Yoongi. At least not the one Jungkook remembered.

And then, he was presented to the living room. Again the  space, tall windows facing the streets, the sofa at the length of the wall, the TV on the opposite side, everything big.

Big money. No home.

Jungkook felt the same back at his place.

He tried not to stare too much at the four framed pictures on one of the walls. Jimin, Taehyung, him, and a photo of them together — it was probably taken out of some magazine’s photoshoot they did some years ago. He knew he’d find himself here but he’d never expected to stumble upon these faces.

Suddenly walking became as if two times as heavy.

“Here,” Jiyoon said. It looked like her hand jerked to grab onto Jungkook's sleeve but eventually she just made a weird twitching gesture toward the corner of the room.

In the corner, there was a piano keyboard and a guitar stand. Jungkook came closer, steps timid, afraid to touch. Here it was, something real from Yoongi. The Yoongi that Jungkook had known, at least.

The black guitar, and the star inlays on its fretboard, instead of the boring usual dots. Jungkook knew this guitar, he knew it so well; he knew every scratch of its body, every sound you could draw out of it. He could tune it blindly, even if he was stone-deaf.

“Dad plays guitar well!” Jiyoon exclaimed.

Jungkook smiled down at her, his eyelids forming the half moons. “I know. I’m the one who taught him.” His voice shouldn’t have been so guiltily gentle when he said it, he thought.

Jiyoon gaped at him, her bravado suddenly lost. “Really?”

“Why would I lie?” Jungkook asked cheekily. “Go ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Jungkook remembered teaching Yoongi. He remembered it too well, probably: the burning warm gooey sensation of the spot where their thighs met on the couch asJungkook guided Yoongi’s fingers on the fretboard, pressing Yoongi’s pads to metallic strings — Does it hurt? — Yoongi was a good student, listened to Jungkook closely, shook his head no — Not at all.

It’s D. It’s C. It’s G.

It’s music.

Yoongi’s finger pads blistered so easily, hardening under the metallic strings in no time.

“Da-a-ad!” Jiyoon whined. She padded to the kitchen, and Jungkook followed her, because he really couldn’t not be following her.

It was unfamiliar territory, an unfamiliar Yoongi. Yoongi was a stranger now, too — and Jungkook wanted to know him, learn him all over again. Just for one evening. Just like good friends.

Jungkook stilled at the brim of the living room and kitchen. He didn’t know where to move himself, how to exist not so awkwardly, not so intruding.  

The kitchen was an open space leading to the dining room, a long aisle separating the two. Yoongi was in the middle of cooking. He looked almost bored with his motions, how laid-back they were. The pots were brought to a boil. Eggs were beaten up in a separate bowl, set aside to be made into an omelette. The kitchen seemed like a controlled mess as Yoongi focused on chopping the vegetables.

 “Dad,” Jiyoon repeated, this time more sternly.

Yoongi looked up from the cutting board,  knife frozen in the air, as if pulled out of his reverie. “Yes, princess?”

“Stop calling me that,” Jiyoon bit slightly. Jungkook barely held back his smile. “Oppa says he taught you how to play guitar. Is that true?”

Yoongi smiled. His gaze shifted back to the cutting board, the chopping resumed. “Why would he lie to you?”

“Well — ” Jiyoon tutted. “I don’t know,” she admitted with a defeated sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You never asked,” Yoongi shrugged like it was not a big deal, and Jungkook’s heart sank a little. “Besides, you didn’t even believe that I knew JK when I told you.”

“Because it sounded absurd!”

“Huh. Do you think that's nice for Jungkook to hear right now?”

Jiyoon sent Jungkook a quick apologetic glance that still held the scowl directed to her father. “But!” she protested. “You always bullshit me, Dad, how am I supposed to believe you?”

Jungkook barked an obnoxious, disbelieving laugh. The sound was so genuine and so long-forgotten his body couldn’t contain it. Jungkook slapped his palm against his mouth, horrified. When he sheepishly looked up at Yoongi, Yoongi was smiling at him, the lines of his mouth pursed like he was trying to hold back his laughter, too.

“What’s so funny?” Jiyoon asked, offended.

Jungkook waved his hands in defense. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing! It’s just… it reminded me that your dad would always do the same to me, as well. He would always tell me something, and I’d believe him only to find out later that it was a straight-up lie.”

Jiyoon hummed. “Yeah, he does that to me too.” She softened again, her smile changing her face, such a bright sunbeam on the gloomy cold day like that one was. “You understand me, oppa.”

“I do,” Jungkook replied softly.

Yoongi scoffed as he added the vegetables to one of the pots. “Yah, already conspiring against Dad? Right in front of me?”

It was so weird to hear him referring to himself as Dad. Jungkook remembered him as a sharp twenty-something, with a  thin delicate jawline, cheeks hollow, gaze quarrelsome, like he’d always been looking for a fight. He’d been striking. Jungkook had been mesmerised with him.

Jungkook studied Yoongi now. Dad Yoongi was still striking. Just in a completely different way. He seemed softer now, evened out, like a mother’s loving hand had smoothed out the rebellion crease of his button-up.

“That’s what you get for bullshitting JK-oppa and me,” Jiyoon said. She punctuated the word ‘bullshit’ a lot, and as much as Jungkook didn’t want to intervene with the parenting method Yoongi and Jiyoon’s mom used to raise her, he wondered —

“Are you allowed to curse, though?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Bullshit is not a swear word,” Jiyoon said, smiling so cheekily she was clearly aware she was, in fact, cussing. She was enjoying it.

God, she was just so — Yoongi’s.

Jungkook cast Yoongi a glance, curious what her dad had to say in this. Yoongi closed his eyes and shook his head in defeat, the corner of his mouth quirking up.

Interesting.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Yoongi said. He was already finishing up the rolled omelette with one hand, his other turning off the stove.

“Do you need my help to set up the table?” Jungkook asked. The question came out shyly, somehow. He made a small step towards the aisle that separated the kitchen and the dining room, never actually crossing the line.

“No,” Yoongi said. His chin pointed at the table. “You’re our guest. You should sit down.”

And Jungkook, despite everything in him screaming in protest, despite desperately wanting to breach the space and come closer to Yoongi to help him, to move in sync with him as they each moved in their own way — Jungkook sat down at the table.

He was a guest. That’s all he was.

He sat quietly, hands crossed on his knees, back straight, and didn't dare to move. He watched Yoongi. He tried to wrap his head around the fact that this was happening, that he wasn’t spending the evening alone, that somebody had prepared a home-cooked meal for him. He hadn’t had one in years, maybe.

“Dad, I’m starving,” Jiyoon whined. Unlike Jungkook, she was unafraid to breach the space, materialising behind the kitchen aisle, sticking her nose everywhere, and opening all the pots. “Ew, I don’t like it.”

Yoongi playfully flicked her on the temple. Jungkook winced sympathetically. About a hundred games of rock-paper-scissors with Yoongi, he knew Yoongi’s flicks hurt.

“Ouch!” Jiyoon rubbed at the spot, and pouted at her dad.

“When I was your age,” Yoongi started as he filled bowls with rice from the cooker.Jiyoon and Jungkook groaned simultaneously. “I couldn’t even think of protesting against free food.”

Jungkook could swear he saw Jiyoon rolling her eyes. It was too quick to catch, though, and then she just grabbed the tray from the counter and beelined to the living room.

“Careful!” Yoongi barked after her.

“Where’s she going?” Jungkook asked, confused, watching her stride out of the kitchen.  

“Jiyoonie?” Yoongi asked, like there was another she who Jungkook could have referred to. “She doesn’t eat at the table with me.”

Jungkook’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“She…prefers to eat in the living room?” Yoongi said. “I don’t know. Maybe she hates spending time with me.”

It sounded so sad.

Jungkook imagined Yoongi having dinner every evening all by himself, just as his kid was eating right behind the wall. He must’ve been lonely. It must’ve been tough. Jungkook knew this feeling well.

How long had it been since Yoongi and Jiyoon’s mom had parted? How old was Jiyoon? She couldn’t have been older than nine and she, with Jungkook’s little experience, seemed older than seven, but Jungkook wasn’t around kids much and couldn’t take any wild guesses.

“I can’t believe you’re actually letting her do this,” Jungkook said. “It’s a bit disrespectful, no? Am I wrong?”

“Well, it’s kind of a trend nowadays.” Yoongi placed two bowls of rice on the table, then went back to bring out some side dishes and kalguksu . “It’s called gentle parenting.”

“My gentle parenting was getting my ass whipped for even thinking of the word ‘bullshit’ when I was her age,” Jungkook grumbled. Yoongi snorted, obnoxiously loud, and Jungkook was delighted to learn that he still could draw out laughter from Yoongi even after all these years.

Yoongi’s hand caressed his shoulder. “You should eat, Jungkook-ah.”

“I’ll eat well,” Jungkook mumbled. He picked up chopsticks and a spoon, digging into the soup. He felt Yoongi’s intense stare on him, as though measuring him up. Jungkook looked up at him after swallowing the first spoonful.

“How is it?” Yoongi asked. Gentle parenting.

Jungkook swallowed the true answer down his throat. “It’s — good. It’s very good, hyung.”

Yoongi smiled. The gums. The goddamn gums.

“I’m glad,” Yoongi said. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Sit down, hyung.” Jungkook patted the chair next to him. “Let’s have dinner together.”

It might have not been much, but sharing food and a table had never felt so good before.

Min Jiyoon,

I’m so sorry.

The next morning. So empty.

His apartment. His life. His heart.

He had a routine. Wake up. Wander around the apartment. Call mom to tell her you were okay, you were holding up fine, no she didn’t need to come. Go for a walk, feel the concrete under your feet — his therapist repeatedly told him it would do wonders for him. Return home. Go to the gym in his apartment. Go back up to the apartment. Wash up. Eat. Play games on his phone. Call mom again, you were still doing okay, no she still didn’t need to come. Okay, goodnight. Tell dad I love him. I’m not doing anything, mom, I’m fine, I’m feeling just fine.

He did feel fine.

It was just that fine was a pretty vague word. No definition. Almost abstract.

Jungkook had only completed the first task (wake up) when his life, once again, got cracked, like a little fracture in a wall that was getting bigger and deeper. He had been laying in bed, rinsing the events of yesterday: Yoongi. Min Jiyoon. Min Jiyoon. Min Jiyoon. Yoongi. Yoongi. Yoongi.

His smile, his voice, the way his hand felt so warm against Jungkook’s shoulder, the way it felt to be seen by him, to thaw under his gaze.

“You’ve gotten so big,” Yoongi had told him. He shyly scratched behind his ear. “I’m really proud, okay? And very grateful, too. Thank you so much for persuading me to work with you back then. It’s been an honour.”

Or,

“I’ve been well,” Yoongi had said. “My songs sell. I like what I’m doing.”

There were things that were worse to hear.

Like,

“Yeah. Well. Back then when I was preparing your album, I was really in love with this girl. We’ve been dating for a while, and when your album took off, — bringing me a lot of money too — I proposed. Jiyoon came around quickly.”

Jungkook’s heart had skipped a beat, because he hadn’t known Yoongi was taken back then. Turned out, he was a fool, he knew nothing about Yoongi despite how close their friendship felt back then. Jungkook was suddenly scared and sick that Yoongi had known about Jungkook’s feelings, and if he had, why didn’t he do anything to stop Jungkook? All the times Jungkook had reached out, all the times Jungkook had almost, almost done something and stopped himself in the middle of leaning in — was Yoongi really unaware? Was Jungkook too much of a coward to show his real intentions? Or was it just that Yoongi had pitied him, and always found his way out of Jungkook’s awkward, teenage flirting?

There were other things, too.

Like,

“One year and… some months ago — wait, no. Two years? I think it’s been almost two years, yeah. Since we got divorced. Jiyoon still hasn’t forgiven me for that. So I feel a bit like I failed her. Like I disappointed her to a level I’ll never be able to understand. She wants me and Jisoo back together. She loves it when all three of us get together again. I guess it feels like we’re a family all over again.”

“Well, can’t you — explain it to her?”

Yoongi smiled dumbfoundedly. “Let me know once you figure out how to do it.”

Or things like,

“My mom. You know. Happens. Life.”

Jungkook had swallowed the dry knot in his throat. He thought maybe his mom had told him about it but he didn’t listen closely — she was reaching that age where the number of goodbyes started growing too big and painful to count, or maybe Jungkook had tuned her out completely at the mere mention of Yoongi’s name and didn't pay attention.

They had finished their dinner by then and Yoongi had put Jiyoon to sleep. They were lounging on the couch in the living room, a warm yellow light on Yoongi’s skin as he sipped his wine while Jungkook settled for water.

“My condolences,” Jungkook had said. He was twenty-eight, he should’ve been used to these words by now; yet he still felt the annoying sting of adolescence as he didn’t know how to soothe, how to talk about it. “How’s your dad? Has it been long?”

“Dad’s… I don’t know, I guess he’s fine. He doesn’t really like talking about it. It hasn’t been long, either. Only two years.” Yoongi chuckled. Something must’ve crossed Jungkook’s features. He’d always been an open book around Yoongi so it wasn’t surprising when Yoongi squeezed his hand, like it was Jungkook who needed support. “It’s okay. I’m okay now.”

“It must’ve been hard,” Jungkook said. “This and getting divorced at the same time. It must’ve been tough.”

Yoongi leaned back on the couch. He looked so tired. So pale.

“Yeah, it was a huge part of why Jisoo and I split up,” Yoongi admitted. “I don’t think I’m the same person anymore. It changed me. The things I saw my mom go through. It’s — ” Yoongi ran his hand through his hair. “Sorry. Don’t wanna bring the mood down now. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve changed, and Jisoo didn’t understand my changes. And it’s okay. She doesn’t owe me anything. But I really wished she did — understand me, that is. I was really upset with her. Or with myself. I don’t even know anymore.”

And Jungkook had thought, heart heavy —

His phone rang.

Jungkook frowned, pulled out of his reverie. He tried to find where the sound was coming from. Turned out, it came from under his pillow. He picked up the phone blindly — bad habits. What if it was Taehyung or Jimin?

“Yeah?” Jungkook asked. He stared at the ceiling. His stomach hurt.

For a second, from this stretched out fleeting silence, from how overbearing it was, Jungkook really thought it was Jimin or Taehyung.

Then, a tiny voice spoke. “Oppa?”

Jungkook jolted, sitting up straighter. He tried gathering his thoughts. “Jiyoon-ah?”

“Yeah.”

Fuck. How did she even get his number?

“What’s up?” Jungkook asked cautiously. He moved from his bed, climbed down, felt the concrete floor under his feet — not exactly asphalt, but it would do to stay sane. The story with Yoongi was supposed to be over today. It was good while it lasted. Jungkook made sure Yoongi was doing fine, he was healthy, had a good job and a nice apartment and a daughter and a failed marriage; Yoongi didn’t need Jungkook to complicate anything further. If there was anything to complicate at all.

“I wanna hang out with you again,” Jiyoon said.

Jungkook caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. An old, worn out t-shirt, that had gotten so big on him from thousands of washings that it was exposing the patch of his collarbone. Dishevelled dirty hair — he was so drained when he came back from Yoongi’s apartment that he didn’t have any energy to wash up.  His face was bloated from all the water he drank last night so late in the evening, and he was just so empty, feeling so much like an unrecognisable geometry shape of a man that he wondered how could anyone, let alone a kid, want to hang out with him?

“Uh,” Jungkook said. If he and Jiyoon were to meet up, it meant Yoongi would be there, too. “Are you sure your dad will be up to that?”

“Why wouldn’t he be? He hates spending time with me anyway.”

Kids had this cruel manner of speaking where they didn’t weigh the blow of their words at all before saying them. Kids spoke bluntly and forthrightly.

Jungkook’s heart broke. From yesterday’s conversation with Yoongi, he figured out that if there was anything in this world that Yoongi loved, it was music and Jiyoon.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Jungkook said.

“It is, ” Jiyoon pushed. “It’s awkward between us two. We need someone fun. Like JK-oppa.”

Reality check. Another indelicate sentence, tearing Jungkook’s chest apart.

Jiyoon didn’t need him, Jeon Jungkook. She needed a superstar from her dad’s posters in the living room, JK.

Jungkook wasn’t that anymore. He wasn’t sure if he had the right to pretend to be someone he wasn’t.

“Please?” Jiyoon asked. “I really wanna go ice skating, and Dad won’t teach me.”

Of course he wouldn’t.

“He can’t ice skate,” Jungkook blurted, his speech gaining the same plain-spoken manner and his heart skipping another beat of guilt. He knew too much.

“He said he can.”

“He lied, then.”

Jiyoon sighed, so tired for a nine-year-old. “I should’ve known he bullshitted me again.”

Jungkook breathed out, matching his sigh with Jiyoon’s. He closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead.

There was another thing Yoongi had told him yesterday. When Jungkook so carefully asked if he was seeing anyone, asked as if he wasn’t interested at all, just in a passing manner, Yoongi snorted like Jungkook had just said something completely ridiculous. Jungkook frowned. He hated to feel this stupid. Yoongi apologized and explained.

“I’m on a dating ban,” he had said. When the frown wouldn’t leave Jungkook’s face, he continued, like he was amused by the situation himself. “It means that Jiyoonie hates it when I talk to women that aren’t her mother, and I hate to see her upset.”

“I see,” Jungkook had hummed. “She must miss her mom a lot.”

“She does. She usually spends all of her time with Jisoo, and I take her for weekends. Sometimes she and Jisoo are so preoccupied with themselves, I can go on without seeing her for weeks.”

Yoongi continued to talk. There was something about Jisoo and her work in New Zealand that could end up in a career break, so of course Yoongi let her go and took Jiyoon in for the winter. Something about how it wasn’t the same anymore, but Jungkook was already too zoned out, too deep in his thoughts to recognise the shape of Yoongi’s words.

Min Jiyoon,

Do you get it now? That it was you who started everything?

“Okay,” Jungkook said carefully. “Let me call your dad and we’ll figure something out, okay?”

“Okay.” The pout was evident on the other line. “Oppa, I really, really, really wanna learn how to skate. Everyone in my class knows how to.”

“I hear you,” Jungkook said. “I’ll teach you, okay?”

“Pinky promise?”

Jungkook caught yet another glimpse of himself in the mirror, and was surprised to find himself smiling. “Pinky promise. Now let’s hang up, Jiyoon-ah. I need to talk to your dad too, right?”

“Right,” Jiyoon agreed. “Okay! We’re going ice skating!”

“We’re not going yet — ”

And the line went dead.

Jungkook’s apartment and soul were once again empty. As if now that Jiyoon’s high-pitched voice was gone, Jungkook couldn’t be too sure if he had imagined this rush of excitement in his chest or not.

He groaned into his hands.

He was getting himself into something he shouldn’t. He should stay away. He shouldn’t allow himself to want. He had already burned himself with his selfish wishes before.

He pulled out the contacts app on his phone, hypnotised by one particular number, his thumb hovering and contemplating.

Yoongi-hyung. So formal. So professional. Like Jungkook had never, not even once in his life, wanted him and not gotten him, like there was no feeling of unsettlement buried deep down in him.

Oh, but there was.

It had never truly gone away, Jungkook realised yesterday. And only because it felt like he hadn’t finished something, like he had left it hanging for too long, he pressed the call. Only because of that. No other reason.

He anxiously counted the seconds, half-hugging himself while he waited. He felt so grown-up next to Jiyoon, almost too old; but as he called Yoongi, he felt like his nineteen-year old self, still too young to know anything about the world.

“Min Yoongi speaking,” the voice announced.

“Hyung,” Jungkook croaked.

“Jungkook-ah?”

“Yeah.”

There was some shuffle on the other side. “What’s up?”

It was the hardest task so far. Jungkook really didn’t know how to break it to Yoongi, and he was afraid that if he was as frank as Jiyoon had been with him, it’d make Yoongi feel all the things Jungkook wished Yoongi wouldn’t have to ever encounter, not after everything life had thrown at him already.

“Your daughter called me,” Jungkook said. He chose the cheerful tone. He was good at that. Pretending. Being cheeky but not too much. Variety shows used to love him. “Why do you refuse to take her ice skating, eh?”

A pause. The thousands of questions must’ve exploded in Yoongi, judging by this silence, all the what’s and why’s and how’s; or maybe not, maybe he’d known Jiyoon would do this, maybe he knew his daughter inside out.

“You know I can’t skate for shit,” Yoongi deadpanned.

“Whatever,” Jungkook scoffed. “Then I’m teaching her.”

“You know you don’t have to comply with her every wish, right?”

“Oh, is ‘Dad-buys-me-everything-I-ask-him’ speaking right now?”

Yoongi coughed to either clear his throat or hide his embarrassment. “Well, I’m a dad. That’s just what dads do.”

“And I’m an uncle,” Jungkook pushed, sudden bravery. He slightly doubted that one would refer to a man who showed up for the first time in your nine-year-old life with a familiar term like uncle, but Yoongi had always been soft on him, and Jungkook could feel him crumbling under Jungkook in mere seconds even after all these years. “When are you two free? I’d be more than happy to take her ice skating.”

Yoongi hummed. “I mean — it’s Saturday, so she doesn’t have anything to do after she’s done with her homework.”

“Nice,” Jungkook said. “Then, today?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi said. “Sure. Thank you, Jungkook-ah.”

Jungkook bit on his bottom lip to stop himself from smiling too wide. “No problem, hyung.”

Min Jiyoon.

I need to be honest. Back then, I couldn’t care less about you.

I’m sorry. I’ll become better. You’ll change me.

You’ll see.

“It’s empty!” she squealed as she rushed right into the ice rink area. “Oh God, but there’s usually  so many people, how’s that possible — ”

“Welcome, sir,” the bodyguards bowed.

Jungkook bowed back at them, shortly but there. Yoongi bowed a bit deeper, with a lost expression on his face.

“Let us show you around.”

“Thank you,” Jungkook said, and let the bodyguards guide them. Jiyoon had already run off to the actual rink, trying to look over the rink’s walls, buzzing with excitement. Absentmindedly, Jungkook picked up the pace, when Yoongi pinched Jungkook’s sweatshirt sleeve, holding him back. Jungkook looked over his shoulder at Yoongi.

Yoongi’s eyebrows were furrowed. He didn’t look angry or mad — Jungkook didn’t know if Yoongi even was capable of those emotions; he had rarely seen him this serious.

“You didn’t have to book the whole ice rink for her.”

Ah, that’s what it was.

“It’s not for her,” Jungkook said, frowning back at Yoongi. He , on the other hand, felt all spectrum of emotions. From feeling fine to anger. “It’s for my safety and privacy.”

Yoongi’s eyes widened. His grip on Jungkook’s sleeve loosened. Jungkook didn’t make a single move to get rid of it until Yoongi’s hand naturally slipped off of him and Yoongi stepped back, even more collected than before.

“Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten.”

Did he forget how famous Jungkook was?

“It’s okay,” Jungkook said. “You must’ve not realised how bad it was.”

“That, too,” Yoongi agreed.

Jungkook hated seeing him like this. “Hey, but it’s for her, too. It’s for all of us. So nobody can  take pictures of her. Besides,” he grinned, “isn’t it so much fun to learn how to skate in an  empty rink?”

“I don’t know,” Yoongi said. “Never had a chance to.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows at him, like Yoongi’s words had just proved him right.

Yoongi sighed. “Thank you, Jungkook-ah.”

Jungkook felt his grin melting into something softer. He wanted to tell Yoongi so many things. So, so many things — things like I’ve missed hyung , or I want to never part from you again, and then add I’ve never once in my entire life not gotten what I wanted. They were just on the tip of his tongue, so easy to slip out.

“Oppa!” Jiyoon whined. “Stop talking to Dad, and pay attention to me. ”

Jungkook and Yoongi exchanged exasperated, adoring chuckles, and both picked up their paces to catch up with Jiyoon. A girl at the equipment rental desk helped them find skates in Jiyoon and Jungkook’s sizes; another one asked Yoongi if he needed anything, and while she showed Yoongi around, a third one guided Jungkook and Jiyoon to the benches where they could change.

Jungkook was tying the lacing on his skates enthusiastically when Jiyoon’s hand reached out to his elbow, touch feather-light and shy. He looked up at her, confused.

“Oppa,” Jiyoon whispered. “I don’t know how — ”

Jungkook looked back at his skates, knotted perfectly. Jiyoon’s, on the other hand, still lay at her feet, abandoned next to her sneakers.

Shit.

If he was an uncle, he was just a terribly shitty one.

“It’s no problem, sir, we’ll help her — ” One of the workers hurried to tie Jiyoon’s skates.

“It’s okay,” Jungkook said, hating himself, hating that others had to see his failure, hating to disappoint Jiyoon, a little. He pushed himself off of the bench, and sank onto one knee next to Jiyoon. “Sorry,” he whispered as he loosened the tongue of the left skate. He didn’t know what to add to this. Every excuse just sounded stupid even to him. “Okay, c’mon, Cinderella-nim, put your foot in there.”

Jiyoon giggled, smiling at him, again these hurtful gums. She grabbed his shoulder for stability, hands small and grip tight, and, with the most tired grunt Jungkook had ever heard from a kid, slipped her foot inside.

“Good,” Jungkook murmured. He fixed her foot on his knee, and tied the laces as carefully as he could, checking up on her constantly. Does it hurt? Is it too tight?

“Not at all,” she told him, shaking her head no.

“Okay, then,” Jungkook grinned; he thought that it was a bit fake and that she definitely noticed it. He loosened the tongue on the right skate. “Next one, please, m’lady.”

She beamed at him again — not fake at all; Jungkook wasn’t sure if she could even do it. Again, a hand gripped  Jungkook’s shoulder. Her breath scalded his neck as she stumbled on her left foot into him, unused to standing on the blade of a skate — Jungkook caught her quickly, a protective hand placed around her back.

“Oopsie,” she giggled as she steadied herself and let Jungkook guide her foot into the right skate. “My bad.”

Jungkook tied her lacings as careful as the last time, checked that it was secure around her feet, and stood up. She clinged to his wrist with her two hands, and he had to open up his palm for her, let her settle between his love and life lines. She tugged herself up with the help of his hand, and they both headed to the rink. Her hand was small in his, cold and sweaty,and she kept whirling her head around, not meeting his gaze.

He stepped onto the ice first. He hadn’t skated in a while, not since last winter, or perhaps two already had passed, but the feeling of the cold ground under his feet was familiar, easy. He skated backwards, ready to meet her once she’d step on the ice.

Instead, she hovered near the entrance, suddenly timid, not the way Jungkook had come to know her. She was peering into him with her wide-eyed stare, mouth open.

“Erm,” he croaked, not quite getting it. He was close to her, ready to catch her if she were to fall. Was there anything else she needed?

“Oppa,” she whispered again, curling into the rink’s wall, “I’m scared.”

Jungkook wanted to bang his head against the ice.

For being who he was. For not being able to take care of her. For not knowing how to exist and how to breathe and how to move, not in this unfamiliar skin.

Why did he ever dare to think he could do this?

“Oppa?” Jiyoon called out to him again, her voice tiny, stretched.

She just really, really, really wanted to learn how to skate. Jungkook had just been really, really, really in love with her father once.

He clasped his hand into a fist.

Okay. Yoongi had done so much for him. Jungkook could give him something back. Desperately wanted to, even.

He skated to the entrance and reached out with his hands to Jiyoon. “It’s okay,” he lied. “I’m here. I promised to teach you, didn’t I? But you’ll have to get on the ice first.” He pouted. “We’ve gotten so far. One last step left.”

She pouted back at him. “I’m really, really, really scared.”

“I’m here,” Jungkook repeated, this time more sternly. “I won’t let you fall or get hurt, okay? We’re gonna hold hands really tight, and I’m not letting you go for a single second.”

“Yah, guys, how is it going?” Yoongi’s voice reached them. He was still quite far, but so easily noticeable. He was coming back with a drink carrier in his hand, three cups gleaming in the distance.

Jiyoon’s gaze shifted to her feet, ashamed.

“Hey,” Jungkook whispered, crouching a bit lower to smile at her. “Let’s show your dad what you’ve got, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jiyoon mumbled. Her head snapped up, and she narrowed her gaze at him and pointed at his chest with her index finger. “But don’t let go of me.”

“I won’t,” Jungkook said. “C’mere.”

So she went to him. He caught her immediately, and she laughed, this kind of snicker that was more of a nervous chuckle than anything else, gripping at his forearms.

“Good,” Jungkook said quietly, just under his breath. They skated backwards — she clinged, he moved his feet. “How does it feel?”

She stared at her skates, the ice beneath her moving, and then looked up at him and beamed, and it was the first time that Jungkook didn’t feel nauseous and sick and twisted at her gummy smile — he felt goddamn proud.

“Jiyoon-ah, my daughter,” Yoongi mused from where he was leaning against the rim, a coffee cup in his hand. “You’re doing such a good job. A born figure skater.”

“Dad!” she yelped, both excited and mortified, looking over her shoulder to check if Yoongi really watched her or not.

How could he not?

Min Jiyoon,

Your father loves you to pieces. You know that, right?

Yoongi parked his car in front of Jungkook’s apartment building. Jungkook didn’t really drive anymore, alternating between calling cabs and following his therapist’s advice to “feel the concrete under his feet”.

Yoongi used to prefer the subway. Sometimes, when he and Jungkook couldn’t get the beat of a song for long enough, Yoongi’d just drag him to the subway, no destination in mind, just them together, talking and laughing and falling into silence, listening to the music around them.

The music of life.

The chatter of girls in high school uniforms — Yoongi’d grin, Those are your classmates? They’re pretty. And Jungkook’d shove him lightly, I’ve graduated already! And you know I went to an all-boys school! And Yoongi’d ruffle his hair, I know. Of course I know.

The calming clatter of the train — Jungkook’d say, Let’s add the sound of it to layer number 96 in the song, and Yoongi’d let out a surprised yet approving sound and make this kind of face that would have Jungkook wishing he was a bit older and more mature, so he would not be so terrified to press his palms to Yoongi’s cheeks and pull him in and press their mouths together. Jungkook’s first kiss was supposed to be with Yoongi — of course it was, Jungkook had been sure it was destined to be.

The banter in the random café by the subway station — Yoongi used to say the food in those types of diners was the best, and Jungkook used to have this habit of blindly believing everything Yoongi said.

Yoongi used to prefer the subway but he drove an SUV these days. The family type of SUV that implied there could be more kids in the backseat someday.

Jiyoon had dozed off in the backseat — it had been an eventful day, and Jungkook couldn’t blame her.

He and Yoongi stepped out of the car. Yoongi walked him to the entrance. Jungkook found it strange. There really was no need for Yoongi to do that, so he lingered before going in, waiting for Yoongi to find the courage to speak.

“I’m sorry for dumping everything that’s wrong in my life on you yesterday,” Yoongi said.

Oh.

But Jungkook hadn’t considered it as such. He had considered it to be a conversation, an exchange between two friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long while.

“It’s okay,” Jungkook said. He didn’t like this apology. He didn’t like that Yoongi felt the need to apologise for that. “It’s not your fault life hasn’t been kind to you in the past two years. I’m glad you talked sincerely to me.”

Yoongi nodded with a hum. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, rolled on his feet like a little kid. Like he wasn't a thirty-something with his life all put together. “One day I hope you’ll talk to me as sincerely as I did.”

If Jungkook were to speak sincerely with Yoongi, what would he tell him?

Would he tell him what had been going on behind the concerts’ stage? Would he tell him about the way Jimin had raised his voice, and then Jungkook had followed after him, and then Taehyung? Would Jungkook tell him about all the times he’d gone back to this apartment, about the things he’d done there, the people he took home?

“I hope so, too,” Jungkook said nevertheless. “I’m sorry.”

Yoongi waved his hands dismissively. “It’s ok. We haven’t seen each other in a long time. It’s okay if you can’t, or don’t want to, open up to me. I get it. You don’t have to.”

Just as Jungkook was about to protest, Yoongi spoke up again. He talked rushedly, as if there were only seconds left before his courage would be gone. “You can talk to me anytime, okay? Call me. Text me. Come by unannounced. Anything. Hyung’s going to take care of you, okay? I will. I swear I will.” Yoongi reached out to him. Jungkook wasn’t sure if Yoongi knew himself what he wanted to do with this motion. In the end, Yoongi’s hand landed on Jungkook’s shoulder, squeezed it lightly. “Life has been tough on you, too. I’ll be happy to offer you a shoulder you can lean on.”

But Yoongi was so much more.

“Thank you.” Jungkook put a hand on the entrance’s door handle. “Have a safe trip back.”

“Go in,” Yoongi said.

Jungkook felt ridiculous as he tore his gaze off Yoongi’s face and turned away from him, walking in the lobby of his apartment building. A dumb smile clung to his face, and he had to look down at his sneakers for no one to notice it.

He didn’t anticipate the emptiness that struck him once he stepped back inside his apartment. He’d assumed he would be lonely after hanging out with Jiyoon and Yoongi, but not to this extent, not like this, not with his heart and bones both numb and twisted.

As if she could feel him back in Busan, his phone rang.

Mom.

It was strange, too. Jungkook worried if something had happened. She usually didn’t call him first, always waiting for him to phone her strictly two times a day —

Right. Jungkook didn’t call her today, too busy with ice skating.

“Hey, mom, sorry—” he mumbled as he picked up the phone. He slipped out of his sneakers, putting on slippers. “I just came  back home. Sorry. I was busy.”

“It’s okay. Where’ve you been, sweetheart?” she asked.

Jungkook couldn’t blame her for worrying. For wanting to know.

“I’ve been out with Yoongi-hyung,” he said. He wandered deeper into the apartment. The lights came on automatically. He beelined to the kitchen. “Remember? One of your friend’s sons. He worked with me and the guys on our first album. I must’ve been talking a lot about him.”

“Ah, Yoongi-yah? You sure did,” she said. A pause.  “Does he—”

“No,” Jungkook said, more harshly than he had intended. He couldn't blame her for worrying, and he didn’t, but he couldn’t allow her to assume all these horrible things about Yoongi. It was all Jungkook’s fault. He was the bad guy. “He doesn’t. I don’t, not anymore, either. Okay? I’ve been out with him and his daughter. I taught her how to ice skate.”

Another pause, this time longer. Jungkook leaned on his elbows against the kitchen counter, pressed his forehead into the cold tiles of the wall. All of his organs felt too big for his small body, too stiff.

“It was fun,” he said quietly, almost apologetically. Like licking at a wound. “Mom, it was fun.”

“That’s a relief,” she whispered. “I don’t need to come, right?”

“You don’t,” Jungkook said softly. “I’m fine, mom.”

The thing with the word fine was that it was a spectrum of moods. It was a pretty vague word.

[Taehyung-hyung] [2:28 p.m.]

Holding up okay?

Jungkook stared at the phone screen. Like any other message Taehyung had been sending to him these days, it made him pause. Was he holding up okay? Or was he just imagining that things were getting better?

Like any other message Taehyung had been sending to him these days, Jungkook decided to ignore it. He walked out of the gym, pushed  the elevator button. It arrived quickly, made a high-pitched announcement. Jungkook stepped in. His back rested heavily against one of the walls. He avoided looking at the mirror.

He hated the way working out actually made him feel so fucking better. Head clear, intrusive thoughts gone.

His phone chimed again. He groaned, his head meeting the wall. Fuck.

He held his phone up. The notification read, Min Jiyoon.

For God’s sake.

Jungkook unlocked the phone. He contemplated for a second or two before pressing on the notification.

[Min Jiyoon] [2:34 p.m.]

Come over Im boreddddd~~ >______________<

Another notification.

[Min Jiyoon] [2:34 p.m.]

Voice message. 0:32.

Jungkook pressed Play.

“Oppa, I’m really, really, really bored, and I want to do something fun and Dad refuses to do anything fun, and I think you should come over and play with me. Or—or—or I can come over to you? Ah, I wanna see your house!”

Another one.

[Min Jiyoon] [2:36 p.m.]

[Image attachment]

Sugar-nim misses you!!~~ ^^

Jungkook battled with himself, and exited the messaging app.

The elevator announced his floor. Jungkook went out but didn’t really make a move towards his apartment, instead halting in the empty corridor. He stared at the phone number, a hurricane of guilt and want inside his chest, inside his stomach, in his everything. So familiar. Like history. Like it’d been written in his DNA.

He pressed Call.

“Min Yoongi speaking.”

“Does Jiyoonie not have friends?”

A pause. “Good afternoon, Jungkook-ah.”

Yoongi’s voice settled so comfortably in the pit of his stomach.

“Good afternoon, hyung,” Jungkook murmured, staring at his feet, like a high-schooler. He thawed fast, was afraid the love he used to carry for Yoongi bled out of him too noticeably. Then, he recalled why he phoned Yoongi in the first place. “Jiyoon texted me again.”

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi said. “I’ll talk to her. She won’t text you again.”

“I don’t mind her texting me,” Jungkook said, quick to dismiss it. “I mind the fact that she seems lonely. Does she not have friends her age?”

Yoongi sighed. “It’s tough to have your parents divorced, okay?” It was that kind of sigh that made the Earth stop turning, and Jungkook felt the wave of hurt hitting him absurdly, for no reason.

“Do kids — ”

“Kids don’t bully her,” Yoongi reassured him, as if he felt Jungkook’s desperation, too. “But… I don’t know. When I pick her up from school, she never stays to play with other children. She just goes straight to my car. I wouldn’t mind waiting for her while she plays but she never does.”

Jungkook finally found the strength to move, so he walked over to his door, inputted his keycode, and let himself in. “It’s sad,” he murmured into the phone speaker.

Yoongi chuckled. “That I’m a shitty parent?”

Jungkook pressed his lips in a thin line. “You’re not.”  He took his sneakers off, slipped into slippers, walked deeper into the apartment. The lights came on automatically. He headed for his bedroom.

“What did she text you?” Yoongi asked. He sounded genuinely curious, as though he wanted to know everything about Jiyoon. He probably did. Maybe that was what happened when your name went from Yoongi to Jiyoon’s Dad.

Jungkook shrugged. “Just, you know. I’m bored. Oppa, come over. Sugar misses you.” A pause. Jungkook added, “Judging by his expression on the picture she sent me, he doesn’t miss anyone.”

Yoongi laughed. “He kinda hates everyone but her, to be honest.”

“It’s hard to hate her,” Jungkook said. He wanted to add, speaking from my own experience.

He stayed silent, however, and the pause stretched. Jungkook put the phone on speaker, tossed it onto his bed, and stripped his sweaty gym shirt off.

“Look, I don’t know what you want me to do,” Yoongi said tiredly. “I’ll speak to her, okay? I’m sorry she’s bothering you.”

Jungkook frowned. “Hyung really doesn’t get it, does he?” He didn’t wait for Yoongi to catch up. “She’s not bothering me. It’s fine. I’m happy to be here for her. It’s just… are you okay with me being around you guys? We’ve been meeting up a lot lately. I don’t want to annoy you.”

“You know your presence has never been a bother to me.”

Jungkook breathed out. It had always been this way, even nine years ago — when Yoongi was so blunt with him that Jungkook loved him the most, when Yoongi said those kinds of things so nonchalantly that Jungkook’s heart would skip a guilty beat and allow itself to hope. Could Jungkook really be blamed for wanting Yoongi back then?

“Besides,” Yoongi added, “I do feel like you’re better at this than I am. And I wouldn’t mind learning from you.”

“That’s it?” Jungkook teased.

He could see Yoongi’s lips curling upwards as he spoke, “Of course not. I love seeing you. It’s good having you back.”

All of Yoongi’s words, like his lyrics, sprayed like a thick layer of honey in Jungkook’s chest. He’d been right to get Yoongi to work on their first album. No one could’ve done it better, no one else would’ve understood the band better than Yoongi did.

“I can be at yours in twenty. That okay?” Jungkook said.

“More than okay,” Yoongi hummed so warm it melted Jungkook’s insides.

Min Jiyoon,

Thank you.

He had a new routine now.

Most things didn’t change, of course. Jungkook would still wake up and wander around the apartment, lost, relearning all the corners, the steps it took for him to get from the bedroom to the bathroom, the lights that came on automatically. As he had breakfast, he would call his mom, and she would ask him how he was doing, if he had been well, and he’d tell her that he was fine, and no, she still didn’t need to come. He would hit the gym a bit later, then go back to his apartment and wash up and eat again and call his mom and go to sleep.

But then there were moments in between those. Jungkook’s phone chiming with a new notification from what Jungkook believed normal people called a family group chat.

It was just him, Jiyoon, and Yoongi.

Most of the messages there were sent by Jiyoon — she blabbered into voice messages during breaks in school and she sent videos of Sugar. Sometimes Yoongi would randomly text a ‘Where are you?’, addressed to Jiyoon. Jungkook, for the most part, was there to send encouraging emojis to Jiyoon.

The groupchat had been arranged by him, after Yoongi had learned that Jiyoon made sure to text Jungkook every single day with little updates. I’m jealous, Yoongi had said. I wanna get to know her, too. Like any other life obstacle Yoongi might encounter, Jungkook made sure to liquidate it.

There were other moments. Like Jungkook spending his every evening with Yoongi and Jiyoon. He’d been trying to limit it to every four days at first, but then they morphed into three when Jiyoon asked him to take her to this kawaii-i-i, it’s-so-cute-oppa! dessert cafe she’d found on Instagram (“Is she even allowed to have Instagram so young?” Jungkook had asked, and Yoongi had shrugged, and they had visited the cafe), and then three turned into every two days because, apparently, when you went grocery shopping with your father alone it completely sucked and then, naturally, he was seeing them every day.

It wasn’t that Jungkook was opposed to it all. It was just that he’d been afraid Yoongi was going to get sick of him.

His worries dissipated when Jungkook realised that spending days together with Yoongi felt weirdly familiar, not wrong at all. That was when he recalled that while working on the album, they’d been meeting up daily, too. They’d spend entire days together, holed up in Yoongi’s studio; they’d go eat and take naps together — Jungkook on the couch, Yoongi in his, what Jungkook called, PD-chair. It was one of the reasons why Jungkook hadn’t even thought about asking if Yoongi was taken or not back then.

How could he, if Yoongi’s whole life seemed to revolve around the album and Jungkook?

Apparently, he could. Apparently, he had squeezed his girlfriend Jisoo somewhere in between too, the same way Jungkook squeezed Jiyoon and Yoongi into his routine now.

Never brilliant in his studies, Jungkook helped Jiyoon with her homework. When walking around the Han river, Jiyoon climbing the playground like a monkey, Jungkook and Yoongi gossiped about his two coworkers, a producer and a mixing engineer, who couldn’t realise they were in love for a decade or so.

They ate dinner together — Jungkook and Yoongi in the dining room, Jiyoon in the living room. Jungkook was glad he didn’t have to eat frozen meals anymore, and every time they went to a grocery store, Yoongi would ask him what Jungkook would like to eat and made sure to cook Jungkook’s dish somewhere within the week.

Jungkook knew he was fitting but he never really realised to what extent — until one day, as he lay on his stomach on the couch, completely terrorising Sugar as he petted him in any way he wanted to, Yoongi pointed out, “Wow. He seems to love you.”

Jungkook’s hand stopped scratching behind Sugar’s ear. He looked up at Yoongi hovering under the arch between the dining and living rooms. Sugar let out a displeased meow, nuzzling into Jungkook’s touch.

“I — I guess,” Jungkook said, and Yoongi smiled, so gentle, with gums. The gums still hurt.

Yoongi stepped over to the couch and ruffled Jungkook’s hair. “I think it’s impossible not to love you,” he said, and quickly proceeded to sigh. “I’m gonna go try to put Jiyoon to sleep.”

Jungkook swallowed thickly.  “Sure. I’m gonna join soon, too.”

“Please do.”

After spending several minutes collecting himself, sitting up on the couch in silence as Sugar circled around his legs, Jungkook finally pushed on the cushion and made himself go. He entered Jiyoon’s room in the middle of a tantrum. As usual, she argued that it was all because her dad didn’t respect her and made her go to bed too early, and when Yoongi calmly explained again and again that he always put her to sleep at half past nine, she scoffed and told him that he was bullshitting her again.

“Hey,” Jungkook said as he rested his shoulder against the doorjamb. “Time to knock out, no?”

“Oppa,” Jiyoon pouted. She didn’t add anything to this, expecting him to catch up.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” Jungkook whispered. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his lips curling into a smile. The three of them knew what was coming.

“Sing me to sleep,” she told him.

So he flicked the lights off, the room doused by a soft red glow coming from the night lamp.

“Which song?” Jungkook asked, stepping closer. He sat down on the floor by Jiyoon’s bedside table, and stretched his legs. He made sure to avoid touching Yoongi’s knees on the other side of the bed. A bit of an awkward position, but it’d have to do.

Jiyoon hummed, considering her options. “‘ Numb the heart’. This one, please? Pretty please?”

Jungkook laughed. “You always ask for this one these days.”

“I really, really, really like it,” Jiyoon said. “It’s so sad.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook smiled. “Sad is what I would describe this song, too.”

“I like this one, too,” Yoongi said quietly. His hand somehow had circled around Jungkook’s ankle, tugging Jungkook’s leg into a straight line, and was now rubbing a soothing circle into Jungkook’s skin, his thumb going around the prominent bone.

If it was Jimin or Taehyung, Jungkook wouldn’t even think anything of it. They were so used to each other, they were one.

Jungkook had to swallow again, breathe in greedily, and close his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to sing if he knew Yoongi was watching him closely.

Numb the heart, it’s going to get tough.

Numb the heart, it’s going to hurt in the future.

You should numb your heart.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Yoongi whispered when they stepped out of Jiyoon’s room, leaving her behind sleeping peacefully. “Really.”

I don’t know what I’d do without you, either.  

Min Jiyoon,

There's something I need you to know.

All my love songs that you enjoy listening to so much — I wrote them all for your father.

The ones that climbed the Billboard charts and set the world around me on fire, made my face so recognisable in the crowds everywhere I went, all of these songs — they’re all about him. 

[Taehyung-hyung] [7:23 p.m.]

Eunji says she misses you.

“Is everything okay?” Yoongi asked.

Jungkook quickly locked his phone, his eyes darting up at Yoongi. He was hovering near Jungkook, setting up the table for dinner while Jungkook played games on the phone until he was interrupted by Taehyung’s sudden announcement.

“Sorry for being nosy,” Yoongi murmured, moving away. He sounded guilty. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Jungkook would love to share his everything with Yoongi. But it would also mean that he had to open up to Yoongi about his feelings, about the way Jungkook owed Yoongi almost his entire life. Jungkook didn’t know how one could find the right words to talk about it.

So he stayed silent.

“You’re not nosy,” Jungkook said. Yoongi hummed in reply, a little distantly.

Jungkook caught Yoongi’s wrist, his thumb over Yoongi’s bone. “You’re not, ” Jungkook repeated sternly, sending his point across. Yoongi nodded, and Jungkook let go of him. His hand idly fell against his side. “It’s just — there’s stuff, you know.”

“I know,” Yoongi said gently. His hand squeezed Jungkook’s shoulder. “We can always talk about it, okay?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook whispered, his head down, eyes peering at Yoongi’s slippers and his own, the ones that Yoongi had bought for Jungkook once he became a frequent guest in his house. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Yoongi nodded and took a step back from Jungkook — and it felt like breaking Jungkook’s heart a little, and a lot like disappointing Yoongi.

Jiyoon walked into the kitchen with Sugar in her arms. As usual, the cat was at her complete mercy with a pained expression on his face.

“I’m hungry,” Jiyoon announced. “Like, so hungry I can eat Sugar.”

Jungkook and Yoongi erupted in laughter.

“Please don’t eat our precious Sugar-nim,” Jungkook said, reaching out to take Sugar away from Jiyoon. She let go of the cat surprisingly easily. Jungkook placed him on his lap, his fingers naturally burrowed in his fur. Sugar relaxed, giving Jungkook more access to pet him.

Jiyoon padded to the kitchen aisle, her steps dangerously loud. “Dad, when will the food be ready?”

“It already is,” Yoongi said, expression endearingly lost at the threat. He pointed at the tray. “You may take it.”

“Thank god,” Jiyoon groaned, and Jungkook couldn’t help laughing once again.

When Jiyoon grabbed the tray and left the dining room, it felt surprisingly empty. It felt like Jungkook’s apartment, with this unbearable muted silence, like a soundproof studio,only worse. The TV in the living room chimed, the sounds of a cartoon show echoing through both rooms.

When Jungkook looked at Yoongi, he wore a fake smile on his face, that kind of smile he slipped on when he didn’t know what to do or how to deal with the situation. He was looking out of the kitchen, to where Jiyoon could be seen.

This expression on Yoongi’s face.

Jungkook gently pushed Sugar off his lap. He mewled, clearly not pleased, his tail hitting Jungkook’s shin.

“Wow,” Yoongi said. It came out a bit abruptly, as though still trying to change the topic from earlier. “Jungkook-ah, I think this cat — ”

“You know what?” Jungkook cut him off, and rose to his feet. Yoongi’s mouth snapped shut. “I’m tired of this.”

Yoongi’s confused stare followed him through the living’s room arch. “Jungkook, I’m sorry if I did something — ”

For a second, Jungkook just watched Min Jiyoon seated on the floor, a tray in front of her. She was peacefully wrapping meat into a leaf of lettuce, filling it with all the side dishes Yoongi had prepared just for her. She was enamoured by the cartoon playing on the TV screen, blissfully unaware of him at first.

“Yah,” Jungkook murmured, shaking his head. “This is something else.”

He grabbed her, throwing over his shoulder. She was light like a feather, but as loud as a hyena when she yelled from surprise and shock.

“Put me down!” she demanded, kicking her legs. “Oppa, cut the bullshit and put me — ”

“You’re eating dinner with us. At the table. Like a normal human being. Got it?”

She hit her little fists against his back. “No! I don’t want to! Adults are boring! Let me go!”

They made their way to the dining room. Yoongi tried interfering. “Jungkook — ”

So Jungkook levelled him with a glare. “She’s eating with us.” He lowered Jiyoon back onto the ground. She had her arms crossed over her chest, her hair dishevelled like a crow’s nest after fighting for her rights. Jungkook pressed his index finger against her forehead, lightly flicked her. “You’re eating with us.”

Jiyoon stared at him like she couldn’t believe Jungkook, of all adults, was doing this to her. Jungkook stared back at her with the same intensity. He wasn’t backing down on this. They all needed this.

Jiyoon sighed. She uncrossed her arms.

“I hate you,” she mumbled as she took one of the chairs.

“Sure, sweetheart,” Jungkook beamed and ruffled her hair, tousling it even more. The pet name rolled off his tongue easily and naturally.

Jiyoon scoffed, but didn’t allow herself to fight him any further.

When Jungkook turned to look at Yoongi with a victorious quirk of his eyebrow, Yoongi was already watching him. His gaze spoke of wonder and softness, and something else, something Jungkook couldn’t decipher. Gratitude, maybe, but Jungkook couldn’t be too sure.

Usually, when Yoongi and Jungkook shared a meal, it was quiet and peaceful. Yoongi had a natural way of speaking in low gentle sounds and syllables, and Jungkook always made sure to match him. It wasn’t hard because Jungkook loved being quiet with Yoongi as much as he loved being loud with Jimin and Taehyung.

But with Jiyoon joining the table, dinner turned into an absolute blaring, thunderous disaster in the best way possible. By the time the food had vanished from their plates, with only grease remaining, Jungkook felt like his body hadn’t been made for so much laughter and happiness. Jiyoon bickered with Yoongi, then Yoongi bickered with Jungkook, and Jiyoon would scold Yoongi for being too harsh on him. Yoongi was getting loud too, as he fought against all her accusations.

Jiyoon talked to them about her days, which consisted mostly of maths not making sense and her teachers who kept bullshitting her.

“I doubt they bullshit you, Jiyoon-ah,” Yoongi added timidly.

“Dad,” Jiyoon said, voice lowered and serious. She glared at Yoongi from underneath her burrowed eyebrows. “Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.”

Yoongi put his hands up defensively. “Sorry.”

Jungkook cracked up and hit his nose on the table from how much he laughed. Jiyoon snorted, so high-pitched and unabashed and not holding anything back. Yoongi immediately went to fetch some ice from the fridge. He stood over Jungkook for what felt like years, pressing a comforting cold onto Jungkook’s nose, refusing to let Jungkook take care of it himself, only stepping down when Jiyoon wanted to try it too — and Jungkook.  

Jungkook thought that if there was a moment he’d love to stay in, it’d be this one. Definitely. Without a doubt.

“What is this thing in their ears? I’ve always wanted to know,” Jiyoon said when it was dessert time, and she munched on her fish-shaped ice cream.

They were in the living room, sitting side by side. The TV had been turned on again, and they were watching some of the performances on KBS. Yoongi was loading the dishwasher in the kitchen, and would be joining them soon. 

Jungkook sucked on his Melona ice cream. “Earpieces. We call them ‘in-ear monitors’. You hear music on stage through them.”

“Can you hear people around you?”

“Not really. Only if you take out the earpiece.”

Jiyoon hummed, and took yet another giant bite of her ice cream. Jungkook reservedly continued to suck on his.

“You know,” she said as she leaned back on the couch, gazing at the TV with something unreadable in her eyes. “I bet it feels amazing. Having so many people around you.”

Jungkook blinked at her. “Do you want many people to be around you?”

“I only have Sugar, Mom, Dad and you. Sometimes I just want at least someone who’s not family to be around me.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I only have you, your dad, Sugar and my parents, too.”

She observed him weirdly. Like she was seeing him for the first time. Like it was the first time that she realised that he wasn’t JK from the TV screen, but someone else.

She crashed into him and hugged him tightly, as though wanting to make up for the fact that both of them were so lonely in such a vast universe. Her fish-shaped ice cream, vanilla mixed with red bean, melted onto his t-shirt.

Min Jiyoon,

You got the best of me.

Some days later, it was about to be winter break for Jiyoon and she had been getting antsy about what they should do on her days off from school. She was in her room, while Jungkook stayed behind to help Yoongi load the dishwasher — he had finally convinced Yoongi that he wasn’t just a guest anymore; hell, he knew this apartment like the back of his hand, so the least he could do is help with cleaning the table.  

He was anticipating the moment the dishes ran out, and there was nothing left to load. He closed the dishwasher’s lid and started it. The machine began to rumble softly.

Jungkook straightened up to his full height from his initial crouch. If he kept his expression solid enough, nobody would know everything in him was made of tight knots.

Yoongi was going through drawers, searching for snacks. Jungkook watched the way his back muscles moved, the irritated red patches of skin on his elbows, rough from spending days at the computer table.

“Hyung,” Jungkook called out, weirdly pleased when Yoongi turned to him immediately. “Can we — talk about stuff?”

Yoongi frowned at first, like he couldn’t quite understand what stuff Jungkook wanted to talk about. Then the realisation came over him and he relaxed. “Of course.” Maybe he simply didn’t expect Jungkook to be so open about it so quickly. Maybe it was something else.

“Look,” Jungkook said. He clutched onto the kitchen’s counter behind him, grounding himself, reminding that he was here, in Yoongi’s home, safe. “I don’t want to be like, I don’t know, weird or anything — ”

“Just say it,” Yoongi interrupted him gently.

How was Jungkook supposed to just say it? He didn’t even know where to start. He didn’t know if he even wanted to continue this conversation. He shouldn’t have started it in the first place. It would’ve been better if he stayed silent.

Yoongi took a few steps closer to Jungkook. “Hey. It’s okay. If you don’t want to, we don’t have to talk about it. Let’s just go watch TV, yeah? The drama you like starts soon.”

Jungkook pursed his lips. He’d love to just forget about it.

But it wasn’t about him. Not everything.

Yoongi had already turned away in the living’s room direction when Jungkook caught the hem of his t-shirt and blurted, “Remember Taehyung?”

Yoongi’s eyes, warm and dark, peered into him. “Of course.” He allowed Jungkook to stop him, and Jungkook’s hand reluctantly tugged on the shirt’s material to pull Yoongi back.

Yoongi went surprisingly easy under his command.

The damage was done. Now the conversation was happening. No turning back.

“So he kinda has a kid?” Jungkook mumbled.

Yoongi smiled, all pink, all gums, incredibly amused and almost endeared with Jungkook. His fingers pressed on Jungkook’s, uncurling them from Yoongi’s shirt. “Kinda?”

“He does,” Jungkook corrected himself. His hand idly fell away from Yoongi. “He does have a kid. A girl. She’s seven.”

“I see,” Yoongi hummed. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Good for him. Didn’t know he was seeing anyone, let alone had a kid.” There was a teasing tone to his words, almost provoking.

“It’s… confidential,” Jungkook said carefully.

“I see,” Yoongi repeated. He nodded, as if in deep thought. Jungkook could feel the mischief radiating off him; twenty-two year old Yoongi resurfacing from the mud water of being a father figure for nine years. 

“Of course,” Yoongi said. “I mean, obviously, I’m not allowed to know. It’s okay. Please continue.”

“Look, it’s a long story,” Jungkook rushed to say. His hands moved animatedly, and he lowered his voice in case Jiyoon decided to walk in. “We didn’t know Eunji existed until, like, two years ago.” 

Jungkook sighed. He hated talking about his life to Yoongi, the parts of him he couldn’t relate to anymore. Everything he’d done felt as if someone else had taken over him and ruled his mind and body. “After concerts — okay? After concerts sometimes we — ”

Yoongi squeezed his shoulder, an amused smile on his face. “Hey. It’s fine. We all slept with people at least once.”

“With fans,” Jungkook breathed out, ashamed. “Mostly with fans.”

“Are they not people?” Yoongi asked. His smile was enormous by now.

“I mean,” Jungkook squirmed. Cornered. Admitting that he didn’t consider people he slept with — well, people — would lead to admitting that the first time someone else’s hand had touched Jungkook intimately was behind the concert venue, against cold bricks, his hair unpleasantly damp on its ends, with sweat from jumping around the stage for hours sticking to him uncomfortably in the night’s chill. The streetlamp illuminated a stranger’s face in the crowd perfectly, so Jungkook closed his eyes and felt pathetic as a tiny uncontrolled whimper of Yoongi-hyung left him.

The stranger smiled against him, pressed their lips together. Jungkook’s first kiss was supposed to be Yoongi.  

From that moment on, Jungkook hadn’t really opened his eyes for a year or so to come. It was easier this way, more enjoyable. Jungkook had a good imagination. Strangers from the crowd were delighted by the fact that they got a piece of JK, and couldn’t care less if he called them by their name or by someone else’s.

The realisation dawned on Jungkook hard. Yoongi couldn’t care less, either. He was just enjoying drawing out the reactions from Jungkook.

Jungkook hit his arm. “Yah, Min Yoongi, stop fucking toying with me.”

Yoongi erupted in laughter. He tried to dodge Jungkook’s hits, but Jungkook managed to land some more on him before he decided that it was enough.

“Can you please be serious?” Jungkook asked, pout on his lips appearing involuntarily.

Yoongi pouted back. “But you’re so easy to make fun of.”

“I don’t like it when you make fun of me.”

Yoongi’s eyes widened. He blinked at Jungkook, grew serious again. “I’m sorry.”

Jungkook waved his hands dismissively. “It’s fine. It’s just — I’m sorry, too. And I don’t really know how to talk about it, but… Eunji’s mom came to our agency two years ago. Taehyung did a paternity test. Eunji was, in fact, his. Obviously, he couldn’t just leave the kid, or open them a bank account and vanish. He stayed with Eunji, and while… I don’t really know what happened, okay? But Jimin and I think that while Taehyung was hanging out with Eunji — we think he fell in love with the mom, too.”

Yoongi studied Jungkook’s face. Jungkook felt almost uncomfortable under such an intense stare.

“Is he happy? Taehyung?” Yoongi asked quietly.

“I think the last two years were the happiest I’d seen him.”

“Then I’m happy for him, too,” Yoongi smiled. This time, his smile was gentle and genuine.

Jungkook was happy for Taehyung, too. Of course he was. How could he not?

He was so happy, and so unbearably guilty he had ruined it for him.

Yoongi brushed away a speck of dust from Jungkook’s sweater, fixing his sleeve, the same way he often did with Jiyoon when her shirt got out of control. His fingers curled around Jungkook’s bicep. “Is that what you wanted to talk about? Did it lessen your burden a bit?”

 Jungkook shook his head. “No, hyung. It’s about Jiyoon and Eunji.”

 “What about them?”

“Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe Eunji and Jiyoon could try… you know?”

Yoongi’s hand tightened around Jungkook’s bicep just slightly; slightly worried, slightly concerned. “Will you be okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jungkook said, even though he knew perfectly well what Yoongi had meant.

“Are you and Taehyung on good terms?”

“He’s on good terms with me. He texts me often, asking how I’m doing.”

“And you?”

“I usually… don’t text back.”

Yoongi hummed. “I see.” His hand slid up Jungkook’s arm, tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear. “It’ll be a good way to make up. And I’d love for Jiyoon to have some friends.”

“Okay,” Jungkook said. “I’ll give him a call tomorrow.”

Jungkook didn’t call Taehyung. He was too much of a coward.

He called Minju.

He always liked Minju too much for his own good. She had always been too understanding of him and where he came from.

He was sitting on the edge of the couch, all ready to go out to the cinema with the Mins to watch some cartoon movie Jiyoon had been dying to see, had waited for twenty years to come out, oppa!  

Jungkook had expected this call to take one minute at the most, before Minju realised who the caller was and hung up.

But —

“Hello, Jungkook-ssi,” she said cheerfully, voice warm as always, as if she still had his number saved. There was sizzling on the other end, Jungkook must’ve caught her in the middle of cooking. “It’s been a while. Yah, Eunji-yah, wash your hands first — ”

No grudge, like he didn’t ruin anything. Nothing. Just — It’s been a while. Such a comforting phrase, spoken in a way only mothers knew how.

“I’ve missed you,” she said. “Have you been well?”

Had he been well? He’d been looking after the child of the man he used to love; he’d been deferring his mom’s calls — they used to smile and laugh when they got on the phone, but  now he was just repeatedly telling her that he was fine; he’d been coming home every night and the lights would turn on automatically and money and fame used to be everything he’d ever wanted but —

“Minju-ssi,” Jungkook whispered, curling up on the coach, hugging himself like a little kid, and suddenly had to swallow a knot of tears, push it deep down. “I don’t think I’ve been doing so well.”

Jungkook spotted them in the distance.

They were standing some feet away from the queue to Lotte World’s entrance. Taehyung was busy with paying for cotton candy, and Minju was busy with wiping the candy floss off of Eunji’s face. Eunji, however, was gazing right where people were coming in from outside, and it was no surprise that she recognised him immediately.

“Uncle!” she screamed, cotton floss forgotten on the floor, and leaped into his arms. Minju tried catching on her coat’s hood, but wasn’t very successful.

Jungkook caught her easily, and she settled in his arms comfortably. Jiyoon considered herself too much of an adult and, just like her father, wasn’t fond of physical affection so she and Jungkook always made sure to keep a polite distance from each other. Eunji was the complete opposite — she always nuzzled into her parents, held their hands without an eye roll, and she had never given Jungkook a hug that would break his heart and never mend it back.

“I’ve missed you,” Eunji whispered. Her head was comfortably laid on Jungkook’s shoulder. She tightened her arms around his neck.

Jungkook laughed, hugging her back twice as tightly. “I’ve missed the bear bunny, too.” When Jiyoon sent him a weird look, he winked at her.

She scoffed, looking away. Jungkook caught Yoongi laughing at her, messing up her hair until she was all red and pissed as she tried to smother her perfectly styled hair (done by Jungkook-oppa’s hands, Dad, how could you!) back in place.

Slowly, steps heavy, as if Eunji was suddenly weighing him down, Jungkook reached Minju and Taehyung. If not for Eunji in his arms and Yoongi’s reassuring hand on the small of his back, he doubted he would even dare to take this last step.

Eunji comfortably slipped off him, taking her place next to her parents.

Yoongi greeted them first. He shook Taehyung’s hand.

“Hi, hyung,” Taehyung smiled. “Long time no see.”

They exchanged introductions; Taehyung named Minju and Eunji, Yoongi named Jiyoon. Jungkook stayed behind and felt everything in him compressing and twisting, a washing machine of emotions and anxiety.

Finally, Taehyung looked at him.

“Hello, hyung,” Jungkook said quietly. He reached out his hand.

Taehyung stared at it, not impressed. He quirked his eyebrow. “Really, Jeon Jungkook?” And he shoved Jungkook’s hand away, and hugged him really tight. He was warm and seemed as though he had not changed at all. Only good friends who hadn’t seen one another in a while held each other like this — clinging a bit desperately and hopefully, with a sadness of passed days and a dream for future ones.

“Me too, I want a hug from Jungkook, too!” Minju half-laughed and half-squealed, crawling somewhere in between Taehyung and Jungkook.

Family. Finally. Undeserved relief filled Jungkook’s body.

Taehyung stepped back, and let Minju hug Jungkook thoroughly. When she pressed herself into him, Jungkook felt —

“No way.” He tore them away from each other, his hands on her shoulders. He looked down at her oversized coat. “No way,” he repeated, and looked up at Taehyung.

He was smirking. This bastard.

“Oh — ” Jungkook breathed out. He found Minju’s eyes. She seemed so happy. So content. “Congratulations,” Jungkook whispered. This time he was the first one to hug her, and this time he felt like he really meant it. “Congratulations, Minju-yah.”

Exploring Lotte World took them half of the day. Jiyoon took  leadership over Eunji quickly, and Eunji never protested, her wide-eyed gaze following Jiyoon mesmerisedly. It was impossible to hate Jiyoon, even with her antics, and Taehyung and Minju laughed at her banter with her father so much their smiles refused to leave their faces, as Yoongi stood behind and scratched behind his ear, embarrassed.

According to Jiyoon, Yoongi was boring, always chose the wrong rides, he had never bought her a corndog, and was now sabotaging her.

(“This is a motherfucking lie,” Yoongi hissed into Jungkook’s ear as he sacrificed a five thousand won bill to a corndog salesman).

After tiring rides — Yoongi said that Taehyung and Jungkook enjoyed them more than the kids themselves did — they entered a kids restaurant in the mall. The booth fitted the six (seven?) of them perfectly: Jungkook and the Mins on one side, the Kims and Minju on the other.

The girls ate quickly, chatting and blabbering about their day as if they hadn’t just spent it together. Eunji was excited to eat with a fork and kept marveling at this revolutionary cutlery, and Jiyoon kept sucking on her spaghetti to make everyone laugh around the table.

For the first time in two years, Jungkook felt almost not miserable. He allowed himself to have this happiness.

Taehyung excused himself to the bathroom. He sent Jungkook a quick inviting glance, indicating that a trip to the bathroom was not happening.

A smoke was.

Jungkook excused himself after Taehyung. He was surprised to find out he still knew every motion of Taehyung, perfectly in tune with him.

They found a smoking area. Taehyung rummaged through his coat’s pockets, and found a pack in the hidden one.

“Are you really hiding it from your wife?” Jungkook asked, head tilted. He dusted ash off of a bench, and sat down. His nose scrunched — it smelled suffocatingly rotten to him in here, smouldering.

“It’s not that I’m hiding it,” Taehyung explained. He lit the cigarette, made the first tug. His shoulders sighed in relief. “We’re just trying to be respectful of each other. I smoke. I pretend I don’t. She knows I smoke. She pretends she doesn’t.”

“Huh.”

“Huh,” Taehyung echoed him. He flicked some ash off his cigarette and into the bin. “So, when am I getting the story of how you ended up with Yoongi-hyung’s child?”

Jungkook sighed. He rubbed his palms over his knees. Could he really pretend now he didn’t know it was the reason why Taehyung asked him to follow him in the first place?

“It’s a long one.”

“I can smoke three in a row,” Taehyung said cheerfully.

“Uh,” Jungkook snorted. “No, thanks. Not cool. Bad for your health.” Almost as if he hadn’t spent two years continuously ruining his own body.

He expected Taehyung to point it out, but maybe, he thought too badly, too low of him, because Taehyung only smiled.

“You and Minju are so alike,” he said. “Ok. Sure. Then be quick— ”

“Jiyoon stumbled into me in the grocery store. I ended up having dinner at their place. Then Jiyoon started calling and texting me, and I kinda — I don’t know. I took her to go ice skating. Then to a cafe she wanted to visit. Then shopping. Then we took a walk around the Han river. Then… I don’t know. It just happened. And now we’re here.”

Taehyung raised his eyebrows. “Been on your mind for too long?”

Jungkook bit down on his bottom lip. He hummed a low, “Yeah.”

“That’s why people have friends, you know.” Taehyung took another puff, let out another sigh of relief. “So, you just needed a kid in your life?”

“No,” Jungkook pushed out quietly, ashamed. “No. It was just… it was just the only way to become close again.”

Smoke made its way out of Taehyung’s mouth.

From the moment Yoongi had told him about his dating ban, the only thing that had been occupying Jungkook’s mind was the fact that he wasn’t a woman. And Yoongi wasn’t interested in them exclusively , and Jungkook knew it perfectly well. It’d been months since the plan in his mind started growing.

Because Jungkook, believe it or not, had never, not even once in his entire life, not gotten what he wanted.

Taehyung’s eyes didn’t betray any emotion.

“But!” Jungkook rushed to add. “But it’s more than just that now, okay? It’s more, I swear. Jiyoon, this kid, and Yoongi, they are—”

“You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?” Taehyung asked gently.

Straight to the point. 

Jungkook looked down at his sneakers. His blunt fingernails dug into the heart of his palm.

“How can I not?” Jungkook said quietly, and Taehyung laughed both bitterly and sweetly. He tugged on Jungkook’s wrist with his free hand, pulling him up, and pressed Jungkook into himself. His hand holding the cigarette was stretched out in order not to burn Jungkook, but the hug came out strong and grounding nevertheless.

“So old and still so silly,” Taehyung whispered. “I’ve missed you, punk.”

“I’ve missed hyung, too,” Jungkook said, relaxing into the touch. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.”

“It’s okay, Jungkook-ah, it’s okay.”

Min Jiyoon,

Don’t tell me you didn’t know. 

Minju was sitting alone by the time they came back.

“Where’s Yoongi?” Jungkook asked.

“Yeah, where’s he?” Taehyung parroted.  

“Ah, Yoongi-oppa? He went to the bathroom, too.” Minju smiled. “Have you not seen him, Kim Taehyung?”

Jungkook shivered. Even if Minju was fine with Taehyung’s smoking habits, he couldn’t really feel it. He couldn’t feel anything except dread at her words.

“No?” Taehyung beamed at Minju, leaned down to kiss her temple. His smoking breath must’ve hitted her, and she pushed him away. Taehyung backed up easily, still smiling. “I’ll go look for him. The bastard must be paying for everyone while we sit back.”

Shit. Jungkook hurried to follow after Taehyung. The restaurant by Lotte World wasn’t the cheapest one, and Jungkook couldn’t afford for Yoongi to pay this amount of money. They’d already argued about splitting the pay of Jiyoon’s super-extra-VIP ticket, the one you could only get if you were the former member of the most famous South Korean rock band in the world, and Jungkook thought it was enough of Yoongi’s expenses for today.

Minju’s hand on his elbow stopped him. “Sit back down. Let them handle it.”

Jungkook frowned at her in confusion.

“Entertain me, will you?” Minju prompted. Her grip on Jungkook’s elbow tightened. She sat him down on the opposite side of the table. “So.”

“So,” Jungkook echoed her. His hands tightened on his knees, and he cleared his throat. “I think I haven’t expressed myself enough. I want you to know that I am really, really, really happy for you two. This is amazing.”

Minju smiled. “Cinderella type of story, isn’t it?”

“To be honest, I still can’t imagine some people are dreaming of Kim Taehyung,” Jungkook scoffed. “This loser boy from my neighbourhood whom I remember wearing the most questionable outfits ever and calling it fashion? You want to tell me you want him ?”

“Would it be so pathetic of me to say that yes, I do?”

“Yes, it would,” Jungkook said, and the smiles on both his and Minju’s faces grew simultaneously, mirroring one another.  

Out of nowhere, Jiyoon appeared. Sleepy, she had her eyes half-closed, and she crawled deep into the booth, tucking herself into Jungkook’s side. It was weird, her sudden affectionate side, but he put an arm around her shoulders and let her nuzzle into him. For the first time, he felt how small she actually was.

“Was it hard for you?” Jungkook asked Minju, serious again. Jiyoon played with the zipper on his jacket, yawning into his chest.

“At first,” Minju agreed. “It was, as you say, really, really, really tough. I didn’t think anything good would come out of it. Eunji had never felt like a mistake to me, but my love for him had. His love for me, too.”

“It felt a bit fake?”

“Forced, I’d say. I had really thought he only loved me because I gave him Eunji. So before, I really wished he had loved me sooner. I wished he had fallen in love with me at first sight.”

Jungkook could bet he knew this feeling. He knew it too well, maybe.

“It’s okay,” Minju continued. “Time heals. People change. I don’t think he’d love me in the state I was back then. Barely twenty, with a child from a member of one of the most famous rock bands ever ? What would we do? It’s good that I only gathered my courage when we were both older.”

“It’s not true,” Jungkook said. “He’d love you whoever you are.”

Minju hummed, indicating that she’d heard him but not that she agreed with him. “But really — I don’t regret it. I love him to pieces. I love Kim Taehyung so, so, so much sometimes I’m afraid I’m not supposed to love him like this.”

Jungkook’s mouth hung open.

Minju lit up. “Oh, look! They’re coming back.” She lifted her arm, waving at them. Jungkook looked behind his shoulder, and saw Taehyung and Yoongi coming back together. Eunji was settled comfortably in Yoongi’s arms. It seemed like the bunny bear decided to make a nest out of everyone today.

“What were you talking about?” Yoongi asked as they came closer, his voice coming from above. Jungkook looked up at him, and was struck.

Jungkook had seen Yoongi’s fatherhood side plenty in these past months, but this sight now, with Eunji in his arms, made Jungkook’s heart perform a flip and land harshly on the ground. Maybe it was something about Jiyoon being almost a pre-teen who valued her space and was always rough and raw with her father, and Yoongi treating her like a real adult that blurred the lines. But now, as Eunji, small like a baby bird, nestled in Yoongi’s arms, and Yoongi looked down at Jungkook and Jiyoon so softly, like they actually had a bond, were a family, Jungkook felt it, how deep down the changes of Yoongi took root in.

Jungkook had first loved Yoongi when Yoongi was twenty-three. Sharp words, a wicked mind, they both were just learning about this world. Yoongi was carefree and angry more often than not, writing spitfire diss tracks for his mixtape and sentimental ballads of unrequited love for Jungkook’s band’s first album.  

He loved Yoongi now, when Yoongi was thirty-two; the reversed age. Yoongi now was softened and calmed, always planning carefully, driving a family SUV, visiting Lotte World not for himself but for the kids; and Jungkook loved him now, he loved him just as much as he had loved childless Yoongi; he loved him because he had never truly stopped, really, and it all just grew inside him like a snowball until his body wasn’t enough to fit it.

Until he softly smiled up at Yoongi in this family restaurant, Jiyoon, warm and sleepy, under his arm, and said cheekily yet gently, because he had changed, too. “Nothing much, hyung. We were just bad-mouthing you.”

“That’s true,” Minju said, hiding her grin behind the teacup.

“Knew it,” Yoongi clicked his tongue, and suddenly ducked down to bonk Jungkook’s head. Eunji giggled, and Jungkook scrunched his nose in fake disgust and let himself have it.

Min Jiyoon,

I love your father to pieces, too. I love him so much everything aches in me.

By the time winter break was over and the new school year was about to begin, the girls had become inseparable. Eunji couldn’t really text on the phone, so she and Jiyoon compensated by meeting up.

Almost every day.

In different oppa, it’s so kawaii-i-i-i! cafes and wow, so coo-o-o-ol! museums and other locations around Seoul.

Yoongi had grown busy with his work after New Year’s, launching new projects; just as Taehyung had, so most of the time it was just Minju and Jungkook with nothing better left to do but to look after two girls running around malls.

Jungkook didn’t mind. He loved being around them. He loved spending time with Eunji, was thankful that Taehyung trusted him more with her now; and he loved laughing with Minju as she filled him in on everything he’d missed out on in the past six months; and he couldn’t imagine his life without Jiyoon now.

It was just that — he missed spending time with Yoongi. They still saw each other every day, but life had become so hectic at times that there would be  nothing more than a quick exchange of dinner and putting Jiyoon to sleep together. Then Yoongi’d yawn, and Jungkook’d tell him to go to sleep, and Yoongi’d debate that he was fine, that he wanted to know how Jungkook was doing, if he’d been well, how his day was, and Jungkook’d laugh because how could he be doing, really?

Then he’d always send Yoongi to sleep, lock the door after himself, and call a cab back to his apartment. Back to the emptiness.

So it was an absolute delight when Minju and Taehyung invited them over for dinner and Yoongi finally had a day off.

The dinner went well. The girls ate in Eunji’s room, letting the adults talk. Taehyung brought the wine. Jungkook and Minju politely declined.

Yoongi sent Jungkook a weird look, like he was trying to confirm with Jungkook if he should be drinking or not.

It shouldn’t have felt so good when, only after Jungkook had nodded, Yoongi allowed Taehyung to pour him a glass.

The dinner went well. They couldn’t stop laughing, and Jungkook didn’t feel miserable nor too small nor too big in his body. Minju cooked a great homemade meal, the most mom-style-like, and she and Yoongi discussed various recipes and the way their cooking methods varied.

The dinner went well, it did. It was only after the dishes had been loaded into the dishwasher and they had moved to the living room that everything went to hell.

They were talking about a trip Minju and Taehyung planned for Hawaii, and Jungkook wishfully thought that maybe one day he, Jiyoon, and Yoongi could go on a vacation together, too; maybe they could go with Minju and Taehyung and make it a family trip, even.  Then, Eunji and Jiyoon came out of the playroom, whining about how they were bored and couldn’t entertain themselves.

That was when Eunji asked if she could draw on Jungkook’s tattoos. Jungkook had always been too soft on her, and granted her permission without any second to think for himself. She and Jiyoon disappeared in her room for a second, then came back out with a myriad of different coloured markers, both squealing excitedly. They nestled around his arm, tongues poking into their cheeks in concentration, their touch small and soft and barely there on Jungkook’s muscles. Taehyung drew him a cat on the free space of his wrist. Yoongi filled in the tiger lily.

“Oppa,” Eunji spoke up.

“Yes, baby?” Jungkook asked.

“Can you play a song for me?”

Jungkook stilled. The living room seemed to hold its breath. Yoongi’s finger, the one that had been pressing on Jungkook’s forearm so gently to keep his skin in place as he colored in Jungkook’s tattoo, suddenly became weightier. 

“I don’t play anymore, sweetheart,” Jungkook said. 

Eunji sighed. She turned to look at Taehyung. “Told you it wouldn’t work, Dad.”

Taehyung plucked his lips. “Wasn’t it worth trying, anyway?”

Okay, if it was some stupid life lesson from Taehyung to Eunji, Jungkook could deal with it. But — Jiyoon. 

This girl. 

She hypnotised Jungkook for a fleeting moment, and then her gaze sank down back to his arm. Her marker resumed the previous tedious motion: back and forth, back and forth, like rinsing all of Jungkook’s feelings inside his rib cage. 

Jungkook sighed. “Which song?”

Eunji lit up the same way Minju always did. “‘Good Things’, please.”

Hell no. Out of all his songs, not this one.

“Oh?” Jiyoon perked up. “You love this one, too?”

“Of course!” Eunji nodded. “It’s my favourite.”

Fuck.

Jungkook caught Taehyung smiling, and almost growled at him in defeat. He reached out blindly to Taehyung and grumbled, “Give me the guitar.”

“My pleasure,” Taehyung mused, and stepped out of the room.

Jungkook saw everyone in the living room sitting up straighter, gathering around him. Even Yoongi seemed to not be able to take his eyes off of Jungkook. Like as if one wrong note, one wrong moment, and he’d blurt, This one? You’re really going to play this one?

When Taehyung passed Jungkook the guitar, and its form settled all too familiarly into Jungkook’s sides, Jungkook knew he really was going to play this one. He hadn’t played in months but his fingers still held a memory of every single string, every single move. He strummed  the chords, they came easily.

The itching of his fingertips. The scratching in his throat. The black pit in his stomach as Yoongi peered into him, mouth agape.

Bad days pass, good days do, too;

Things like I’ll be alright, you’re going to stay next to me,

Tell me good things.

Taehyung accompanied Jungkook as he made small, quiet, barely there rhythmic sounds on the coffee table with his palms. Nothing much, not the heavy drums, but it’d do.

It was a song written by Yoongi, produced by him too. And nineteen-year-old Jungkook had dared to think it was written about him.

Of course it wasn’t. Jungkook knew better now. This song had broken his heart years ago, and it still did. Even more now. It gnawed at his heart. He had never written a song that wasn’t about Yoongi, and Yoongi, despite making a whole album for Jungkook’s band, had never written a single line about Jungkook. 

This song, Jungkook thought, absolutely sucked without piano. It sounded too rough and ruthless without the piano, when initially it’d been gentle, delicate, pleading at its innocence. 

Stay with me;

Stay with me; 

Stay with me.

Jungkook didn’t deserve the piano accompanying him anymore.

Taehyung joined his singing. Their voices blended together naturally, like all those years ago.

Tell me good things,

I think I like it when you lie.

Tell me good things,

I think you’ll leave me soon.

Jungkook laid the guitar aside on the couch. He pressed his thumb over the pad of his middle finger. It was whining a little, having forgotten the metallic strings and the blisters they brought with them.

Yoongi was still looking at him. Jungkook couldn’t decipher what this look meant. So he gathered his strength, pushed on his knees, and rose up. Minju was cleaning the coffee table, averting her gaze. It had been getting harder for her to bend over and Jungkook scurried to help. They both entered the kitchen.

“You know,” Minju whispered, eyes red, like she’d been crying, “I don’t wanna go into my fan state right now, but — Jungkook-ssi, it was so beautiful. I miss seeing you on stage.”

Jungkook hummed. What was there left for him to say?

I’m sorry I ruined it for everyone.

I’m sorry I will never be able to make up for it.

I’m sorry. 

“Jimin asks about you sometimes.”

The Earth stopped spinning.

“And what do you tell him?”

“I tell him that you’re doing fine,” Minju said. She walked up to Jungkook and hugged him softly. Her belly pressed into him. “I’m good at keeping secrets,” she said. “But I really wish I didn’t have to lie to him.”

“Minju-yah.”

She cupped his face. She was Jungkook’s age, and Jungkook wondered when, at what point in time, and how she managed to get these loving hands only moms had, when she gained this soothing voice, when she learned how to forgive so graciously. Jungkook felt like a teenager, like he had never quite grown up from his nineteen-year-old self while everyone around him seemed to mature.

“Jimin misses you a lot. He’s not angry at you at all, has never been,” Minju said. “We all love you so much. We all just want the best for you. I don’t know if you need to hear it or not, but he forgives you. Taehyung forgives you. We all do.” 

Jungkook nodded, bit on his bottom lip. Minju’s thumb wiped his tear away. “I’m sorry we keep pushing. Was it tough playing the song?”

Jungkook harshly wiped at his cheek, angry at himself, and stepped back from her, shaking his head. “That’s the problem. It was too easy.” 

After this, he couldn’t really recover from his daze, and Yoongi, as attentive to him as ever, gently guided the conversation in the direction of them leaving.

Jiyoon is getting sleepy. Jungkook is getting tired. I have some work to do tomorrow.

They hugged each other goodbye, called a cab, went out into the night’s chill air. Jiyoon linked her arm with Jungkook’s.

Yoongi was silent. Jungkook thought he looked tired too, or like something had been  troubling him. He looked to biting on his thumb when Jungkook noticed and stopped him.

Since Jiyoon was whining that she wanted to go home, they asked the cab to go to Yoongi’s apartment first even though it wasn’t quite logical — Jungkook’s was a closer drive.

“Oppa,” Jiyoon asked when she and Yoongi stepped  out of the taxi. She clinged to the car’s door. “Can you please sing me to sleep?”

Who was Jungkook to refuse her? He could swear he felt Yoongi’s annoyed eyes land on him — maybe Yoongi was tired of him, maybe Yoongi needed some time away from Jungkook, maybe Jungkook was that kind of a friend that couldn’t seem to get a life of his own.

But how could Jungkook, if his whole life was Jiyoon and Yoongi now? He used to be better at this, better at living: he used to have friends, he used to have dreams, he used to have music. He used to allow himself to want.

These days he hadn’t dared to do anything. He just followed everyone like a lamb scared of his own shadow.

But then he climbed out of the car, and Yoongi’s hand briefly steadied him by his waist as he was unsure on his feet, and Yoongi’s hand pushed gently on his small of the back, like he wanted Jungkook to be here, like he wanted him to come up and sing Jiyoon to sleep.

She didn’t need him serenading tonight. Once she brushed her teeth and changed into pyjamas, the moment her cheek touched her pillow, she was out.

“It was a tiring day for her,” Jungkook said, looking down at her, so small in her sleep, so unprotected.

“It was,” Yoongi agreed behind his back. When Jungkook turned to look at him, Yoongi was in the doorframe, resting his temple against the doorjamb, arms crossed. He looked both gentle and rough, like a real father, reminding Jungkook of his childhood memories of his own dad.

Jungkook sent Jiyoon a final glance, and walked out of the room. Yoongi closed the door with a gentle click. They came out to the living room, an awkward tension around them. It was really late, and Jungkook had never stayed this late before. It felt like he wasn’t supposed to be here this late. Like once the clock struck twelve, he, just like in Cinderella, would turn back into a pauper.

“Is there something on your mind?” Yoongi asked.

Jungkook looked at him, studied his face.

There was so much.

There was the long-forgotten ache in the pads of his fingers, the way they turned rough after playing this one song. There was the longing he felt, almost too suffocating to bear, the music in him, something he’d wanted to stay for his whole life and failed to secure. There was an empty space, so many people missing — Jungkook’s managers, Seokjin his favourite, assistants, stylists, all of those who worked so hard to make them presentable on stage.

And then there was Jimin, and the way he had raised his voice in the changing room and the way Jungkook had raised his back; there was the shove, there was so fucking much.

There was Yoongi and the love Jungkook had carried in himself for years. With hope, at first. With nothing, now.

It had never left, of course it didn’t; Jungkook had never expected it to leave, not from the moment he wrote his first love song with specified gender pronouns and timidly handed it to Yoongi, and Yoongi had to spend the whole evening fretting around him to calm him down, because it was okay, because Yoongi understood him, because Yoongi would never think ill of him.

Because Yoongi was the same.

Was it really Jungkook’s fault that he had dared to hope back then?

Was it really Jungkook’s fault that he still wanted Yoongi just as badly, that this craving had only become bigger, stronger, steadier, that it had settled in his bones and taken such deep roots Jungkook was afraid it’d be impossible to uproot them now?

Jungkook gulped the knot of the desire down his throat. He tore his gaze away from Yoongi’s face.

“Talk to me,” Yoongi prompted.

Jungkook sighed tiredly. “It’s not something that can be solved by talking.”

“Most things can be solved by talking.”

What was Jungkook supposed to tell him? How could Jungkook talk his love for Yoongi out if even music, the most raw and vulnerable part of him, could only transcend this little?

Jungkook turned back to Yoongi, studied his face again, his mouth, the little cracks on his lips. Too fucking easy.

“Jungkook-ah,” Yoongi said. The -ah almost sounded ridiculous. Yoongi reached out with his hand to Jungkook’s knuckles, Jungkook thought he jerked away.

Today’s dinner was a reminder that he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve anything. Neither Yoongi nor Jiyoon nor Taehyung’s forgiveness nor Minju’s kindness nor Jimin’s concern.

“What’s wrong?” Yoongi tried again.

“The problem is, I am a fucking terrible person.”

Yoongi’s eyes widened, mouth hung open, eyebrows lifted. Jungkook greatly regretted his words — sometimes it was better when your loved ones didn’t know what terrible things you thought about yourself.

But the damage was done. Yoongi’s eyes, once the initial shock wore off, softened.

“You’re not — ”

“I am. You know I am.” Jungkook ran his hand through his hair. He could open up, couldn't he? He was tired of everything, and of this silence, too. “And I know it’s all my fault, okay? I am responsible. But, hyung — this guilt. I think this guilt — ” Jungkook wiped at his cheek harshly, the back of his hand collecting something wet, like tears. “I don’t think I can live with this guilt. I want to own up to my decisions, I really do, but I don’t think I can.”

Yoongi carefully stepped closer to him. His hands cupped Jungkook’s face, and for a second, just in the time it took for Jungkook to register this gesture, Jungkook really hoped for something again, words now stuck in his throat.

But then Yoongi only helped him wipe his tears off, his thumbs the most gentle thing that had ever touched Jungkook with the exception of his mother’s hands.

“Tell me more,” Yoongi said.

Jungkook struggled out of his touch, hating it, hating that Yoongi always gave him what he wanted, but not the way Jungkook needed him to. “It’s fine. I’m gonna be fine.”

The thing with the word fine, it’s that it is a pretty vague word.

“Hey — ”

“No,” Jungkook snapped. “You don't know how hard it is.”

“Of course I don’t,” Yoongi said. “That's why I'm asking. So you can share the burden with me.”

“I can’t,” Jungkook said. “You'll never understand.”

Yoongi didn't know, had no idea how hard it was to get those pills. He didn’t know how hard, yet euphoric, yet absolutely miserable it was to swallow them. He didn't know how hard it was for Jungkook to look for him in all the people he had hooked up with in these nine years. The past nine years, only searching for people who reminded him of Yoongi.

Yoongi didn’t know how hard it was to get the group you had worked your ass off disband. He didn’t know how hard it was to be the one to blame for that. He didn’t know how hard it was to get into his Mercedes Benz that evening, and he definitely, and Jungkook wished he never had, didn't know how hard the blow was when he drove the car into the streetlamp. He didn't know the way relearning how to breathe was so painful, how every word about you in news articles hurt to the point it reached his actual heart.

Getting off the drugs was even harder. Taking care of himself was almost impossible, but Jungkook didn’t want to worry his mother, didn’t want her to abandon everything in Busan to come here.

So if there was one thing that Yoongi had no idea about, it was that after Yoongi had told Jungkook he was going to take care of him, Jungkook tossed in his bed, everything in him aching and twisting, itching, and cried himself to sleep. Was somebody really going to take care of him?

The same person the articles claimed to be egotistical, uncaring, undeserving of fame and music?

The same person faceless crowds would whisper about everywhere — that he had been taking these pills since he was eleven and smoked even younger, that he had some weird and questionable preferences in bed, that he was a monster of some sorts — when he had never really been anything but the boy who dreamed too high and the man who got crushed hard?

“I should go,” Jungkook said. Yoongi grabbed his sleeve. Jungkook yanked it off. “Let me fucking go.”

“What if I don’t want to do it again?” Yoongi snapped back, and Jungkook recoiled because these words, the meaning behind them —

“Dad?” Jiyoon’s voice resonated in the room. It sounded like she was about to break. Her hair was all messed up. She trembled as she spoke, “Are you fighting with Jungkook-oppa? Like you did with Mom?”

“No,” Jungkook said quickly. “No, sweetheart, we’re not fighting.”

“Mom used to say the same thing.”

Jiyoon’s crying started small, just a couple of silent tears and red eyes, and quickly turned into wailing. This sudden hysteria in Jiyoon, who had always been so collected, this kind of crying only kids did, so unabashed, holding nothing back, crying as if for all the hurt humanity went through, crying because they knew there were things in this world you could not change no matter how hard you tried, sent Jungkook reeling. He dropped to his knees in front of her, cradled her into his arms, guiding her face into his shoulder.

“Why would your father and I ever fight? What are you talking about, silly?”

“I heard fighting,” Jiyoon mumbled. “Oppa said the bad word.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t ever say it again.”

Jungkook slightly turned to Yoongi. He was just standing there, not quite moving. Jungkook silently swore at him. Do something! He mouthed.

Yoongi jolted, collecting himself in the next moment. Slowly, he came up to them, settled into an Asian squat. His hand rubbed Jiyoon’s back.

“Jiyoon-ah,” he called out, and was probably taken aback as she pushed herself off Jungkook to embrace her father, hiccuping into his chest. Jungkook had never really seen her so affectionate and vulnerable with Yoongi.

“I miss Mom,” she cried. “I miss Mom, and she — ” Jiyoon hiccuped. “She says ‘your’ dad, not ‘ our’, like we’re not a family anymore, and — Dad, it breaks my heart, it really does, and — I hate, I hate when people fight and I heard shouting again, Dad, I don’t want you to fight with Jungkook, I don’t want him to go — ”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jungkook chimed in. “I’m not going anywhere,” he lied. He had been planning to walk out of this door and never return.

Yoongi pulled away from Jiyoon  to look into her eyes. His thumbs collected tears off her face. She sniffled.

“It’s okay,” Yoongi told her. “Jungkook is now ‘ours’, okay? Will that be okay?”

Of course it wouldn’t —

“Yeah,” Jiyoon said. “Yeah, it will.”

Yoongi tried fixing her mussed up hair. His palm was the size of Jiyoon’s head. “I love you and our Jungkook so much. You can’t imagine how much I love both of you. So even if Jungkook and I fight, we’re gonna solve it. Together.” Yoongi hugged Jiyoon again, stroked her back. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“I just don’t want anyone to fight,” Jiyoon repeated. 

“We won’t,” Jungkook promised her earnestly. “Let’s go to sleep.”

He took Jiyoon from Yoongi’s arms. He didn’t want to be alone with Yoongi now, didn’t want this pointless hope to settle in him again. What were Yoongi’s words supposed to mean? How exactly did he love Jungkook?

Or did he just say it for Jiyoon’s sake?

Jungkook tucked her to sleep. She was usually fine with doing it herself, didn’t like it when adults considered her helpless, but tonight everything seemed different, as if Jiyoon suddenly became years younger, reminding Jungkook of how young she really is.

“I love you,” Jiyoon whispered before Jungkook stepped out of her room.

“I love you, too,” Jungkook said, and was surprised to find out he meant it. “Good night.”

He moved heavily inside the apartment. Sugar followed after him, lost somewhere between his feet.

Jungkook hated the fact that he needed to find his phone and call the cab, go back to the emptiness. Here, even if he and Yoongi fought, even if Jiyoon cried herself into oblivion, at least there were hugs and reassurances, at least there were Talk to me and I love you. 

Jungkook found Yoongi in the kitchen. He was downing something from a glass, probably a hangover drink.

Jungkook wanted to stay.

“I don’t wanna be alone, hyung,” Jungkook said, feeling too small, feeling too big. “Not tonight.”

“Stay,” Yoongi hummed, lips still around the glass. “Stay the night.”  He put the glass on the counter. It made a dull clink sound. He pressed his palms against the edge of the counter, like the whole world was weighing him down. Like there was something changing in his mind, and Jungkook wished he could come up and hug him like he meant it.

“I’m sorry I suck at the whole I’m-gonna-take-care-of-you thing,” Yoongi said.

“You don’t,” Jungkook argued. Just a few steps closer. Just enough to reach out if he wanted to, if he wouldn’t coward out. Like making up for snapping at Yoongi earlier. Licking at the wound. “You don’t suck. I’m sorry I’m being difficult.”

“You’re not.” It sounded almost like You’re so easy to love. “Do you wanna talk now?”

 “Yes, please.”

So I tell him everything, Min Jiyoon. I tell him everything, right from the beginning, from the first moment someone behind the stage offers me a pill and promises me it is going to make me feel on top of the world and I take it, to the moment two years later, when I’m throwing up just twenty minutes away before the start of the concert and Jimin finally snaps at me — he should’ve done it a long time ago — and tells me he’s done with me, and I snap back at him, telling he would be nothing if not for me.

You see, Min Jiyoon, I am a very bad person.

You change me.

There were things Jungkook did not dare to tell Yoongi.

Jungkook did not tell him he took his first pill in order to forget him, that just closing his eyes wasn’t enough anymore.

Jungkook did not tell him each pill just gnawed at his heart with memories of Yoongi.

He did not tell him that he loved him, that he had always loved him, that he had never once in his life not wanted him.

Nevertheless, despite some things still hidden, it felt so much easier to go on now that Yoongi knew the truth, not just the stupid accusations from different people and magazines.

Next morning. A new routine.

When Jungkook got up, it was already bright outside. He had slept in the guest room, in Yoongi’s clothes that he had offered.

Jiyoon was in the dining room, sharing breakfast with Yoongi. They were both blabbering to each other; Yoongi laughed, Jiyoon giggled, then both of them tried shushing one another, because what if they woke up their Jungkookie —

“Good morning,” Jungkook rasped, voice thick from sleep.

“Oppa!” Jiyoon exclaimed. She didn’t look like she was under any hysteria at all last night, and was back to being her usual self. “Dad told me you slept over!”

Jungkook scratched the back of his neck. “Did he?”

“What do you want for breakfast?” Yoongi asked, groggily rising up from the table. He was still in his pyjama clothes, too. It was a bit of an unfamiliar sight to him, Jungkook had never really got to see him in the morning, so disorganised and unprotected.

Jungkook thought he could get used to this.

“Uh, I dunno,” Jungkook mumbled, following Yoongi into the kitchen area. There, Sugar was enthusiastically licking at his emptied bowl of cat food. 

Jungkook could totally get used to this. “Jiyoon-ah, what do you have?”

“Cereal!”

“Nice,” Jungkook said. “I can eat some cereal, too.”

Yoongi hummed as he began rummaging through the kitchen, taking out all of the needed plates and spoon and milk and different packages of cereal. Jungkook pointed at the choco balls.

“That one.”

“Roger, cap.”

Yoongi was in the middle of adding milk to Jungkook’s bowl when his phone, having been previously laying aside on the counter, rang. Jungkook involuntarily sneaked a glance.

His heart sank.

Jiyoon’s mom.

Yoongi picked up the phone. “Yeah, Jisoo-yah?” His voice was warm, way warmer that Jungkook had imagined it to sound when talking to the person who had hurt you so much. Yoongi secured the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and continued pouring milk. “Huh? We’re good. How’s work? Good. That’s a relief. I’m glad.” He passed Jungkook the bowl of cereal. Jungkook accepted it, but he still felt like there was suddenly a hole under his feet; he couldn’t move or take a single breath in.

After everything? After Yoongi had told him he loved him?

“Yeah, school starts in a few days. We’ve got everything, don’t worry, focus on yourself.” Yoongi frowned at Jungkook, confused. When Jungkook didn’t move, Yoongi pushed gently on his waist, and guided Jungkook back to the table. His palm burned Jungkook through the thin material of Yoongi’s shirt. 

Jungkook sat down dumbly. He scooped a spoonful of his cereal, appetite lost. Jiyoon was looking up at Yoongi, beaming like a Chrtismas tree.

“Mom calls me every morning,” Jiyoon whispered to Jungkook.

“That’s nice of her,” Jungkook whispered back.

God, this new routine sucked.

Yoongi laughed. “Good for you. Good for you. Yeah.” He squeezed Jungkook’s shoulder slightly, rubbed his arm up and down a couple of times like he wanted to keep him warm. “Of course. It’s no problem. Just text me. Ok, let me pass you over to our daughter.” Jungkook didn’t know if he imagined the small grudge in Yoongi’s voice or not.

Jiyoon grabbed the phone out of Yoongi’s hand and ran to the living room. Jungkook caught the ends of her words, like — Eunji, guitar, oppa.

Just like that, Jungkook and Yoongi were left alone in the dining room. Yoongi’s hand still caressed Jungkook’s arm.

“Jiyoon’s mom comes back at the end of February,” Yoongi said. “She asked if we could pick her up from the airport.”

“We?” Jungkook’s gaze darted up from his bowl to Yoongi’s eyes. There was something mischievous dancing around in them, like Yoongi knew more than he let on.

“Me, Jiyoon, and you.”

“Uh, I mean — if my help is needed, I don’t mind it,” Jungkook said. He minded it a lot, actually, but he also was curious about this girl who had gotten Yoongi’s love once when Jungkook needed it the most, about this woman who had gifted Yoongi a child. “What happens when Jiyoon’s mom comes back?”

“I become a weekend dad again,” Yoongi said. “I’ll probably start working even more, too. I wanted to spend more time with Jiyoon, so I didn’t take on many projects in the last months, but — I’m gonna make up for that.”

“I see,” Jungkook said. He looked back down to his bowl.

He stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth in order to refrain from blurting out the most egotistical and selfish questions ever.

What happens to us?

I don’t want to leave you two.

I can’t go back to my apartment.

Yoongi suddenly placed his hand against Jungkook’s cheek. He made Jungkook look up at him. There was something in Yoongi’s eyes that made Jungkook’s insides churn and howl.

“There’s nothing between Jisoo and I anymore, got it?” Yoongi said. “But we’re amicable. We’re friends. I can’t give her up, and I won’t. She’d been through shit with me. She’s Jiyoon’s mom.”

She was Jiyoon’s mom. She was a deity.

“I get it,” Jungkook grumbled. He didn’t dare to struggle out of Yoongi’s touch, everything in him warm and hanging on a thin thread. Something was happening. Jungkook couldn’t understand what.

“I’ll say it again. There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t have any romantic feelings left for her. Understand?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook whispered, and Yoongi smiled, tucking Jungkok’s outgrown hair strand behind his ear.

“Good,” Yoongi whispered back, and for a moment, Jungkook actually believed he was about to lean down because what else could all of this mean but —

“Da-a-a-ad! Mom says she can’t bring a kangaroo back with her!”

They jumped away from each other, awkwardly hovering, awkwardly laughing, like another second and they’d link their pinkies together; and it felt good, it felt so, so, so good. 

[Me] [1:13 p.m.]

[Image attachment]

She called him right after that. Jungkook excused himself, climbed down from the limbs of Yoongi and Jiyoon on the couch — they were watching the Disney cartoon Jiyoon absolutely adored and had already seen seven times at the very least, judging by the amount of spoilers she was whispering into Jungkook’s ear.

Yoongi sat up after him. Jungkook pointed at his phone, mouthed, “Mom.” Yoongi nodded, and gestured somewhere in the direction of his office room.  

Yoongi’s office room was more of a mini studio, soundproof and private. It was so good to be loved by Yoongi, to have these grand gestures handed so casually, like they were not a big deal at all.

Yoongi leaned back on the couch, his attention back to the cartoon. Jungkook went inside the office, picking up the call at the same time.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hello, my sweet son,” his mom said. “I saw your message.”

“What do you think?”

Jungkook walked in deeper. His fingers traced the armrest of the swivel chair, and he sat down on it carefully, like it was made out of glass. He tried leaning back. It felt good.

The shirt thrown over it, a proud ‘SUGA, 93’ on the back, burned him in all the most pleasant ways possible.

“I think it’s great that you’re hanging out with Taehyung and Minju again. Are they alright? Is Eunji healthy?” his mom said.

Jungkook smiled. He pushed on the floor with his foot, swivelling slightly to one side then to another. “They’re good, mom. And Eunji has grown up so much.”

A pause.

“Is that Yoongi and Jiyoon next to you?”

Jungkook stopped swirling. “Yes,” he whispered. He licked his lips. “What do you think of them?”

He heard a tired, all-knowing sigh from Busan. History, repeating itself. The only person Jungkook could talk to about Yoongi and feel truly understood was his mother. Only she could understand this, understand him, understand his reasons.

“I think you should numb your heart,” his mom said. “It’s gonna get tough.”

“From your personal experience?”

“Yes, Jungkook-ah. I’m sorry. It’s going to hurt a lot.”

Jungkook pressed his phone to his ear. His index finger tapped on the back of the phone a couple of times. “I think I fit in with them,” he said quietly. “I think — I think I wanna stay with them, mom.”

“I wish I could meet them,” she said. “They sound like wonderful people. And I always adored Yoongi. If he’s at least a third of his mom, I’m even a bit jealous of you.”

Jungkook smiled. For the first time, it didn’t hurt to talk about it. “I think they wouldn’t mind meeting you.”

A pause again. Some murmuring on the other side, Jungkook’s dad must’ve come up to say something.

“Mom,” Jungkook called out.

“Yes?”

“I think you should come sometime. Not to — not to check on me. Just…come. Visit. You know.”

“If you want me to, I will,” his mom said. “Of course I will. I’ll be more than happy to visit my son.”

“That’s great.” Jungkook leaned on his knees with his elbows, breathed in an embarrassing amount of air. “Mom,” he called out again, almost like he couldn’t get enough of this.

“Yes, son?”

“I love you.” You love me too, right?

She never hesitated to say, “I love you so, so, so much, Jungkook-ah.”

If she loved him, Jungkook thought, then he could love Jiyoon just fine, too.

Given the answer he wanted, he nodded, and smiled all to himself.

But then his mom, as if she could feel him, as if she understood him on a genetic level, as if their bond was actually natural; she said, completely unnecessary but also the most needed words:  “I want you to know that I’ve always been proud to be called Jungkook’s mom. I love when people call me that so, so, so much. Whether they accuse me of something, or they praise me for what you did, I wear this name proudly. I hope you know that.”

Min Jiyoon,

By now, you’re probably wondering when the thing you’re reading this for is going to happen. It’ll happen soon, don’t worry.

It’ll happen when we will be at Eunji’s home again. Do you remember? You didn’t want to go home. You wanted to stay with her and play some more. Your father had always been too gentle with his gentle parenting , and he hated — still does — when there are things in this world he can’t give you.

So, after discussing it with Taehyung and Minju, we decided to let you stay the night.

“You’ll be good?” Jungkook asked for what felt like the millionth time, but he needed to know for sure.

Jiyoon rolled her eyes. She pushed on Jungkook’s stomach, turning him away from her. “Just go. I’ll be great. Eunji and I are going to have so much fun!”

Taehyung barked a laugh, ruffling her hair. “You’re going to sleep in twenty minutes, young lady. I don’t know about your dad, but here we have a strict schedule.”

Minju hit his arm. “Strict schedule, my ass.”

“Bad word,” Jiyoon sing-songed, earning a light flick in her temple from Minju.

Jiyoon hugged Yoongi. It was the second time Jungkook saw them exchanging something more gentle and precious than their usual bickering. Jiyoon hugged Yoongi very tightly, and Jungkook felt like Yoongi might just stay here next to her for the rest of his life.

“You’ll call us if something happens? If you wanna go home, we’ll come pick you up immediately.”

“I won’t,” Jiyoon pushed, again the commanding undertone. “ Go. ”

“Yes, ma’am,” Yoongi mumbled defeatedly, and everyone gathered in the corridor laughed, lightening the atmosphere.

Eunji hugged both Jungkook and Yoongi simultaneously. Her little arms were barely enough to wind around their necks, but Jungkook wouldn’t trade this feeling for anything. Then, Jiyoon, a natural born leader, demanded Eunji to go, and they linked their arms and ran off in the direction of Eunji’s room.

The adults were left in the entrance. Yoongi shifted his weight from one leg to another.

Taehyung pulled Jungkook into a hug, much like his daughter. “You’ll think about what I’ve told you today?” he asked.

Taehyung had told him that Jimin wanted to meet up. He had told Jungkook that Jimin would love to meet Jiyoon and Yoongi. He had said that Jimin missed him. He had repeatedly told him that he never did anything to be forgiven for, and the only one who should forgive Jungkook was Jungkook himself.

“I will,” Jungkook lied, or maybe not; maybe he was ready to face it, maybe he was ready to stop walking and feeling the concrete under his feet with this heavy lift of guilt on his shoulders that pinned him down.

After all, how hard could it be? Taehyung and Minju were okay with him. Taehyung and Minju had never said anything malicious to him.

“Let’s go,” Yoongi said, his hand somewhere on Jungkook’s hand, his thumb against the heart of Jungkook’s palm; maybe it was something that normal people considered holding hands. “Bye, Minju-ssi, Taehyung-ssi. Have a good night. Thank you for this evening.”

“Have a safe trip,” Taehyung smirked. His arm circled around Minju’s shoulders, pinning him to her. She fit in to him perfectly, his chin resting on top of her head like a missing puzzle piece.

“We will,” Yoongi said, and Jungkook thought that maybe these two had talked about something, too. “The cab should be here in five minutes. Let’s go.”

Stepping out of the apartment complex’s lobby, they didn’t notice any car that resembled a taxi. It was a cold night in February. They waited. Yoongi had let go of Jungkook’s hand in the elevator, and Jungkook’s palm was whining with loss, wanting more, always yearning for more. 

“I hate the cold,” Yoongi complained.

“I know,” Jungkook said. Yoongi looked all red, trembling, miserable. He tried to smile at himself, his body clattering, unable to take the cold temperature. Jungkook never gave himself much time to think before he said, “Let me hug you. It might help.”

It was absolutely ridiculous, but Jungkook still tugged Yoongi closer to himself, let him settle into Jungkook’s warmth, hoped it’d really make Yoongi feel better, safer. Yoongi fit into him, too, just like Minju had with Taehyung.

Yoongi looked up at him. It was night, and they both were tipsy. Jungkook hadn’t felt the alcohol rush in him for over half a year; it was almost new and yet so familiar.

A lamppost above their heads highlighted Yoongi’s best features; softened lines, careful nose bridge, small eyes.

Jungkook placed his hands on Yoongi’s cheeks. “Better?” he asked quietly. Yoongi’s cold skin quickly soaked in the warmth of his palms. Yoongi nodded shortly.

They were so close. Jungkook had never felt so close to Yoongi.

“Hyung,” he said, not knowing what to do. Lately, everything had been so weird around them.

Yoongi’s boots bumped into his as Yoongi took the smallest step toward Jungkook.

“Do it,” Yoongi said. He still was looking up at Jungkook. Jungkook was still in love with him, even after all these years. “Do it, Jungkook-ah.”

So Jungkook leaned down and slotted their mouths together.

Just a peck. Just a chaste kiss.

“Again,” Yoongi whispered against his mouth, tugging onto Jungkook’s coat collar. “Again, Jungkook-ah.”

Yoongi found Jungkook’s bottom lip faster, kissed Jungkook heatedly, chasing his warmth. This time, it was a bit deeper, a bit longer.

“More,” Yoongi rasped, voice thick; Jungkook wanted the taxi to never come. “More, Jungkook-ah.”

Jungkook felt it everywhere in his body; the way it filled his insides with so much peace, like it was the most usual, normal, ordinary thing in this world — for him to open his mouth for Yoongi, for Yoongi to lick inside, for them both to be scalded by their united breathing on that frigid February night.

“Don’t go,” Yoongi said, his cold nose against Jungkook’s, a warm breath sucked in by Jungkook’s mouth. “Let me take you home.”

“Yes, please.”

Min Jiyoon,

Don’t read further. Skip the page. I know you terribly want to, but some things are better off not knowing.

I can assure you, however, that everything your father and I did, we did out of love to each other. That kind of love that blows us to pieces and then mends us, puts us together — in the correct order this time.

It felt as if it was Jungkook’s first time coming into this apartment. As if there were once again plastic bags in his hands, and he didn’t know how to move in the foreign space.

Sugar came out to greet them, circled around their legs, and vanished again. Jungkook was in that sort of stupor where he once again felt too big and too small at the same time. He hooked up plenty, closed eyes and not, a pill under his tongue and the unrecognisable shape of a person’s face, taking him higher and higher.

He’d never quite gotten to this level of intimacy. He thought that maybe after years of longing he’d cling to Yoongi, start peeling the layers of clothes off him, hungry and desperate, buttons of his fancy shirt scattering across the floor, but —

They were just them. So normal it almost hurt.

And then Yoongi kissed Jungkook in the middle of the foyer. Jungkook registered Jiyoon’s doll, the one they’d forgotten to take to Eunji’s and got a good scolding from Jiyoon for that, was abandoned on the shoe rack, before he closed his eyes and let Yoongi in. Yoongi kissed him deeply and delicately, guiding hands on Jungkook’s jaw. Jungkook pressed all of himself into this, eyebrows furrowed, determined to make it the best kiss Yoongi had ever gotten, to make Yoongi forget there had been anybody else but Jungkook.

“Good?” Yoongi asked. He pressed their foreheads together, breathed heavily.

“Me — yes,” Jungkook breathed. He felt Yoongi’s laughter on his mouth, and caught his lips again, kissed the smile off his face.

“Do you wanna wash up first? Or me?”

“Hyung first.”

Jungkook downed a glass of water as he waited for Yoongi. He sat at the dining room’s table, then on the living’s room couch, and then finally moved to Yoongi’s bedroom. He’d never really been in here before. It even smelled differently.

Jungkook sat down at the very edge of the bed. Yoongi came out of the bathroom. He looked unchanged to Jungkook — same clothes, only the wet ends of his hair indicating that he actually showered.

“Your turn,” Yoongi said.

Jungkook nodded, stood up. Didn’t feel like himself as he crossed the room to the bathroom.

Yoongi caught on his wrist, halting him. “It’s just us,” he said, and kissed Jungkook again, as though he couldn’t get enough, and Jungkook once again opened up to him, blooming blooming blooming.

He washed quickly and hurriedly, but the shower did clear his mind a bit. Reality settled — for the first time, it wasn’t crushing,rather, it settled gently.

“Just us?” Jungkook asked as he strolled to Yoongi. His fingers fumbled with the top buttons on Yoongi’s shirt.

“Just us,” Yoongi reassured him. “Can I kiss you again?”

“Yes, please.”

When Yoongi laid him down, Jungkook felt like nobody in his life treated him this delicately. Nobody in his life before guided Jungkook. It was always him — the one who nagged his parents to buy him a guitar, the one who took leadership at fifteen as he made his decision to form a band, the one who followed the company for months just to have his band signed under a label.

It was so nice, to let go. It was so nice, to thaw under Yoongi.

Yoongi’s hands scalded his ribs, tracing lower, to his stomach, caressed his skin. Jungkook’s fingers tightened around Yoongi’s shoulder, checking how real everything was. Yoongi’s skin, just under his touch, the muscle.

“Going to take care of me?” Jungkook laughed.

“Just as I promised,” Yoongi hummed. “How do you wanna do it?”

Jungkook caught his bottom lip, kissed him again. “Doesn’t matter,” he blabbered. “Doesn’t matter, don’t care, just you, just want you — ” He pushed the two of them over again, pressed himself into Yoongi. His hands, as they cupped Yoongi’s face, felt in place, felt right. He kissed him deeply; maybe he didn’t even need them to go so far tonight, maybe he just needed a sober mind, some opened eyes. “I’ve missed you,” Jungkook whispered into Yoongi, “Hyung, I’ve missed you so much.”

Yoongi must’ve thought Jungkook meant the past few weeks, how busy Yoongi had gotten, how little they saw each other.  

What Jungkook really meant were the last nine years, from the moment Yoongi had said, ‘Congratulations, Jungkook-ah, we made a great album’ and closed the door to Genius Lab right in Jungkook’s confused face, the mortifying realisation of being shut down by Yoongi hitting him, to the moment when a stranger’s child pointed at Jungkook in the supermarket and Yoongi said, ‘Min Jiyoon, please stop harassing strangers in the supermarket’.

But then Yoongi flattened his palm against Jungkook’s back, pressing them together, like he really wanted to mend their broken pieces into one complete puzzle, like he never wanted them to part again, and — Jungkook might be mistaken, of course, maybe he heard the wrong thing from how quietly Yoongi said it, but — he whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jungkook-ah.”

Like he was apologising for making Jungkook miss him.

And so he kissed him again, this time not gentle and delicate, but it started a licking fire in Jungkook’s gut, making up for all the time they had lost.

I’ve loved you for what feels like my whole life — would it be so wrong to tell Yoongi about this now?

“Min Yoongi,” Jungkook whispered, “I think I wanna do it like — ”

Min Jiyoon,

I know you’re still reading. :) 

But on a serious note,

I do not tell him I love him on that day.

And I do not tell him that on the next. It’ll take me months to show your father my bare self, to come open like this: I’ve loved you for my whole life. I owe you my everything. I’ve missed you.

He doesn’t lie to me. He doesn’t tell me he’s loved me for his whole life, either.

But he tells me he’s going to love me for the rest, and I believe him. Of course I do.

Yoongi blinked an eye open. “Where are you going?” His voice was deep with sleep. He was on his stomach, one arm buried under the pillow. “Did something happen?”

Jungkook stilled with his jeans half-tugged to his thighs. “Uh. Home?”

Yoongi propped himself up groggily. “You’re not staying?”

A pause. “Should I?” Do you want me to?

“Okay, I don’t want any misunderstandings, and we’re talking vaguely.” Yoongi sat up by the edge of the bed. Jungkook watched the lines of his pale legs, the way the elastic band of his boxers left a red imprint on his stomach. “I don’t want to push you into anything. If you just wanted to hookup, it’s fine.”

The thing with the word fine was that it was a pretty vague word. Jungkook’s hands fell down from tugging his jeans and he stilled, didn’t dare to move.

“But — ” Yoongi licked his lips. “I thought it was something — you know? Not as meaningless? I really, really, really would love you to stay. You should. But only if you want to.”

How was Jungkook supposed to tell him that staying with Yoongi was the only thing he ever wanted?

He nodded. “I want to.”

“Good.” Yoongi smiled. He reached out with his hands to Jungkook. His fingers tickled Jungkook’s hips. “C’mere.”

Jungkook went to him. Yoongi pressed his palms more firmly on Jungkook’s hips, rubbing soothing circles. He looked up at Jungkook, and Jungkook looked down at him, and for the first time, he felt it.

Yoongi’s love for him. That kind of love he’d always wanted.

“I can’t believe I have to undress you again,” Yoongi grumbled, ruining the mood, and pulled Jungkook’s jeans down his legs. Jungkook laughed, suddenly feeling weightless, stumbling over his own feet, caught himself by Yoongi’s shoulders. Yoongi helped guide his feet out of his jeans, and then threw this offending piece of clothing back on the floor.

He leaned backwards on the mattress, bringing Jungkook with him.

“Hyung,” Jungkook whispered. He had his elbows propped on two sides of Yoongi’s head, hovering over him.

Yoongi’s fingers danced around his naked back. “Yeah?”

I love you. I love Min Jiyoon. I want to be with you.

“What changed?” Jungkook asked.

Yoongi laughed. His eyes formed half moons. Jungkook wanted to kiss him for the rest of their lives. “Taehyung told me I look like a lovesick idiot.”

“You don’t—” Jungkook argued.

“You never notice but I agree with Taehyung.” Yoongi fixed a strand behind Jungkook’s ear. He carefully flipped them over, limbs bundled together, the rustling of the bedsheets. “Jeon Jungkook, why do you never notice my love for you?” Yoongi pressed his lips on his forehead. “I cook for you, I drive you and Jiyoon around whenever you two are up to no good even if I just wish I could stay in bed the whole day, I meet your friends, and I always make sure to buy you the snacks you love in the grocery store — ”

“No offence,” Jungkook said, smiling at Yoongi, “but this is a shitty way of showing romantic love. How was I supposed to notice that?”

“Okay,” Yoongi hummed. He kissed Jungkook down his jawline, just open-mouthed kisses, nothing more and nothing less. “I always sneak glances at you like I want to devour you.”

Jungkook scoffed. “This is just ridiculous.”

“Yah, that’s what Taehyung told me!” Yoongi protested.

“Do you really need to listen to him all the time?”

“Okay — how about this? You’re my favourite boy in this entire world,” Yoongi whispered and kissed him on the mouth, drawing out the softest noises from Jungkook. His palm pressed against Jungkook’s ribs, just where his heart was beating in his ribcage. Yoongi broke away, and trailed the path down Jungkook’s throat. “You’ve always been. I would’ve never agreed to produce a whole album if not for your lamb eyes and crazy talent.”

Jungkook twisted his fingers in Yoongi’s hair. “Hyung—”

“I hear you—”

The phone rang.

Yoongi and Jungkook rolled off each other. Jungkook found the phone first, absentmindedly registering that it was past three in the morning, and picked up the call.

“Jeon Jungkook speaking.”

“Oppa!” Jiyoon cried. “Pick me up, I can’t sleep here. I wanna go home.”

For fuck’s sake.

Min Jiyoon,

I think you know the rest.

Your father groans, and we come pick you up just as we’ve promised you we would. From that moment on, you’ll hate sleepovers, and even as a teen, you’ll never stay the night at your friends’ place.

It’s good for my health, though. This way, I worry less about you. Even if I have to endure your pyjama parties in our apartment.

The hall was bigger than Jungkook had expected, and gathered more journalists than Jungkook had ever imagined there to be.

He supposed that was just what naturally happens when a former frontman of one of the most famous rock bands in history organised a press conference.

The first few questions were a bit meaningless — they asked him if he kept in touch with the members (yes), if he had been making music (yes), if he planned to release more music (no). They asked him more personal questions, like how Taehyung’s children were doing (good, them and Jungkook’s family recently visited Jeju together), asked about rumours of Jimin’s wedding (Jimin had asked him as a best man not to reveal anything, so Jungkook shrugged and told the journalists that they weren’t as close as they imagined him and Jimin to be).

And then, finally, questions about the book, the reason why they were here, started.

“Hello. I’m Park Seohoon, Starlight Magazine.”

“Yes,” Jungkook hummed into the microphone. He bowed shortly. “Hello.”

“Let me summarise the book really quickly. It follows the story of a woman who falls in love with a man — ”

“Objection!” someone from the auditorium spoke up. The hall filled with laughter. “Excuse me, but I believe the woman has loved this man all her life.”

“Objection allowed,” Jungkook laughed. He twirled the microphone in his hand. “Let Park Seohoon-ssi finish.”

“Yes, sorry. It’s the story about a woman who loves this man, and comes to love his daughter from his first marriage.”

“Yes,” Jungkook said.

“Even though the book is told from the third person perspective, it was a very interesting way to include little patches of the woman’s actual feelings toward the child.”

“Why?” Jungkook smiled. “Thank you.”

“Surely, not all women would do this.”

“Objection!” Again, this voice. Again, laughter, this time more reserved. It was definitely a woman, but Jungkook couldn’t really see her that well — she was at the back of the hall, hidden behind her laptop monitor. “I don’t think it’s about gender. I think it’s about people. In general, not every person is ready to have their heart broken every day. Like a reminder that there’s been someone else in your significant other's life. That this person had been important enough to have a child together.”

“That’s interesting,” Jungkook said. “Thank you. Park Seohoon-ssi?”

The journalist cleared his throat. He shifted his weight from one leg to another. He looked down at the paper in his hands. “Besides, this woman is… infertile.”

“Yes,” Jungkook said. He couldn’t understand where this was going, and he didn’t really like this feeling.

“What makes you feel like you had the right to speak up on this?” Park Seohoon asked.

Jungkook opened his mouth, but the groan from the back of the auditorium reached everyone first.

“This is unprofessional, Park Seohoon-ssi,” the voice said. “You should’ve at least checked Wikipedia before coming in here, eh? Clearly Jeon Jungkook-ssi speaks about his life. About his family history. Even in the beginning of the book, it’s said, ‘For you, Jungkook’s mom, who had worn this name proudly despite the hardships that followed it.’ ”

“Don’t worry, young lady, I am perfectly aware that this woman stole Jeon Jungkook’s father from another — ”

“They weren’t bloody married anymore by the time Jungkook’s mom came into his life!”

Jungkook blinked. These two were fired up by his parents' love story more than he himself ever was. He watched security guards walking both of the journalists out of the auditorium. They were still arguing when the door closed after them.

“Uh,” Jungkook coughed. “Shall we continue?”

From then on, the questions were answerable, and Jungkook quickly moved through all of them. Some brought him flowers. Others asked for autographs after. A lot of women told him they used to be his fans when they were younger, and Jungkook felt a wave of nostalgia hitting him like the beats in his in-ear monitors used to.

Nevertheless, he was relieved when everything was over. He hadn’t been under the spotlight in years, and the publicity sucked the soul out of him. Behind the stage, Jiyoon and Yoongi were already waiting for him.

“Hey,” Yoongi reached out to squeeze his fingers. “Okay?”

“A bit tired,” Jungkook admitted. He clinged to Yoongi’s fingers a second longer, and let go.

“We should go home,” Jiyoon said, bossy as usual. She flashed her phone in her hands. “Grandmom has been texting me nonstop that dinner is getting cold.”

Jungkook smiled at her. He reached out to ruffle her hair — for the past few years, she’d learned how to style it herself, how to apply her makeup, and everything else that followed after. She slapped his hand away, not hurting for a tidbit, just a scowl on her face, then quickly turning all gentle and nuzzling into him again.

Teenagers were weird.

Jungkook loved Jiyoon through every year she went through.

She linked arms with him, dragging him away from the hall to the street. When Jungkook looked behind his shoulder to see if Yoongi was following them or not, Yoongi strolled lazily, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, and he had such a massive, endeared smile to his face that Jungkook thought that this year of writing this book, dissecting himself and his family history into pieces, was worth it — of course it was worth it.

Jungkook halted for a second, reaching out with his hand for Yoongi to grab. Jiyoon scoffed, presenting her new character trait when she rolled her eyes at whatever little affectionate gesture they exchanged. Her arm fell away from Jungkook.

“Can you give me the car keys? I wanna open it while you mush with Dad.”

“Sure. If I toss them — ”

“I’ll catch them, yeah.”

So he tossed her the keys, and she caught them, immediately taking off to the parking lot where they’d left their car earlier. Yoongi squeezed Jungkook’s palm, intertwining their fingers.

It was a late summer evening, and the sun had just barely begun to set. Jungkook matched his pace with Yoongi’s, and now they were both strolling after Jiyoon.

“I’m proud of you,” Yoongi said. “I’m so, so, so proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Jungkook said. He really, really, really wanted to kiss Yoongi right here, to let himself find comfort between Yoongi’s limbs but — not here. Of course not here.

Besides, Jiyoon had already made enough fun of them today.

It wasn’t that she hated the idea of them together. After all, Jungkook suspected that between  Jisoo’s new husband and him, he was her favorite.

It was just pretty awkward to learn that your father’s best friend, your closest older brother, your oppa, was, apparently, something more. She must’ve suspected it for some time, but coming clean to her was difficult for all three of them.

They were still learning how to live with it. Jungkook hoped one day — she’d accept him back. The same way his mom quickly became ‘grandmom’ for Jiyoon, he dreamed of being close to Jiyoon in that way, too.

But even if he doesn’t, if he just remains as the third-party, just Jungkookie-oppa , he’d be fine with it. A little love was better than none.

“Dad!” Jiyoon yelled. She was already by the car, a small figure beside the family SUV, and she seemed giddy and nervous.

Yoongi’s head snapped up to her. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

Jiyoon waved him off. “Not you! ” It was said with a disgusted undertone. The next time she spoke, it was softer and more excited. “Dad! Dad, look at me!”

 Jungkook peered at Yoongi. He pointed at himself. “Is she — me?”

“Da-a-ad!” Jiyoon groaned. “I’m not getting any younger here! Dad, look at me!”

She repeated the word so many times, unnecessarily. Like she really wanted Jungkook to finally turn to her at her calling.

“Just look at her, Jungkook-ah,” Yoongi grumbled.

So Jungkook looked.

And she just beamed at him, this gummy smile, and was so beautiful, the most beautiful girl Jungkook had ever laid his eyes on. She waved her hand at him. “I couldn’t say it earlier to your face but — ” She gathered as much air in her lungs as she could. “I love you! I’m proud of you! You’re the best! Fighting, Dad! ”

For being loved just for who he was. For being in the right place, the right time. For telling him good things,

Min Jiyoon,

Thank you.