The first domino fell in autumn. Not quite as light-hearted and fresh as summer, not quite as memorable as the winter. When they first bumped into each other, the leaves were already on their trip to the ground. Some trees were already barren, but some still had yellow, brown, and orange flecks decorating their winding branches.
It wasn't in the busy downtown metropolis- it was in a suburb of a sprawling city, where all the locals spoke in heavy dialect.
Seokjin admired the fall in this place- in downtown Seoul, fall meant nothing but rain and depressingly barren parks. Seoul had a different atmosphere in fall, with the stuffy summer air seeping out with the downpour- but it didn't have leaves littering the streets and collecting in the potholes. There wasn't an absence of noise even in the presence of people. Here, children played in the parks quietly. Here, the quiet atmosphere made even a bird's tittering seem like a booming shriek. It reminded him of his far-away childhood home, trees tucked into every corner.
He had two coats covering his chattering bones and heavy boots on his feet. He meandered along the side of the road, scuffing the soles of his shoes with every stride, peering over his thick scarf. Glasses, usually perched on his nose, rested on the edge of the red fabric. They fogged up each time he exhaled through his nose.
The walk lasted longer than it should've. He lost track of time and place after a while, gazing at his surroundings but not truly taking much in. Wind blew in his right ear, rain began to fall. Not until he was soaked did he notice the storm.
Brought back to earth, he stopped in his tracks and looked around.
The familiar streets of his neighborhood were long gone, replaced by unfamiliar slick avenues, lined solely with restaurants and shops. To his left, a sign advertised a sushi restaurant, and to his right, a shop with flickering neon lights boasted having the best coffee in Daegu. A claim that rendered him skeptical, but it wasn't something uncommon. All coffee shops, apparently, had the best coffee in Daegu.
The avenue was almost completely abandoned- Seokjin, despite having left South Korea only once in his life, still forgot that all of the residents avoided rain like the plague.
(He never really minded rain, it almost made him happier than blue skies.)
The chill of the rain began to seep into his bones, rendering him shrunken in and shivering. He wiped at his glasses with his drenched sleeve, serving only to smudge and displace the droplets.
Not knowing where he was, he decided it was either find a way back home in the cold, or wait out the rain in a restaurant.
The decision was easy.
Deciding that the coffee shop would be more suited to warming up his freezing body, he headed right.
His hand was placed on the door handle, prepared to open it, when a lone car sped past. He jumped back, startled at the sudden and unprovoked blare of the horn.
For no reason at all, he felt unsettled. The shop seemed less welcoming than before, and the flickering 'open' sign seemed eerie and ominous. Seokjin didn't believe in signs very much, but if he ever were to believe, that would be the moment.
His gut and his head told him no. Tucking his numb fingers into his pockets, he stepped back and headed the other way. The promise of sushi seemed all the better now.
From inside the coffeeshop, a man stared at Seokjin's retreating back. It felt as if he had missed something important, but he didn't know what. He shrugged and continued to sip on his coffee.
Seokjin pushed into the sushi restaurant without a moment's hesitation. The chef greeted him cheerily as he sat down.
Engaged in light chatter with the sushi chef, he looked through the menu until he found something suited to his taste. He ordered, then sat back on his stool and looked around.
The feeling persisted, some sort of force pushing at him to get up and go over to wherever that other man went. It was urgent, his instinct seemed to insist. Finding it useless to ignore his impulse, he got up with a clatter, leaving his payment on the small table. He left the coffee shop in a hurry, pushing out of the door with no lack of force.
He walked to the sushi restaurant, almost passing it by. At the end of the window, he did a double-take, having spotted the man's red attire from the corner of his eye.
The door smashed open behind Seokjin, letting in a gust of cold wind and rain. At the loud noise, both he and the sushi chef startled, turning towards the source of the noise.
A man was stood in an awkward manner, wearing a hooded raincoat and floral rainboots.
He had his shoulders hunched over slightly, but it didn't make him look any smaller. His frame was solid, shrouded by the long, black coat. Though most of his face was in shadow, Seokjin could make out plump lips and a clean-shaven chin, but his eyes were out of sight, as was most of his nose. He held his hands clasped in front of him, fidgeting nervously.
"Um… hello," he said in a surprisingly soft voice, body framed by a slowly closing door and pounding rain.
While Seokjin's mind was still reeling, the chef was quick to recuperate.
"Hello! Come sit, sit," he smiled, gesturing towards a seat near Jin.
The other man, as he neared, sat down at the seat directly to the right of him. The chef slid a menu over to the other man, still smiling.
"Hey, I'm uh, I'm Jeongguk," the man said, waving slightly at Seokjin.
The way Jeongguk radiated awkwardness was admittedly a little endearing.
"I'm Seokjin," being in Daegu for over a year had rendered his speech to short, brusque phrases. Phrases that, coming from a Seoul native, sounded brash and strange.
That was all that was said for awhile. Jeongguk removed his hood from his head, allowing Seokjin to further observe the features of his face. His initial impression was that Jeongguk looked angelic, almost cherubic. He had puffy cheeks, flushed pink, and eyes that radiated innocence. Jeongguk's hair was floppy and messy, the back sticking straight up and the front hanging into his eyes. When Jeongguk placed his order, the conversation resumed and Seokjin averted his eyes from the stranger's face.
"I notice that you have a Seoul accent… what brought you to Daegu?" Jeongguk asked, chuckling nervously.
"Friends. I like the place," Seokjin shrugged. Finally speaking with someone other than Yoongi or Jimin made him painfully aware of how rude he must sound, saying things like this in the standard accent. He couldn't be bothered to change it.
"That's nice. Do you like it better than Seoul?"
Seokjin, with a piece of raw fish and rice stuffed in his mouth, belatedly replied.
"In ways, I guess. 'mean, there're things I like 'bout Daegu better, then things I like 'bout Seoul better. Why'd you come to Daegu? Or are you a native? You sound more… Busan… ish…" he trailed off.
Jeongguk hummed thoughtfully before replying, "I don't really know why I came to Daegu. I mean I've got a friend from here, and so when he was visiting over here I decided to come with him, I guess? But why I even decided to come with him, I don't know. A feeling? Something I had to do?"
Seokjin nodded, not having anything else to add to the conversation. Despite his general unwillingness to speak to strangers, something about this man felt important. Perhaps it had been the way he carried himself, or the way he spoke, but Seokjin was compelled to keep the conversation going.
Nevertheless, Seokjin ignored that instinct and remained silent as he chewed his food.
Jeongguk followed suit. The evening passed in relative silence, the only noise being the occasional scraping of chopsticks against the plates, and their food being chewed. Once they had finished eating, the sound of rain prevailed over all else. Seokjin remained in his seat, looking at the decorations, considering ordering a bottle of beer, and Jeongguk left after quietly paying his bill.
Seokjin was now left to his solitude, his beer, and unending, unshakeable boredom. If the storm didn't pass soon, he would have to stay in the restaurant until it closed.
Luck seemed to be on his side, however. Only a few minutes after Jeongguk left, the rain eased up into a sprinkle. He paid his bill, then got up and exited.
Navigating back home was a struggle, but less so than it would have been in the earlier downpour. His glasses could now be seen through again (the droplets had dried into stains) and it wasn't so bone-chillingly cold. The sun was only just dipping out of sight when he made it to his home, the second story of a brick one-room one-bathroom duplex.
He fished his keys out, fumbling with them in the dark. After feeling around for the keyhole, he shoved them in and opened the door with a satisfying click.
His shoes, already discarded, landed haphazardly amongst the neat rows of boots and sneakers.
"I'm home!" he called out, shelling off his coat and unwrapping his scarf.
"Take all of your wet clothes and put them by the furnace!" Yoongi called out from deep inside the house.
Seokjin busied himself with setting the ribbed furnace up, laying his clothing nearby. He changed out of his drenched shirt and jeans and into a warm pair of pajama pants and a white t-shirt, which had been set out on the couch by Yoongi.
He headed to his and Yoongi's room, taking time to bask in the warmth of their home.
Yoongi was lying on his bed, reading some sort of book and listening to music. His leg was dangerously close to knocking the plant off of Seokjin's shelf, so Seokjin gently moved it down again.
Seokjin laid down on his own bed, worming underneath the covers and grabbing his phone to scroll through social media.
"So what'd you do today?" Jin asked.
"Not much. Tae's back in town. Brought some friends. Jimin, we know. Then two other guys, some Jeongguk and Namjoon. Visit with me tomorrow?"
"'Course I will. I met a Jeongguk today. Could be the same one?" Seokjin chuckled lightly at a post.
"Maybe. Where'd you meet him?" Yoongi flipped the page of his book.
"Sushi restaurant."
"Cool."
"Yeah."
That was that.
It took another hour of reading for Yoongi to get up and turn off the light- that was Seokjin's cue to stretch (then go to bed) and Yoongi's cue to switch to electronic activites.
Sweet music flowed through his headphones as he arched his back to meet his foot with his head. He contemplated the happenings of today.
Without a doubt, he knew that the person that he had met at the restaurant was the same Jeongguk that Taehyung had brought back. Fate (a tricky, finicky thing) always had a way of letting him know that she would be meddling in his business, bringing him together with people that he had taken too long to meet. At first he had thought nothing of his apprehension of the coffee shop and the willingness to speak to Jeongguk- but with the progression of the hours, he knew that it was fate once again.
To Seokjin, nothing was real; everything was changeable. Time was as easy to mend and morph as silly putty in his hands. He could almost always go back to a moment in time and in space, but there were times where he couldn't. Fixing things was hard to do when you couldn't foresee the outcome, when you couldn't tell if it would just make another problem to fix. It was akin to a job; Seokjin would sometimes spend hours agonizing, taking detailed notes and trying to suss out every possible situation.
Sometimes, his hard work was all for naught.
(It had been years since he had seen his parents.)
A blossoming pain in his back brought him back to his dark surroundings, and he realised he had been holding this stretch for more than ten minutes. He switched sides, bringing his left leg up and arching his back again, and as easily as he slipped out of thought, he slid back in.
Fate was obviously fed up with his lack of action- she had given him this power for a reason, and him choosing not to use it was not something she liked. Seokjin was tired of her meddling, he just wanted to grow old with his friends, in this timeline, this dimension, in this reality. He didn't want to have to change. He didn't want to repeat the situation with his parents.
Everyone in this place was worth staying, worth finding.
What people assumed was that from reality to reality, nothing but the circumstances would change. That the individuals and people would stay the same. But with the change in circumstances, there was a change in personalities. Leaving a reality was killing his friends and family, regardless of whether they existed in the next reality. Sometimes, a reality would not even have the person. (Seokjin both feared and awaited the day that he transported to a reality where he had never existed.)
He laid his leg down and turned over to his back, plopping onto the bed with a soft thump. The song changed, and in the small space of silence he noticed that Yoongi was already fast asleep, unaware of Seokin's spiraling thoughts.
The covers were warm and Yoongi's breathing was melodic. For a moment, for the time in between waking and sleeping, he tried hard to drive his thoughts out of his head.
Thoughts that soon, he would have to start trying to change the fate of his friends; that soon, everything would go to shit; that soon, he may never see Yoongi again. That Yoongi and Taehyung and Jimin would soon become figures of the past and ghosts of the present.
Unsuccessful, he fell asleep, dreams racing past his eyelids and body shaking fitfully in periods of silence.
Yoongi was humming some distantly familiar song when Jin woke up- something that had played on the radio, maybe. Their home was scented like heavily perfumed flowers and breakfasts. The smells clashed and intermingled, mixing in just the right way to make Seokjin feel at ease.
His eyes fluttered open, and he was on his side, facing Yoongi. Yoongi was putting on heavy boots and a rain jacket and a scarf, with his trusty yellow umbrella leaning against the mattress.
"Good morning. We're leaving in half an hour, eat up and get ready!"
Contrary to what one might believe, Yoongi was always uncharacteristically chirpy in the morning. The man himself claimed not to be a morning person, saying that his happy attitude was all due to overcompensation.
Groaning, Seokjin propped himself up onto his elbows and gazed at his surroundings through blurry eyes. Yoongi's footsteps clunked towards him, and hands quickly fell on his face.
At the realisation that Yoongi was only putting his glasses on him, Seokjin blinked and opened his eyes.
The rest of the morning was rushed, Yoongi following him around, harassing him to hurry up. Eating eggs, was, apparently, something that Seokjin was slow at.
"Why are you so damn excited?" Seokjin asked, as he finally pulled on his own pair of boots, his own red umbrella and red scarf sitting next to him and on his neck, respectively.
"We haven't seen Tae in person in over two months- of course I'm excited. I miss him. Hurry up, asshole," Yoongi was practically vibrating, his black hair flopping up and down on his forehead.
Yoongi was halfway out of the door when Seokjin had finished tying the last lace. The older man struggled to catch up with the younger, grabbing the keys and closing the door after his careless friend. The stairs were still slick from last night's downpour, nearly causing Seokjin to fall several times during his ungainly clamber after the (current) energizer bunny he called his friend.
The car was already turned on, engine spluttering in protest. Seokjin hoped they would soon have enough money to replace it.
He slid into the driver's seat, turning the keys in the ignition just that final click. Checking the stick shift and the rearview mirror, he stepped on the pedal and they were out.
A pop song buzzed on the radio, something familiar but unplaceable.
Seokjin loved autumn because everything was in warm shades. He could wear red all the time without second glances, he could don brown and black and all of the shades of blood whenever he wanted without a single questioning glare. The trees were all the color of each other, brown and red and yellow and orange, the grass was yellowed and the clouds were warm and grey. Their dark brick house, a standout in the summer, looked commonplace and innocuous in the fall.
And if he happened to bleed in the fall, the red would seep into the leaves and nothing would be too changed.
His eyes blinked open, his head fuzzy and confused. Next to him, Yoongi's body hung limp over the seatbelt, but didn't appear to have any outside injuries aside from a nasty cut along the side of his face. Seokjin's fists were still gripped tightly on the wheel.
Across from them was another car- a big truck, one that could have done them more damage than it did. (He was glad that it didn't. He wasn't ready to let go.)
He moved his arms down from the wheel, and as they fell to his sides, a searing pain ran up his left shoulder. He winced at the feeling, only to be met with the same pain on the left side of his face, over his eye. His clouded mind couldn't process what it meant, only playing alarm noises every time he so much as twitched a muscle.
Sirens slowly faded in from background noise, getting louder and louder as ambulances neared. Faintly, he wondered how long it had been since he had passed out, considering the emergency responders were already there.
Yoongi roused as people dressed in uniforms ran towards their car. Seokjin lolled his head to the side, deliriously smiling at the woman who opened his door, despite the pain in his eye as he did so. Her hands worked to unbuckle him, and, still grinning, Seokjin noticed that they were rather small, and that her nail art was very nice. His right hand somehow made its way to hers, picking it up so he could see it better.
She had finally undone his seatbelt. His body was working autonomously, stumbling out of the car without command from his brain. Everything was foggy, and it took him a few seconds to realise that the woman was speaking to him.
"Sir, sir-"
Air was pushed out of his lungs, and the noise that came with it surprised him. He continued making that sound, seemingly unable to stop. It distantly reminded him of a window wiper.
"Sir. Sir. Do you have identification? What is your name?"
He flopped his head upwards to look her in the eyes as best he could.
"Ghh… I… D… unf… Seok- seogjin."
The words didn't come out as intended, but he hoped that would make do. His tongue felt just as loose and flimsy as the rest of his body, sometimes moving on its own and sometimes refusing to move at all. He was a ragdoll, the woman's arms underneath his being the only thing keeping his unsteady legs from giving out.
He belatedly realised that he was now sat on something, then subsequently laid on something. His head was trapped by something stiff, and his arms were being held down- whether by sheer force of gravity or by some other force, he didn't know.
The woman was still hovering above him, face betraying some emotion that he couldn't properly understand in his befuddled and cloudy state.
"Seokjin, do you know what year it is?"
Her voice was smooth and sweet, but he didn't know why she was asking him this.
"Two- two thous'nd an…' six- sixteen…"
For a moment, he let himself close his eyes, rest his brain. It took more effort than expected to open them again, and when his eyelids opened, the first thing he noticed was that the woman was now much more blurry than she had been before.
Wherever he was- an ambulance, he reminded himself- started to move, abruptly. The movement shook his head painfully, making his eyes bounce up and down in their sockets and squeezing his head in on all sides. It took him all conscious efforts not to scream out in pain.
The rest of the ride passed like this, the woman asking him questions that he couldn't hear, him grunting in reply, and the shaking of the vehicle making his head rattle and his blood pound. He could hear the ocean, which he speculated was not something he was supposed to hear on a normal basis.
After valiantly fighting sleep for a good seven and a half minutes, Seokjin gave in to the pain in his head and body, and fell asleep.
He woke to near silence. Someone was breathing next to him, and a still hand was resting on his own. For ages he lay there, unwilling to move or open his eyes, because he knew that as soon as he opened them, all of the light would flood him and make his head turn in violent circles.
The heart monitor had registered his awakening, notifying the nurses. Footsteps, somewhere in the hallway, cascaded in the direction of his room. They echoed.
From the voices that had entered, he recognized one of them. It was Taehyung- but he wasn't saying much. He didn't ask the nurses any questions, just repeating 'oh my god' over and over again, sounding all too much like a scratched CD. The two nurses, one male and one female, were fretting over Seokjin. They kept asking if he was awake, making his head ache.
To satiate their concerns, he let out a low groan, furrowing his eyebrows. This put an end to their ministrations.
"Are you awake?" A quiet voice asked, from next to him. Yoongi.
"Yoon… shh…" was all he said, slipping back into sleep.
When he woke again, he was quicker to regain his bearings. Yoongi's hand was still resting on his, but two other sets of lungs had joined his. Jimin's breathing he recognized- it was distinct. He assumed the other person was Taehyung (if the feeling of calloused fingers carding through his hair was anything to go by.)
"Jimin…" Taehyung whispered, "Yoongi… his heart monitor again… I think he's awake…"
A weight was lifted from the bed, one that Seokjin hadn't even noticed, and Yoongi let out a small noise involuntarily.
"Jin… Jinnie… are you awake?" Yoongi asked.
"Y-yeah…" his voice was hoarse, sandpaper vocal chords scratching him.
"Thank f-fuck," Yoongi's voice wavered, a sound only heard when the other man was going to cry, which was rarely.
"'S'okay," Seokjin smiled.
His face crinkled and it was then that he noticed something he hadn't before- gauze was resting on his left eye. He opened his eyes, and the darkness of his left eye confirmed the presence of the eyepatch.
He looked to the trio by his bed. Yoongi's hair was rumpled, but he was dressed in his normal clothing. Stitches crawled up the side of his face, starting just above his lip and ending next to his browbone. They appeared to be the only outside injury he had sustained, the only thing marring his features. He took in the new development sitting on the familiar face, absorbing the way that the sutures wound up Yoongi's soft features.
Seokjin reached a hand up to touch the sutures, fascinated.
"Badass," he croaked out. Yoongi chuckled, his eyes still worried.
"We almost lost you a few times, Jin, I was so worried…" Taehyung whispers, head turned away. Sterile lights illuminated his profile and the fat tear sitting on the tip of his nose.
"It's okay, Tae," his voice was hoarse. He removed his hand from Yoongi's stitches to run his fingers through Taehyung's hair.
Jimin was silent the entire time. Before he knew it, the steady beeping of the heart machine began to lull him into a half sleep.
Right as his eyes were closing, a ghostly familiar face appeared at the base of his bed, translucent, ethereal- but not beautiful.
His eyes widened at the sight.
Fate grinned.
Screams flew from his mouth, then all went black.
"He's… he's waking up again. I don't… I don't know what happened the last time, it was just… we were all sleeping, then I woke up and Seokjin was screaming. I don't- he screamed for minutes, probably two or three minutes. He fell asleep while he was screaming, and he was still screaming in his sleep and… it was terrifying," Jimin's voice kept breaking and tumbling over itself, his usual high and dry tone sounded pathetic and congested. It didn't take a genius to know he had been crying.
Seokjin stirred, furrowing his brows before cracking his eyes open just the tiniest bit.
A woman's voice said something undecipherable to Seokjin, accompanied by the scratching of a pen on paper.
Yoongi answered. "It's been… I don't know, it's been a minute or so, since it happened. The heart monitor barely went up, I was... It's weird. It's weird. It's weird."
Opening his right eye completely, Seokjin surveyed the room. Two nurses stood by his bedside, one inserting an IV into his veins and the other writing things on a clipboard. Two unidentified men stood in the corner, looking awkward and out of place in their drenched street clothes. Everyone was blurry, and he yearned for his glasses.
"Wh- who… are they?" Seokjin shakily pointed to the men stood in the corner.
"I'm Jeongguk, I'm Taehyung's friend. This is Namoon. I th-think we've met before."
So it was Jeongguk. So it was still this timeline.
When the two figures bowed to him, he waved his hand in dismissal, then turning to Yoongi.
All three of his friends were crying, though Yoongi and Jimin were both furiously wiping at their tears, trying to hide their sorrow.
"C-can…" he trailed off, bringing his hand to his head as a sharp pang ran through his skull.
"Can, what?" Jimin desperately inquired.
A beat of silence as he massaged his pounding head.
"Could I have my glasses?" Seokjin squinted at Jimin.
Yoongi, Taehyung, and Jimin laughed (Taehyung seemed almost hysterical) at his words. He couldn't understand what was so funny about that.
"Y-yeah, yeah you can have your glasses," Yoongi reached into his jacket, pulling out a black shape that Jin assumed were his glasses.
He moved to grab the eyewear, but Yoongi jerked away at the outstretch of his hand, shaking his head at him. Instead, Yoongi placed the glasses on his nose for him. They rested awkwardly on the gauze over his left eye, but they functioned nonetheless.
Finally able to see clearly, he surveyed the room once more.
"What's the date?"
The nurse cleared her throat and glanced at her watch, "it's october sixth, two days since you were brought to the hospital. It's three in the morning right now."
He coughed. "Oh."
"I'll be calling the doctor in now, she'll look you over."
The next few days passed without incident. He slept through most of his time, waking up when his friends would visit. He would purportedly be leaving soon, after the doctor could know that he was fine in full confidence. Namjoon and Jeongguk spent as much time with him as Yoongi, Taehyung, and Jimin did. They became fast friends, clicking easily.
Time passed with an unnatural quickness, and before he knew it, he was wearing his favorite pink sweatshirt and was being wheeled out of the facilities by the nurse.
Faces rushed past, some urgent and some noncommittal. A pair of nurses in residency dozed off on a cot as he signed his dischargement papers. Children played in the corner of the waiting room, being hushed by an adult every few seconds.
Some people he faintly recognized from his time in the hospital, whether because they were nurses or just because they passed by his room at one point. A jaundiced man was being wheeled by a harrowed nurse.
For a few seconds, as he waited for the papers to be confirmed, he only registered that he had seen the face of the nurse before.
Then it hit him. He did a double take, whipping around in his wheelchair to look at the back of the man. The man glanced back at Seokjin as well, looking anxious. As soon as they made eye contact, the nurse turned his head back forward and sped up.
Seokjin's head was reeling. A name couldn't be placed to the face, but he knew he had seen him before this visit. He was so intensely familiar, it was like he had just seen his parents again.
Yet, the moment passed. The papers were confirmed, and a nurse smiled at him as a way of congratulations, then grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and pushed him outside.
He gratefully breathed the fresh, unsanitized air. Yoongi stood there, leaning against the door of Taehyung's SUV. His roommate looked perfectly casual, an oversized sweater and a pair of cropped pants hanging off his scrawny frame. Seokjin was pushed closer to the car, and he got up and thanked the nurse who helped him outside.
Before he entered the car, he was embraced by Yoongi, smiling. They stood there, enveloped in each other's scent, happy to both be okay. Seokjin's legs began to shake, but Yoongi held fast, lifting the other man ever so slightly.
Hoots and hollers broke their peace, Taehyung waving wildly at them both as he screeched.
"Get in the car, dumbasses!"
Seokjin laughed a quiet laugh, pulling open the door to the backseat and sliding himself in.
Next to him was Jimin, who, upon Seokjin's entry, pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. He laughed quietly, patting the younger man's head.
When he was finally released, he realised that Jeongguk and Namjoon were also piled into the car. Jeongguk sat on the left, and Namjoon was sprawled in the very back.
Despite his best efforts (and the ceaseless chatter of his friends) Seokjin drifted off within a few minutes of sitting down in the car. His body thumped onto Jimin's, limp with sleep. Jimin smiled his smile, petting the other man's hair as he continued with his animated conversation.
He stood at the edge of a square of sidewalk, somewhere in Daegu.
"Seokjin- S-seokjin, please stop. Please stop. It hurts, it hurts so much. Everything keeps spinning and changing and- and I know it's you, because you're the only one always different and I, god, stop, stop it- stop it because I keep drowning and I can't- I can't fucking swim," Taehyung gasped, in tears, face reddened and pathetic.
Seokjin turned, surprised, his mind clouded by all of the times he'd traveled back in the recent few days. He hadn't been spoken to by anyone, for a good long while. Taehyung's voice was a harsh tone that grated on his skin.
"I-I… I… nobody else is supposed to… nobody else feels it, nobody else… it only… it's only me… you're only… you're the only you and I… the old you is dead and… and died after I left and…" He couldn't hide the tears gathering in his eyes at Taehyung's face.
The rain continued to pour around them, no longer something Seokjin loved. It drenched them both to the bone, the shivering man on the slick concrete sidewalk and the apprehensive man dressed all in black and red. Silence hovered between them, thick enough that even an innocent passerby could know that nothing good was happening in that square of space, on a sidewalk, somewhere in Daegu.
He awoke to someone screaming, the sound filling the car.
It took him a few seconds to realise it was him screaming, and that he should stop himself. His body sprung from Jimin's lap, sitting up straight.
Jimin reached over and took Seokjin's hands in his own, concerned. The car was stopped and everyone was looking at him. He felt sweat begin to gather on his brow and the back of his neck.
"I-I'm okay, sorry, sorry. I've been having nightmares, lately, they're normal, it'll pass soon. Just, let's keep going, okay?" he smiled weakly, desperately trying to recover some of the mood from before he had fallen asleep.
Yoongi was the first to peel his eyes off Seokjin. The younger man shrugged, turning back around in his seat.
"Let's keep going, then," he said, plaintitively.
The other five men in the car then returned to their previous buzzing atmosphere, everything revving back into action. It seemed easy for them all to slip back into conversation, all talk about 'trying not to get plastered' and 'eating as much food as possible.' Seokjin tried to get in a few comments here and there, but focusing on talking was a task too difficult for his state of mind.
Words would be deleted from sentences, threads of conversation would seem to cut off, words would blur and mix together. He held onto the topic tenuously, his head slipping from the sounds he heard despite his wish to interact.
Mostly, he just laughed on cue and sat up straight, swaying with the movement of the car and trying not to fall asleep. His eye would unfocus from time to time. It was hard to recall what had happened not even three seconds ago.
Jimin lay a hand on his shoulder, expression betraying his worry.
He didn't say anything, but question was clear in his eyes. Seokjin didn't have to be fully awake to read Jimin's face.
Seokjin smiled once again, a toothy grin that looked less tense than his smile when he was trying to convince the others of his well-being. He nodded once to Jimin, the motion making his head swim a bit.
While it was obvious Jimin was not completely sure, he was also convinced enough that he would give it a rest for a bit. Good. Seokjin didn't want him to worry.
The short interaction helped ground him, and he could finally catch onto conversation with more ease.
With a grasp of the topic, he began to chime in to the banter more frequently. An unnoticed tension was released at that, surprising Seokjin a bit.
"God, I'm so hungry, I haven't eaten out in like, years," Taehyung lamented to the group.
"We ate out before we left Seoul, what in the world are you talking about?" Jimin responded with cheer in his voice.
"It's called a hyperbole, Minnie," Namjoon chuckled from the very back, "and someone's fucking umbrella is digging into my leg, and it won't move."
"Is it red?" Seokjin called back.
"Yeah, with silver trim. Swanky."
"Oh my god, that's mine! Kim Taehyung, did you steal my fucking umbrella? I've been looking for that for two years!"
From the front, Taehyung spluttered in protest. All he let out were a series of vaguely-Korean noises before he got cut off by Yoongi.
"Hey! Taetae! I gave him that umbrella," Yoongi's tone was angry, but dramatically so. The humor in his words was evident. He smacked Taehyung with a purse.
Taehyung nearly doubled over in laughter, but his eyes stayed focused on the road and his hands stayed gripped on the wheel.
"God, god, oh my god, stop, we'll crash if you make me laugh," he choked out.
A beat of silence hit the car, Taehyung registering what he had just said.
He glanced over at Yoongi for a second, nervously smiling.
Seokjin and Yoongi made eye contact, and promptly let out whooping laughs. The heavy tension left as soon as it had come, with the five not driving banging on the seats and convulsing as they screamed and cackled.
"Aww- come on, it wasn't funny! I'm not even allowed to laugh, I'm driving, let me live- Yoongi, stop- Yoongi stop smacking my arm, fuck's sake- can y'all- holy shit," Taehyung sighed in resignation.
They arrived at a stoplight, which was on red. Cars sped past the other way, blurred further by the tears pooling in Seokjin's eyes. Laughter ceased, Seokjin clutching his aching abdominal muscles and wiping the moisture from his right eye.
"Finally, fuck. That- that was just extra as hell, like, I get it was kinda funny, but it wasn't that funny. Oh! Light changed! We're almost there guys!"
"By the way… where are we going?" Seokjin queried.
Silence.
"Oh yeah, we didn't tell you, did we? Sorry. We're going to a restaurant! My favorite. Then afterwards we're going to go out around town. If you're up for it. We did kinda just… y'know… ambush you outside of the hospital then proceed to take you out to do things," Jeongguk piped up.
"I might be up for it. I'll let you know when the time comes, okay?"
The rest of the drive was interspersed with small talk and comfortable silences. It was only about five minutes, then they pulled around the back of a restaurant.
There were only three other cars there, presumably the cars of the staff.
"Why are we out back?" Yoongi asked.
"I know the owners, they let me," Jeongguk replied.
All six of them filed out of the car, Yoongi holding onto Seokjin when he wobbled upon landing.
Still a bit unsteady on his feet, Seokjin required assistance to the back door. By the time they were all greeted by the staff (Jeongguk got the most attention, getting his cheeks pinched until it wasn't certain whether the redness was from embarrassment or the cheek-abuse), Seokjin felt a bit more comfortable with his footing. He remained clinging onto Yoongi though, not wanting to fall and die.
Clouds of incense filled the dining area. Soft trot music floated from an old radio shoved on a rough side table, the beat-up old thing being held together with duct tape. Next to the ancient device lay precarious piles of DVDs.
The room was large, but cramped. Booths lined the walls and the middle space was overly packed by tables shoved a bit too close to each other. There were no other customers at the time of their arrival, one table taken by a chatty group of the restaurant's waitstaff.
They all ordered, talking amongst themselves and with the owners jovially. The gauze still over his eye gained him curious looks and, as his comfortable attitude instilled the staff with more gumption, bravely curious questions. Seokjin answered lightly, though they still threw a few pitying glances at him, words of consolation in somber tones. He brushed them all off with assurances of his current well-being.
The food soon came and the staff left them alone with a final ribbing of Jeongguk's hairstyle. As they ate, the banter continued, words sometimes muffled by the food stuffed in their faces.
It was nearing nine in the evening when someone else entered the tiny place. A little bell announced their arrival, but from his position Seokjin saw nothing but the top of a purple beanie.
One of the staff greeted the person, handing them a menu and encouraging them to sit wherever. They responded with some sort of hushed whisper, the words undetectable to Seokjin. The person walked over to a booth on the other side of the restaurant, back turned to Jin the entire time.
He wondered about the person, who continued to speak only in low mutters and slurring tones. Nobody joined them, the person remaining alone at the booth their entire meal.
It only took a few more minutes for him to forget about the presence, despite the initial curiosity. He tuned back into Namjoon's monologue about the merits of the goat industry with a bemused smile gracing his features.
(The person left before their group did, Seokjin not even catching a glimpse of their face.)
The door hissed closed, and he turned back to their food. Everything was alright.
As they all left the restaurant, Jeongguk exclaimed, through raucous laughter and a loose grip on a beer bottle, that they 'will all be getting wasted, as soon as Seokjin is cleared to drink.'
And, three days later, with a call from his doctor, that was exactly what happened.
Their party started at seven, with a meal at a local hole-in-the-wall bar with a limited dinner menu and a drink menu fifteen times more extensive- accompanied by a few rounds of drinks. (Shots for some, beer or soju for others.)
It was around midnight when they finally concluded their adventures. After having left the bar at ten, they wandered around Daegu, sometimes staggering like drunken fools (though the most they had had were five or six drinks, and they could all totally tolerate more than that.) Taehyung, having been the most sober (after opting out of any alcohol), looked at them with piercing glares from time to time. Especially whenever one of them would do something incredibly idiotic.
They had then found an abandoned lot, somewhere near the edge of the more industrial area of Daegu. All six of them had plopped down, in various states of disarray. Seokjin had lost his left glove, Yoongi was tousled and speaking in heavy slurs of Daegu dialect, and Namjoon was looking around blindly, having donned a blindfold for a dare that should have ended an hour ago.
Though most memories of that time had remained intact, some things were rendered cloudy and uncertain. Seokjin could recall talks about mortality, and fate, and time. Namjoon had ended up crying, he thought, and he could sort of remember an instance in which someone was in some sort of hole in the ground, screaming bloody murder.
The night had ended with the beautiful view of a toilet bowl.
"Remember when we would always go to parties and stuff, in college?" Yoongi asked, casually leaned against their kitchen counter, nursing a mug of steaming coffee.
Seokjin groaned, bundling the brown blanket further around his head.
"Sort of. I remember that it happened, and that we met Tae during that time of our lives, and I remember a couple of things that we did, but mostly it's all a haze. Was it a drug, or was it alcohol?"
Yoongi squinted his eyes for a second, thoughtfully sipping his beverage.
"A drug. The parties were alcohol, and I remember all of those. So… a drug. Coke? Weed? Something really illegal, for sure. I remember getting arrested."
They had never recounted that time in their lives before, mostly choosing to ignore it and focus on their more mature present selves.
"We met Tae in the police station, I remember now. He did a lot of graffiti- got arrested lots of times afterwards, too. He might still do it, when we left Seoul I think he was beginning to stop. We're still total party animals, right?" Seokjin concluded by nudging his elbow towards Yoongi and winking cheekily.
Yoongi snorted, delicately setting down his half-empty mug. "Fat chance, buddy. Last night was the wildest shit we've done in months, and that was barely even drunk," Yoongi muttered something afterwards, quiet enough that he could act like he hadn't meant for Seokjin to hear it, loud enough that he clearly did.
Happiest we've been in months, too.
"What would you give… to go back in time?" Seokjin asked, quietly. Almost inaudibly.
"I…" Yoongi faltered, pushing himself off the countertop. He crossed the four-some feet of space, plopping on the couch next to Seokjin.
The silence lasted a few more seconds, Yoongi busying himself with a blanket. When both of them resembled lumps of fuzz with oval faces, he spoke again.
"I don't think I would give anything. Y'know? Like what if something goes wrong, what if we end up never meeting Tae, or something? That'd be bad. Like, if we really wanted to, we could just move back to Seoul. Rejoin the party scene. Ride out the rest of our 20s on a high of questionable origins."
Seokjin turned slightly to face Yoongi.
"You know it's not that easy," he said.
"I know."
Seokjin faced the blank television again (an old box TV that they couldn't afford cable for, not useful for much more than decoration and shitty videogames.)
"Sometimes it's nice to pretend it is, though," Yoongi whispered. A secret, between two friends. As if the wind would hear and tell it to everyone else.
"Tae says that he doesn't miss being trashed all the time. He said that he's glad he's sober and can… remember things, and shit," Yoongi piped up once again, after a long period of silence.
"Huh. Do you?"
"What?"
"Do you miss being trashed all the time?"
"No," yes, "do you?"
Yoongi knew the answer, both the spoken one and the real one.
"No," yes.
"Liar."
"I know, Yoongi. I know," the last words that Seokjin spoke, before lying back and resigning himself to sleep at ten on a Saturday morning.
If he could go back to his early twenties and late teens- when he lived out college in a daze of drugs and alcohol- he would. If he could stay there, living in himself but not changing what became of his future, he would. But the past and the future were easily changeable, and memories were all finicky and uncertain. Anything, any small thing, could change everything about the future.
(He tried not to think about that.)
When he finally awoke, it was to a timid knock on the door of their house. He adjusted his glasses, carefully disentangling himself from the tenacious grip of a sleeping Yoongi.
He blearily squinted at the time on his phone as he lumbered to the door.
Just as his hand landed on the doorknob, the knock sounded again, three taps in quick succession.
"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, turning the lock and sliding the bolt.
The door creaked open.
"Kim Seokjin?"
Seokjin's jaw dropped open, and his sleep-crusted eyes widened tenfold. The oddly familiar nurse from the hospital- the purple beanie from the restaurant.
"Jung Hoseok."
The man smiled nervously at him, a quivering heart-shaped smile. Hoseok wiped at his brow with his sweater, clearly anxious.
Seokjin cleared his throat, gesturing into his house, "come in- let's talk in my room, I don't want to disturb Yoongi."
"It's… it's been awhile," Seokjin said, once Hoseok was situated, a blanket snug over his legs and an untouched mug of tea sat in front of him.
"Y-yeah, it has, heh," Hoseok rubbed at the back of his neck.
Hoseok, despite his familiarity, did not look like he belonged in the house. He was a piece of Seokjin's past, a historical face plucked from his time and placed in the present. He was almost like an ancient relic, sat only three feet across from Seokjin, on his bed.
Of course, Hoseok wasn't quite that old. It did feel that way, though.
"How have things been?" Hoseok asked, falling back on small talk when he couldn't seem to find the words for anything else.
Seokjin was having none of it.
"How did you find me? Why are you here?" He cut straight to the chase, piercing Hoseok with a scrutinizing glare.
"I…" Hoseok sighed, looking into his tea forlornly, "I think you know why. Well, why, not- I think you know how I- how I found you. I'm here because… because I need to be, because I miss my old friend. 'Cause I saw you, and I knew I had to find you again. Because of…"
The last word remained unsaid, a tough topic to breach for the both of them.
Hoseok scratched his neck, which Seokjin assumed was a compulsion. The noise bothered him.
"Stop that," Seokjin said, harshly.
Hoseok looked up from where he was deeply examining his tea, his fingers faltering on his neck.
"Stop what?"
"Scratching your neck."
"Ah, sorry. H-habit."
Hoseok gulped loudly and dryly, letting his hand fall down to his lap. Seokjin continued to watch him as he picked up the mug of tea, probably cold, and took a sip.
The painfully awkward silence was broken by the bedroom door creaking open just a crack, a mop of black hair peeking in.
"Jinnie," Yoongi called, sleep rendering his voice gravelly and low, "is someone over? Or are you talking to yourself again?"
"An old friend is over. Hoseok. We're talking, mind waiting it out in the living room? It's dinner time, you should make some food," Seokjin replied.
"Oh, alright. Hello, Hoseok. I'll make some lasagna for dinner, 'kay?"
Seokjin hummed. Yoongi's hair disappeared, and the door shut again.
When the muffled footsteps faded, Hoseok spoke up.
"Is he a boyfriend?" Hoseok inquired.
"No, no. Just a roommate. Very affectionate. He was… he was in the crash with me."
Hoseok cleared his throat, "speaking of… what's with the," he gestured around his left eye, "like I know that you got in a crash, I treated Yoongi, after it, like, I didn't put together that you were in the crash too until I got here and you mentioned a Yoongi, but. Why the gauze?"
"Doctor said to keep it on 'till it heals. Got a shitload of shrapnel on my left side, like my shoulder and my face and my eye. Never gonna see outta it again, probably. Heh."
Hoseok looked sympathetic.
Seokjin smiled in return.
It was late when Hoseok finally left- Yoongi was playing videogames on the couch and there was a plate with already cooled off lasagna on it. Seokjin and Hoseok embraced each other, bidding each other goodbye, and then Hoseok shoved on a long coat and headed out of the door.
Neither Yoongi nor Seokjin slept that night. They were both too well-rested from having napped all day. Seokjin read a book (a badly-written YA novel, recommended to him by someone, somewhere) and Yoongi played videogames, stupid kid's games and stupid violent games that Seokjin eventually joined in on.
Yoongi was in the middle of beating Seokjin on some bootleg that Seokjin didn't even know they owned when the landline rang.
Grumbling, Seokjin paused the game and got up from his seat on the couch.
"Hello?"
"Hey Jin, it's Tae! I was wondering if you and Yoongi'd like to come hang out with me and the gang today?"
After fixing their fucked sleep schedule, the days seemed to continue in that fashion. Seokjin and Yoongi would play video games and scavenge for food, then go hang out with their friends for hours on end.
It took not even having enough money to buy ramen from the dollar store for the two to realize that they had been neglecting work.
"We're fucking broke," Seokjin said, dismayed at the absolute lack of contents in their fridge.
"That we are," Yoongi affirmed, nodding his head. His expression was passive, his hangover hidden behind sunglasses.
"We should think about working again?"
"Also a valid concept. However, consider the following- we're models," Yoongi stated plainly.
"Yes. We are. What does that have to do with the concept of working again, exactly?" Seokjin also had a massive hangover.
"Not sure if you've noticed, but we have large and conspicuous scarifications on our faces."
"We do. What does that have to do with the concept of working again, exactly?"
"You're repeating yourself."
"I am."
"Well, Seokjin, usually, models don't have massive scarifications on their faces."
"Valid concept. However, consider the following- we don't have to care."
"You're right," Yoongi nodded.
"Should I contact the manager?"
"Jimin is our manager."
"Doesn't change anything. Should I contact the manager?"
Yoongi nodded once more. So Seokjin called Jimin about work.
"Work?" Jimin scoffed, after having picked up the eighth time Seokjin had called, "why would you want to work?"
"We have to eat, Jimin," Yoongi yelled into the phone.
"I'll see what I can do," they could hear the eyeroll through the phone.
-and so the partying stopped and life continued as normal.
The constant fear that having Hoseok nearby was going to lead to nothing but catastrophe lay heavy in his gut- it ate away at him like a parasite. He and Hoseok weren't meant to be close together. Worse than water and oil, they were baking soda and vinegar, guaranteed to explode.
(He couldn't do anything about it- he didn't make the decisions. Just like Hoseok, he was nothing but a catalyst for fate's destruction.)
Seokjin's nightmares didn't stop.
"You know, Jin, you could've just asked me for some food?"
Jin was not having a good day.
Today had been the first day of his new job (a month into modeling again, he and Yoongi had reached the consensus that their salary just fluctuated far too much; they would have to search for stable work), and however excited he had been, he had been two times more nervous. A month of job-searching and constant rejections had led his anxiety to burgeon.
He had walked in the back of the restaurant, apron already tied firmly around his waist, a crisp black button-up on his torso. Training had occurred the day before (he had sat in for the last two opening hours, and then a pimpled teenager had shown him the ropes as the last customer left), and so he received only a brief introduction to the staff he hadn't met the day before. The same pimpled teenager had then shoved him out of the doors of the kitchen.
All had gone well, butterflies still nervously tittering around in his stomach, until the lunch rush came in.
By all standards, Seokjin and the pimpled teenager had handled the rush supremely- the problem had come in with a loud group of foreign customers and the two tween boys with them.
The first inconvenience was their inability to speak korean- the moment they had opened their mouths to call him to their table he internally thanked Namjoon for all of the english lessons.
After 'regretting to inform' them that they did not possess english menus, he then had to translate the entire menu (twice). He took their orders, then scurried to the kitchen to get water for all of them. It left him frustrated, so if he waited a couple extra minutes in the kitchen just so he wouldn't have to face them again, nobody could blame him.
The customers, however, as he returned with their water (with a complimentary splash of his spit) were livid. They shouted a few things at him in rapid english (he caught several instances of the word 'fuck') that he didn't quite understand. They soon realised that- but just as he thought he was off the hook, their faces turned harsh and one of the adults spoke again.
"Do you have any other servers? Maybe if you weren't a retarded cripple you'd be faster, and maybe if you weren't so fuckin' dumb you'd understand us. We want someone who can speak english," the comments the man spit out were scalding.
Perhaps had he been a stronger man, he would have simply smiled and passed the rude customers onto his coworker- but as it is, Seokjin is weak and emotional. He couldn't help the tears that gathered in his eyes as he set down the last water and stormed off to the kitchen.
The moment he had burst through the doors, an impending anxiety attack claimed him, and he fell to his knees, crying.
He was lucky, then, that Yoongi had forcibly let every employee in the establishment know of his issues with anxiety- despite Seokjin's initial protests, it turned out to be very helpful in the moment.
Later that day, he had set to go home, only to miss the train.
He had waited- in the bitter cold, no less- for the next train to arrive, and by the time he had gotten home, dinner had already been made and eaten. (Belatedly, Seokjin realised that while waiting for the train, he insisted to Yoongi that he would just get something on his way from the train stop. During his trek home, it had slipped his mind.)
So for dinner he dug out overly-spicy ramen, and set to cooking. But the overcooked and overly slimy ramen didn't agree with his nervous stomach, and then he found himself hunched in his current position, Hoseok sitting on the rim of the tub next to him.
"Jung Hoseok. You have two-" he retched again, tears streaming out of his eye.
"T-two options. The first is that you shut up, and everything continues all fine and dandy. The second is that you continue to run your big-ass mouth, and I push you off the edge of this fucking tub then go tell Yoongi and Tae that you have a big, gay, crush on the two of them. While holding your splattered brains in my hands. With no remorse, whatsoever."
Never had Seokjin seen a man shut his mouth so quickly.
Hoseok, a coward, got heckled by Seokjin into cleaning Seokjin's face for him.
Yoongi knocked on the doorframe of the bathroom as they threw away the towels.
"Hey Jin! D'you want something less spicy and less expired? I can fish out some leftovers for you," Yoongi's tone was kind, but his expression was mirthful.
Seokjin figured that just about then, a second nervous breakdown was absolutely warranted.
That night, as sleep claimed Yoongi, and Hoseok and Taehyung (who had arrived an hour or so after Seokjin's breakdown, set to stay the night, then leave for Seoul the next day) were packed onto the younger man's bed like uncommonly large sardines, Seokjin lay awake. Despite the cold, he laid on top of his blankets, his bones chattering inside his scrawny body.
His tears had long been wiped from his face, but he could almost feel the ghosts of them traveling down his face.
Still shaken from all that had happened that day, he hadn't done his stretches before bed (every night since the crash had lacked that particular facet of his routine, but it brought him a sense of delusional comfort to pretend that it was only circumstantial).
"Jin?" Taehyung's voice, husky with sleep, whispered.
"Yeah?" Seokjin replied.
"Why are you still awake?"
"C-can't sleep," shivers ran through his body, goosebumps spreading across his skin like a wave.
"You look… cold. Do you want to cuddle?"
Taehyung climbed out of the entanglement of limbs with much more ease than what a normal person would experience; Seokjin hadn't answered yet, but Tae had an uncanny ability to understand exactly what a person meant without a single muscle moved or word uttered.
The mattress dipped down as Taehyung's warm body joined his.
After a matter of shuffling, the two lay comfortably under the duvet, enveloped in each other's arms. Though sleep still did not come so quickly to Seokjin as it did to Taehyung, he lay in blissful silence from his mind until he drifted off.
In the morning, he was in a decidedly better mood than he had been the previous day. Though specks of anxiety still plagued him as he blundered around the house, rushing to get ready for his second day of work, they were far sparser.
Before leaving, he woke Yoongi with a flick to the forehead.
"Get up, nerd, it's daytime," he whispered in his friend's ear.
"I'm up, I'm awake," Yoongi grumbled, nuzzling further into Hoseok's chest.
Seokjin settled for flicking Yoongi again, then with a zip of his jacket, he was out of the door.
More and more people began to exist in his general area as he made his commute to his job, and his anxiety slowly began to mount. Being on the subway was the worst- multitudes of judgemental people, all shoved in a small space, coexisting with him. Though today he had had the foresight to don an eyepatch over his left eye, it was still an almost painful standout that garnered him more than a few stares.
Seokjin was eternally thankful when he reached his stop. He exited the subway car with a fervor, pushing past anybody who dared to stand in the way of his freedom.
Finally in the open, he stood still for a few seconds, catching the breath he hadn't known he had lost.
Though his anxiety was high, nervous energy thrumming through his arteries, the rest of his day went off without a hitch. After the seamless lunch rush (more foreigners came in, but opposed to yesterday's brash customers, these patrons were all polite and respectful), his anxiety began to peter out.
When he finally signed out, he made it to the subway station in record time, arriving early. For a few minutes, he just stood in the crowded station, watching the puffs of his breath in the cold.
Yoongi was just finishing dinner as Seokjin entered their house, the strong scent of south indian food hitting him like a delicious brick
As they ate, the scratched brown table piled with food, Yoongi interrogated him. Question after question, so quickly that he almost choked on his food multiple times.
Finally, Yoongi asked a question that hadn't been particularly expected.
"You know the night before the crash? You said you had met a Jeongguk at a sushi restaurant, and that it might be the same Jeongguk as our Jeongguk. Was it? Is he our Jeongguk?"
"Yeah… he's our Jeongguk."
Seokjin had forgotten, almost, about the sushi restaurant meeting. It seemed so irrelevant, the crash happening and then the three months full of partying and then job-hunting and then desperately trying to squeeze money out of their failing modeling jobs.
Jeongguk and he had gotten close, in a different way than he had with the others. When Jin saw him, all he wanted to do was cradle the other man in his arms, kiss him all over, whisper sweet nothings in his ear. (As cheesy, sickening, sappy, and disgusting as it was, it was true.)
It seemed that Yoongi could read his mind (god, he hoped not) because after a few seconds of ponderous silence, Yoongi spoke up again.
"So- how's your boyfriend?" Yoongi grinned slyly.
Seokjin groaned, "he's doing just fine, and he's not my boyfriend yet. God, it's so hard to woo someone cities away. He never answers his fucking texts."
"Ew, that's gay."
"God, I wish."
"Hey, Seokjin?" a familiar voice, distorted by the speakers of the phone.
"Hey 'Gguk. How's it going? You never call."
"Um… okay… this is a little awkward… do you and Yoongi have any space for me to stay? Like, in Daegu? In your house?" Jeongguk sounded nervous.
"If you don't mind me asking… why? Don't you have university?" Oh boy.
"Well, really funny story, so about that, I kind of… got kicked out?"
"Fucking Christ."