Archive of Our Own ^beta

Yoongi's apartment isn't that great of a place, but it's far better than Jungkook's old dorm room.

It smells a lot less, for one. Jungkook's roommate had always smelt like smoke, as did all of his stuff. Jungkook had sprayed the room with deodorant once, precisely once, to get rid of the smell. Two minutes in his roommate's presence afterwards and he'd never dared again.

Yoongi has always been messy, back from when they'd been in high school. His apartment is strewn with crumpled papers and dirty laundry, used dishes stacked everywhere but in the sink, where they should be. Jungkook has even found a half eaten bowl of rice in the shower. It's ugly and miscoloured and he doesn't want to know how long it's been there for.

Jungkook doesn't have much to do here, not with Yoongi not home, so he sets about cleaning the place. Maybe make his presence a bit more worth it.

The dishes are hell. Some of the stains must be months old, at least, and Jungkook has to scrub until his fingers are raw and shrivelled. He doesn't search for gloves because he knows Yoongi won't have them.

By the end of it his hands are a painful, reddish tinge, but he still doesn't trust that the dishes are clean - not with the amount of mould he'd seen growing in them. He dumps them all back into the sink, fills it with soapy water, and leaves it there to soak. It's not like he doesn't have time to do them again. Jungkook has nothing but time.

He starts on the floor next. The laundry is easy enough to clear away, but he hesitates with the crumpled papers. He doesn't want to look, really - abandoned lyrics are a very touchy subject for Yoongi, but he can't help himself.

I live because i can't die, one paper reads, the words furiously crossed out. Jungkook feels a strange lump in his throat. He carefully crumples it up again.

He doesn't want to throw the papers away, but he can't leave them here either, so he gathers them all up and puts them in a plastic bag, leaving it in Yoongi's bedroom. He can do what he wants with it.

He dusts the table, the chair, the lamps. Pulls apart the cobwebs that seem to be holding the building together. Spends a good part of his day catching spiders because he's too scared to kill them, after Jimin told him that every spider you kill regenerates in the next room twice its original size.

Yoongi doesn't own a mop, and the broom he has is falling apart, but Jungkook makes do. He scrubs the floor with old rags, old handkerchiefs, whatever he can find. When he's done the place is sparkling, as much as it can sparkle in the cheap lightbulbs that Yoongi uses.

No sunlight makes it into the room. On his first day here, Jungkook blocked all the windows with spare blankets. When that wasn't enough he layered Yoongi's old clothes on top of them.

The sink is so full. He feels exhausted just looking at it.

It's already late in the evening, and it's not like Yoongi will care if there are dirty dishes in the sink. Not with his failure of a lifestyle. But Jungkook is itching to make himself useful - he can't pay Yoongi any rent because he doesn't have a job yet. He can't use his parents money because they don't know he's here. They think he's still in college, still the best son they could have dreamed of having.

This - cleaning the apartment - is all Jungkook can do for anyone, really, until he's earning on his own. He steels his nerves, ignores the stinging in his fingers, and dunks his hands back into the soapy water.

That night he sleeps like the dead.

/

He doesn't see Yoongi come back, or leave. It's just like any other day. They haven't had a decent conversation since the day his hyung dropped everything at work and ran to pick him up, when Jungkook hid behind a dumpster and called him because he was so scared. He let Jungkook stay with him, like Jungkook knew he would. It was why he'd called Yoongi and not Jimin, who would have called his parents the second day in.

It's been a week so far, and Yoongi has done no such thing.

Jungkook wakes up at about nine AM. There's a note on the table, held down with a mug. He sniffs it. It smells sweet.

You really don't have to clean, the note says. But thanks anyway. Just...don't touch my bedroom again, alright?

The lump in Jungkook's throat that has never really left, not for the past year, hardens. Yoongi likes his stuff in a certain order, a certain way - he can't focus otherwise, and Jungkook had just barged into his own house and ruined it all. There isn't even a way to undo the damage that he's done, there's no way he can mess the place up again in precisely the same way, this is something that Jungkook literally can't fix -

He takes a harsh breath. Yoongi won't hate him. Or throw him out. That's why he called Yoongi. He's even made him...something, Jungkook doesn't know what's in the mug yet. That must mean he isn't mad, right?

He chances a sip of the mug, and it's so, so familiar. The kind of familiar that makes Jungkook want to cry a bit. He doesn't know what it is (something with apples, and a heck lot of sugar), but he never did know, even all those years ago, and Yoongi would never tell him because he found Jungkook's guesses hilarious.

It tastes of high school and happiness and I can't do this anymore hyung - don't be stupid, Jungkookie, you're almost there - and Jungkook doesn't get teary, he doesn't.

He wipes at his eyes with a dirty sleeve - he hasn't showered in three days - and tries to come up with something to do today. Something that doesn't involve going outside.

His mind comes up blank.

/

Jungkook tries to paint. Really he does. He's huddled in the corner of the apartment that Yoongi has allotted to him, behind the only armchair that Yoongi owns. Jungkook's living space consists of an extra mattress, his clothes, books, art supplies and...that's all, really.

He looks around, for inspiration or something, but there's nothing. He's empty. Dried up. He holds his paintbrush and doesn't even dip it in a colour. Six days in Yoongi's apartment and Jungkook is yet to make a single stroke.

He thinks of stars, legends, and constellations, and glances to the window, but he doesn't dare take down the makeshift curtains.

He needs a job. He's sold some art before - cheap commissions online - but it brought him almost nothing. He can't depend on his art for money, he needs a job. He could work at a convenience store or something.

Maybe when...when it isn't so hard to go outside.

In Jungkook's mind he dreams of a perfect day. He sees himself and Yoongi walking through the streets, no one walking within five feet of them. They look at all the shop windows, and Jungkook applies for the first job he sees an advertisement for. They get drinks at a store where there's a glass window between them and the cashier, and they take a walk in the park, which is full of children and their parents and people who wouldn't hurt anyone because they have too much to care for.

That's what he'll do, once he makes it outdoors. Once he can pay rent, he won't be such a burden. For now, he'll have to find other ways to make himself useful.

He can't clean again, the place is still sparkling. Cooking?

It's been a long time since he's tried to cook.

He looks up easy recipes on the internet - Yoongi may cut down on a lot of things, but his WiFi is superfast - and then searches the kitchen for ingredients. Yoongi stocked the fridge once Jungkook moved in, because he knew he'd never be home and Jungkook wouldn't order out, but most of it is instant food or stuff that he just needs to heat up. Yoongi trusted him to cook even less than Jungkook trusted himself, which was saying something.

He manages to gather a few lone vegetables, a box of pasta, and some spices. In the process he unearths a truly terrifying amount of Yoongi's favourite brand of coffee. He doesn't touch that.

The sound of his chopping echoes in the apartment. The pieces he cuts are ugly and uneven. Jungkook hates most vegetables - carrots make him want to kill himself, but he isn't sure what Yoongi likes so he cuts them too.

He sets the pasta to boil. Stares at the steam.

He tries to fry the vegetables and makes a burned mess instead.

His frustration is hiking - why can't he do anything right, how can he have zero skills in his life - and in the end he just...leaves it all there, on the stove. He eats the pasta bland and unseasoned. It's sustenance and nothing else. When he's done he skates across the tiled floor in his socks like the hopeless person he is.

When he's exhausted, he draws a large black X over a page in his sketchbook, traces it aggressively until he feels a bit better, and then collapses on the mattress but doesn't sleep.

/

He knows Yoongi is at the door before it opens.

Yoongi is always quiet, but Jungkook is hyperaware of his movements. He sits up abruptly -  it's been three days since he's last seen his senior - and blinks hard to keep himself awake. The key turns in the lock and the door opens.

"Hyung?"

Yoongi stops. "You're awake?"

The digital clock on the wall tells Jungkook that it's nearly three in the morning. He knew Yoongi's work was crazy, but he'd never thought it was this crazy. He had always been sure that Yoongi had more free time than he let on and just never texted him back when Jungkook was in college because he didn't care anymore.

"Sorry about cleaning your room," he says weakly. "I - I wasn't thinking."

Yoongi shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. You should sleep, Jungkook-ah. It's late."

He doesn't want to, not when Yoongi is finally here. Jungkook wants to talk to him, listen to him, or just - or just sit next to him, really, but Yoongi is exhausted. His shoulders are slumped, he barely lifts his feet as he walks. It's freaking three AM. This is no time for Jungkook's selfishness.

"Okay, hyung," he says quietly, curling up on the mattress. "Good night."

"Good night, kid."

Yoongi shuffles into his tiny bedroom, shutting the door softly behind him. He always sleeps with it shut. It's nothing personal, he'd explained, the first night Jungkook stayed over. I can't sleep otherwise.

He doubts Yoongi would shout at him if Jungkook knocked on his door and crawled in next to him, but he knows Yoongi enough to know he wouldn't like it. He has his own issues with personal space. Jungkook will respect them.

He doesn't sleep much that night, shifting this way and that, trying to convince himself that he isn't alone and that he can stay here forever.

The next morning, Yoongi is gone, and the burned food Jungkook had left in the pan is in the trash. There's another note on the table, held down by a plate of eggs, that says I could teach you to cook if you want.

Jungkook pretends Yoongi will have time for it - that it isn't just an empty promise.

/

He'd lasted less than three days alone on the streets before he freaked and called Yoongi for help.

When he ran away from his dorm he didn't have much of a plan. He thought he'd sleep in the subway or the station for as long as he needed to, find a job, and rent out his own place at the first chance he got. But he didn't sleep a wink those three and a half days, always sure someone was watching, out to get him. That he was going to wake up and find himself dead. Everywhere he went there were leering faces. Nasty smirks that said I know that you have nowhere to go. I know that no one will miss you when you're gone.

He took the bus from Seoul to Ilsan, then back again, then Seoul to Incheon and back again, and tried to stay in areas with security cameras as much as possible, but even then, even then -

Nowhere was really safe. Jungkook had learnt that the hard way.

When he called Yoongi he was half delirious, from lack of sleep and sheer terror. He'd scared Yoongi half to death - he'd wanted to call the police first because he thought Jungkook was going to die. Jungkook barely convinced him otherwise.

"Three freaking days," Yoongi had cursed at him, once they were safe in his apartment. "How stupid can you be? Why the hell didn't you call me sooner?"

"I thought I could make it," Jungkook had mumbled, half asleep in Yoongi's armchair. He'd taken a shower, eaten warm food, and was buried under warm blankets, honestly more comfortable than he thought he'd ever be again. Yoongi's anger slipped over him because he was just so happy that he was here. That Yoongi was here. That the door was shut and bolted.

Jungkook thinks, even now, that his brain is going to repeat thank you hyung, I'm sorry hyung for the rest of his life.

He crosses his arms and considers the apartment, wondering how to waste his life today.

Cleaning is out. Cooking is out. What else could he possibly do?

He needs to earn money. Somehow. Maybe he'll just take up cheap commissions again. Something should be better than nothing, and he surely can't sell his own art, not when his sketchbook is so shamelessly blank.

He scrolls through his internet profile, looking through requests he'd been given before, requests posted to forums. He filters through them, based on the pay scale, and finally chooses a few. Then he settles down and starts to draw.

Requests are easier for him because he doesn't feel like he's giving away a part of his soul - instead he's trying to dig into someone else's. They don't make him feel as vulnerable. When he's done drawing, he scans it all neatly through his phone, transfers it to his computer, and starts tracing and adding colour.

When he finally sends it in, there's only the slightest bit of satisfaction.

He starts on the next one.

/

He doesn't have any friends in college. No one calls to ask where he is, why he hasn't turned up in weeks, or if he's even alive. They probably found someone else to pick on the moment he disappeared, and the first time Jungkook gets a message from an unknown number, he thinks he knows who his replacement must have been.

Kim Taehyung was never really his friend. They sat together in lectures sometimes, as the two most uncool kids in his class. When Jungkook turned up with too many bruises on his face Taehyung gave him the mandatory shoulder-grip and assured him that 'those kids' were going to hell. But he'd never dared to stand up for Jungkook because that would make him the target instead.

Jungkook never stood up for himself, either. He doesn't think there was a way to.

Where are you? The messages say. I haven't seen you in weeks, Jungkook! Are you okay? Are you alright? Did you go home?

Jungkook thinks that, in another world, he might have been convinced that he cares. In this world, all he feels is hollow. He hopes Taehyung can take what he gets. He hopes he isn't getting anything to begin with. Maybe it was less of a matter of his classmates needing to treat someone like dirt and more that Jungkook just attracted sheer hatred wherever he went.

He reads all of Taehyung's messages, but doesn't reply to any of them, and eventually the boy gets the idea and stops texting him. If you need anything, he says in his last message, I'm always here.

Jungkook stares at the message until his vision is blurry, tears hot and burning. His hands shakes with the urge to throw his phone, destroy it, tear something apart, because he wasn't always there, no one was ever there, they would have left him to die if they thought they could get away with it. No one has ever cared except Yoongi, and Yoongi -

Yoongi is never here, either.

/

When Jungkook thinks of high school, he thinks of it in bright colours. Yellows and oranges and pale pinks. The light blue of an eternal sky. He thinks of trees and flowers and the smell of Busan, the smell of the ocean, the smell of everything being alright.

When he thinks of meeting Yoongi, it's less bright colours and more shining lights. The city skyline, the stars. A soft piano and maybe a flute. They'd known each other for only a year before Yoongi left to university in Seoul, but when Jungkook looks back on his life that's the only part of it that burns so brightly.

He doesn't think of college life, because it has no colours. Just greys, blacks, and the sick smell of antiseptic. The sickening lighting of the bathrooms.

Alone in Yoongi's apartment, Jungkook tries not to think at all.

He's alone until one day, when Yoongi gets the day off.

He comes home with all of Jungkook's favourite foods, and Yoongi's favourite foods, even though he really can't afford to throw his money around. They sit cross legged on Jungkook's spare mattress, pressed up against each other, and watch terrible movies on Yoongi's laptop. It's almost like being in high school again.

Yoongi makes him that incredible drink, with apple and too much sugar, and he chases Jungkook away with a spoon when he tries to spy on how he makes it. He tells him stories about everything under the sun and beyond it, myths about the stars and the music that hurts most. He tugs the blankets Jungkook has hung up on the windows just slightly out of the way, enough to point up to the night sky and say,

"Look."

He never specifies at what, but Jungkook always understands. 

Sometimes Jungkook tells stories of his own. He stutters through them, unused to having an audience, but Yoongi listens with fascination. Jungkook tells fairy tales, because Yoongi finds them hilarious. He tells the good ones and the bad ones, the children's versions and the bloody realities. He makes the heroes crueller and the villains more human. Yoongi listens to everything and treats it all the same.

At the end of it, when Jungkook is starting to fall asleep, and the movies are too lame for them to bother watching, Yoongi pulls him against his shoulder, stroking his hair.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, all low and careful.

Jungkook stiffens. He thinks about rough hands, cruel words. He thinks about being shoved into closets and kicked across hallways. He thinks about staring at the bathroom ceiling, too bright, too bright, without a single thought in his head except that everything hurt.

He curls closer to Yoongi and says nothing.

/

The next morning he wakes up alone. Yoongi is gone. Jungkook blinks, stares at the empty boxes of takeout and dirty mugs, and tries to hold onto the hope of yesterday.

/

Music in Yoongi's apartment sounds strangely empty.

The best songs on Jungkook's playlist sound miserable and lonely when it bounces off of his cracked walls. Putting on headphones makes Jungkook feel like someone is creeping up behind him, out of sight, and it usually ends with him just rotating in place, full circle, over and over, eyes blown wide. He's given up on using them.

He's running out of things to waste his time on.

His sketchbook is still empty except for angry scribbles.

The apartment is steadily getting messier around him. It's starting to remind him again of his dorm room, which is enough to set him on edge most days, but there's no stench of alcohol, no smell of cigarettes. There isn't his roommate, skulking around with his maniacal laughter, always on Jungkook's side of the room, always too close for comfort, and being away from him is really enough for Jungkook to feel grateful about forever.

He didn't spend many nights in his own room. There was no one else he could stay with, so he slept in the library, over his textbooks, under the guise of studying. He carried a spare set of clothes and a toothbrush in his backpack all the time, for when he couldn't summon the courage to go back. His roommate was a football jock, so Jungkook sneaked in and out of the room during practice sessions, gathering his books and taking a quick shower. It became a routine, by the end.

Now, now he doesn't need a routine. Now the only concern with the length of his showers is that he isn't the one paying the water bills anymore.

He cleans up the mess he and Yoongi had made yesterday. It's messy enough to warrant wiping the floors, so that's what Jungkook does.

He wonders, not for the first time, how the apartment had been so messy, so lived in when Jungkook first arrived, when now the only messes around are the ones Jungkook makes himself. He's been here for three weeks and he's never once seen Yoongi crumple a piece of paper and toss it to the ground.

Somehow, he can't believe anymore that Yoongi always came back so late.

The thought puts him off as always, making his throat constrict. He finishes cleaning up and curls up in Yoongi's armchair, staring straight at the window, without seeing anything. He stares until he forgets where he is and who he is and the fact that he's staring at all. There are no thoughts in his head that he is conscious of having. He doesn't feel alone because he doesn't feel a thing.

/

In the morning, a note on the table.

Have you been eating? The food is all untouched.

/

Sometimes Yoongi doesn't come home at all.

All Jungkook really knows about Yoongi's job, is that he never got around to following his dreams. He'd majored in music production, topped his class, signed a few bad deals and ended up in a mess. Now he's just trying to scrape through, making music he hates and bowing down to people he'd stab between the ribs if he ever got the chance.

He also knows that while the company runs Yoongi ragged, they don't run him this ragged. Most of it is Yoongi's perfectionist streak acting up, with his complete lack of self preservation. He'd always been the kind of person who'd give someone a job, watch them do it for five seconds, and then snap and snatch it back.

On the days that Yoongi doesn't come home, Jungkook barely sleeps. He wakes at abrupt intervals, checks for his shoes at the door. After three AM he gives up on sleeping altogether, tugs the blankets slightly away from the window and presses his face against the glass, watching the street. Yoongi never turns up.

But for every day he doesn't come home, he comes back early the next day. He comes home with dark bags under his eyes, like death warmed over, and passes out in his bed.

If Jungkook is lucky he gets a few words out of him in between - what kept you up, hyung?  -  A shitty track, it's done now, Kook-ah, and don't worry I slept at my desk for a while - sort of thing.

He considers locking Yoongi up in his own room, force him to sleep twenty four hours and refuse to let him out otherwise. But knowing Yoongi, such a plan would end very quickly. Very quickly, with Jungkook's death. He doesn't dare try.

/

Yoongi's bathroom is small. There's some kind of damp fungus on the walls, and the sink probably hasn't been washed in years. Jungkook pulls out some metal scrubbers, a bottle of cleaning liquid, and sets to work on rubbing every tile, ever inch of the sink until it shines. He scrapes the mould off the wall, scrubs it clean. The bright lighting of the bathroom is sickening - he doesn't enter here if he can help it - but he grits his teeth and keeps going because there is literally nothing else to do.

"Jungkook?"

He jumps too far and nearly hits his head. Yoongi recognizes his mistake immediately. He steps back a bit, raising his hands, an apology on his face.

Jungkook counts to ten, catches his breath.

"You're here early," he manages.

"Yeah, I finished a project," Yoongi says, still a few feet away from him. He's looking around at Jungkook's work, not judgemental, just...taking it all in. "I thought we could talk?"

Jungkook knows instantly that it's not going to be anything he wants to hear. When Yoongi actually just wants to talk he never spares time for an introduction - just plops down next to him and says whatever he wants to say. But now he's nervous.

"Okay," Jungkook says quietly, scrubbing harder at the floor.

"Do you - " Yoongi starts. Stops. "Do you want to get your stuff back from your dorm room?"

Everything freezes for a moment.

No, is on the tip of his tongue. No. Never. But...

He hears how Yoongi is waiting, like it was never a question at all.

"You're testing me," he realizes.

There's a horrible silence for a moment, and that confirms it. There never was a question. This is Yoongi trying to make him spill whatever he's afraid of, trying to make him pour everything out, whether he wants to or not, and "This is a shitty test. I'm not a freaking psychology experiment."

"Jungkook," Yoongi says, and there's a warning in his voice. "This can't go on like this. The school is going to call once they look at your attendance. Your parents will find out."

Jungkook can't bring himself to care. He can't think rationally, can't see beyond the door of Yoongi's apartment. The terror starts rising in his guts again at the thought of being dragged outside, forced to leave, and his breaths come out harsher, heavier, but he keeps scrubbing.

"Jungkook, shit, stop that."

The water is turning red when it shouldn't be, but his hands don't hurt at all.

/

One night, when Yoongi comes back, he isn't alone.

Jungkook realizes this seconds before he comes in - there are two pairs of shuffling outside the door, the gentle hum of chatter and a quiet laugh that isn't Yoongi's. He jumps out of the armchair in horror, not sure where to hide - he'd never planned for this possibility, didn't think Yoongi ever brought anyone home. The apartment is too small to really hide from anyone.

A stranger, the alarms ring in his head. Stranger. Stranger.

In the end he jumps behind the arm chair, falls face flat into his pillow and feigns sleep. The door opens.

"...well," a new voice says. "I think just buying curtains would have been easier than...whatever you've done."

Yoongi sighs heavily, his exasperation carrying across the room to where Jungkook is. "I didn't do this," he says. "It was...my roommate."

There's a pause, an awkward one. "I didn't know you had a roommate," the voice says at last.

"It's just a temporary thing," Yoongi says, and it stings. It stings even though it shouldn't, because of course Yoongi wouldn't have considered the possibility of Jungkook staying, of finally paying for himself - because he isn't welcome here. Not really. Yoongi has never wanted a roommate, not after so many years of living with his sorry excuse for a family.

Jungkook pushes his face further into his pillow.

"Wait, don't turn the lights on!" Yoongi snaps suddenly. "He's asleep. Don't wake him up."

"...he's here?"

"Yeah, behind that sofa. Don't - don't go closer, Hoseok, I said to leave him alone - "

There's a squeaking sound as the sofa sags a bit, a sign of someone climbing on to it. Jungkook feels the person peering at him even though he can't see it, and it's such an intense feeling of being scrutinized that he nearly pulls his covers over his face.

"Huh," the stranger, Hoseok, says. "He's younger than I thought."

"I knew him in high school," Yoongi states.

"He looks a bit sick, Yoongi," Hoseok says worriedly. "I think you should check on him."

"No," Yoongi says, and it sounds a bit miserable, a bit morbid. "He always looks like that."

"Did you take him to a doctor?"

"I can't get him to take two steps out of the house. I can't get him to eat, I can't get him to tell me what the heck is going on with him - I found him on the streets, Hoseok. With nothing. I don't - I don't know what to do with him."

There's silence for a while. And then, quietly, so Jungkook almost doesn't catch it, "I only know how to make things worse."

/ 

Once, precisely once, Yoongi is still in the apartment when Jungkook wakes up.

It takes him too long to notice. Jungkook is used to giving the bedroom a wide berth, used to Yoongi being gone, so it never occurs to him to check and see if he's in there. It's only around noon, when he's finished wiping the kitchen counters clean and tearing some of his old sketches to shreds, that he notices Yoongi's shoes near the door.

It isn't confusion that sinks into him, but complete and utter dread.

He's bursting into the bedroom in a second, and Yoongi is there, curled up and shivering under too many blankets. There's sweat beading on his forehead. Jungkook tosses all the rules aside instantly - don't touch my bedroom, don't touch my bedroom - because this matters more, and he kneels by Yoongi's bed, pressing a palm against his cheek.

He's burning up.

His face is scrunched up in pain, mouth parted, and...everything about this is bad. It's bad.

"Hyung?" he tries, smoothening the hair on his forehead. Yoongi mumbles something, delirious, but doesn't open his eyes. And Jungkook - doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to care for someone. How to care for Yoongi, who won't let anyone near him unless he instigates it. Who hates accepting help.

There's no medicine in any of Yoongi's cabinets. Jungkook doesn't expect any, because no one trusts Yoongi with them, not anymore. Yoongi doesn't trust himself. Jungkook could run to the nearest clinic and buy some, but -

But -

Yoongi shifts in his sleep, mumbling something incoherent. "Eomma," he breathes, in between the streams of garble. "Eomma, please."

Jungkook's eyes sting. He glares at the front door harshly, trying not to let tears spill, because Yoongi's mother is dead and no one cried at her funeral, and - the door. The freaking door. Jungkook needs to go.

"I'll be back," he whispers, pushing Yoongi's hair aside. It's damp with sweat, sticking to his face. Yoongi mumbles something like he's understood, though Jungkook doesn't think he has, and then he's at the door, hand clenched around the handle, for the first time in weeks.

He pushes it open before he can think too long.

/

It's a mistake the moment he steps outside.

The sunlight stings. The streets are too busy, too full - Yoongi lives smack in the middle of the city where no one has a name and everyone is always there. He stands frozen in place as people brush past him with annoyed mutters at his still frame. He tries to force himself to move but it's like he's been stopped, like a giant hand has reached down from the sky and switched him off.

For Yoongi, he tells himself, trying to breathe, trying not to see faces, but they loom and leer and there are hands grabbing at him -

Jungkook holds his hood over his head and runs.

He runs too far, out of the busy streets and into the abandoned ones, unsafe for a completely different reason. There's no one around but Jungkook stays on edge, glares at every turn and corner because someone is bound to jump out at any moment, he needs to get out of here too.

Please, he thinks desperately, unsure of what he's asking for, I just - I need to buy medicine -

He wanders the streets aimlessly, drawn in, head low, until he finds what he's looking for. The pharmacy is small, and there's a man at the counter. Jungkook watches him for a moment through the window, trying to steel his nerves, but it doesn't work. He can't do it.

He finds another one not too far off, with a woman instead, and goes in.

/

Yoongi recovers as fast as he'd fallen. He's up and running the very next day.

He still isn't well. The bags under his eyes are too large, there's a stumble to his steps, but Yoongi won't listen. He drinks the soup Jungkook heats up for him, swallows the rice, lets Jungkook fret over him for twenty hours, and then he's putting his foot down about going to work.

"You can take off one day, hyung," Jungkook tries, trailing after him while he gets ready. Yoongi looks like he might fall at any moment, and Jungkook is already nervous about whether he'll catch him in time.

"I can't," Yoongi snaps. "You think they pay me for sitting at home?"

"You can't work when you're sick, you're just going to make it worse!"

Yoongi stares at him, a hint of anger in his expression. "I've managed five years without your help, Jungkook," he says, voice carefully steady, like he's fighting to stay calm. "I think I can manage half a day."

Jungkook's retorts die in his throat. He clenches his fist, unclenches it. Clenches it again.

"I'll see you tonight," Yoongi says, in a way that tells Jungkook that he definitely won't be. He shuts the door harder than he needs to. Jungkook doesn't look up, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. Willing the tears back down.

He hates needing help, Jungkook reminds himself. He's just upset, he feels humiliated, it's nothing else.

He's tired. He's so, so tired, so stressed, so sick of being worthless. Yoongi needs him even less than anyone in college did. He's nothing but a nuisance here, taking up space, making Yoongi scared to even come home at the end of the day.

This isn't like high school. There are no colours, no shining lights. Everything is grey, everywhere, no matter where he runs. Everything is grey and turns to black which turns to nothing.

He thinks, for the first time since he ran away from campus

I don't want to be here.

/

There's nowhere else to go.

/

He leaves two days later. He sees Yoongi only once before it, and no words are exchanged between them. It's nothing out of the usual, and that's what stings the most.

He's dusted and scrubbed Yoongi's apartment one last time before he left, wiping out anything he might have left behind. It tore at him for a moment, because by cleaning he was technically leaving more of himself behind, because Yoongi himself would never put a broom to the floor, but he did it anyway.

He thought of it as sterilization.

Everything he owns still fits in his backpack. His sketchbook is still empty.

He leaves at night, under the comfort of the stars. The streets are busy, but Jungkook keeps his head down, heart in his throat, and tells himself not to run, not to flinch, because there's no back up plan this time. There's no one he can call at midday and ask to pick him up. He's well and truly on his own.

He thinks of Yoongi pointing to the night sky, telling him to look.

Breathe, he tells himself. Stop it. Breathe.

He presses his fingernails into his arm to ground himself. Scratches harder when it doesn't work. He needs to - he needs to make it to the subway, if he can just make it to the subway he can spend the night on trains, just - he knows where it is, this can't kill him, there are security cameras but too many people and oh god -

He digs his nails in harder, drawing blood. Digs deeper. It isn't enough, it isn't enough, he still can't breathe and nothing will stop -

"Hey," someone says, reaching out, and Jungkook - Jungkook freaks the hell out.

The man grabs at his shoulders, drags him to the side of the street. Jungkook tries to break free, kicks and pulls but can't scream, can't scream, and then the hands on his shoulders are tightening, and

"Hey, it's okay. You're safe. It's okay."

Jungkook stares, eyes blown. His breathing doesn't slow, his vision doesn't clear, but something about the voice - you're okay -

He tries to scratch at his arm again, dig a bit deeper, but the man catches his wrists.

"Breathe with me," he says. "Can you do that? In. Out. In. Out."

Jungkook inhales shakily.

Slowly, slowly, the world starts to settle. The spinning stops. He's grounded, at last, and everything is solid. People still rush by, the crowd hasn't disappeared, but Jungkook stares at the man and somehow blocks everything else out. He's safe.

He realizes that he's digging his nails into the man's palm and jerks away. Red crescents are left in their wake.

"I'm sorry," he blurts. "Sorry, so sorry -"

"Don't worry," the man says. He pats Jungkook on the head, the way Yoongi does sometimes. "You scared me. I'm just glad you're okay."

It sounds so genuine that Jungkook can almost believe him.

"I'm Seokjin," the man says. "Where do you live? Oh, wait, name first. What's your name?"

"...Jungkook."

"Nice. Where are you headed, Jungkook? Hyung'll drop you off."

The familiarities are so easy for him, his smile wide and honest. Jungkook wants to trust. He wants to trust so much that it's tearing a bit at his soul, making his eyes wet all over again.

"I - " he starts, but there's nothing to finish it with. No possible location. "I'm just...wandering around."

Seokjin stares at him for a moment. At his ratty jeans, worn shirt. Backpack stuffed with more things than it should rightfully carry. He stares a moment longer, like he's scanning for a conclusion, and then finally -

"Are you looking for a place to stay?"

Jungkook is instantly on guard. "I have a place to stay," he insists, and hopes it sounds honest. "I live with - with my friend. Min Yoongi."

Seokjin's eyes go wide. Too wide. "Producer Min Yoongi? Suga?"

Jungkook starts. "You know him?"

"Do I know him," Seokjin says, a strange mix of concern and confusion. "Do I know him. He's my best friend."

/

Seokjin calls Yoongi to make sure Jungkook really is a friend of his, and finds out that no, he doesn't usually wander the streets at night, he's freaking running away. When he takes him back to Yoongi's apartment, after Yoongi hangs up abruptly, Jungkook realizes just how much trouble he's got himself into.

Seokjin leaves him at the gate, watching from afar to make sure he goes in.

The door is locked from the inside. Yoongi is already back.

The door opens before he can push it, and Yoongi stands in the doorway, arms crossed, completely emotionless. It's his most terrifying of looks.

"I'm sorry," Jungkook starts to say, but Yoongi cuts him off first.

"I called your parents."

Jungkook's heart stops.

"I can't trust you to not pull some shit like this again," Yoongi says, still emotionless. "So I called your parents. They're terribly worried, but they aren't jumping into the next train to carry you off because, for some reason, they still trust me to take care of you."

"You're going to send me back," Jungkook realizes. "That's - that's what you've all planned, you're sending me back to college, even though I -"

"Jungkook," Yoongi says sharply. "No one is sending you anywhere. But until you tell me what the hell is going on, you and me are going to stand on these doorsteps. No matter how long it takes."

He's serious. Dead serious. Yoongi is unshakeable once he's put his mind to something, and right now - he's furious.

Neither of them move for a moment. The minutes tick by, and Jungkook stares steadily at the space between his feet and Yoongi's, not daring to look up and meet his gaze. Yoongi waits, arms crossed, for what seems like forever. They really might stay here forever.

The sounds of Seoul traffic are still rushing by, the air is getting chillier by the second. Yoongi must be even colder, he's always been more sensitive. But he doesn't shiver, doesn't move.

It's like time goes on everywhere but between them both.

Jungkook opens his mouth but no words come out. He can't explain this, can't tell Yoongi what the hell is going on because Jungkook doesn't know. All he knows is that it hurt when his classmates dragged him into closed corners, that the scars they drew on his back will never go away, and that everything hurt and hurt and hurt but most of all it hurt that he was so alone.

He doesn't realize he's crying until Yoongi pulls him against his chest.

His sobs are loud, broken, but still muffled by the sounds of the loud city. He clenches his fingers in Yoongi's shirt and the tears don't stop because he wants to be worth something, doesn't want to be pushed aside any longer, doesn't want to be hurt -

"Look up," Yoongi mumbles, into his hair, and Jungkook doesn't get it at first, doesn't know what he's talking about, but Yoongi is insistent. "Look at the stars."

Jungkook pulls away slightly. The sky is dark, stars shining, dulled by the city lights but still inexplicably there. Too large for them. Too large for anyone.

"It'll be okay," Yoongi says softly, and in the darkness Jungkook can almost believe him. He wants to, with all his heart.

/

It takes days to draw Jungkook out of the hole he's shut himself up in, but Yoongi doesn't stop trying.

He takes Jungkook out everyday, even if he has to drag the kid kicking and screaming. Jungkook keeps his hand in a death grip the whole time, cowering behind him when they have to talk to people, but he's getting better. Yoongi knows it.

He buys him ice cream, lamb skewers, pizza. They walk to the park and the subway and into dark, empty streets that have Jungkook's grip on him tightening.

Jimin comes over some weekends to join them, and Seokjin drops by whenever he can. Even Hoseok has taken a liking to the kid, and slowly, slowly, Yoongi's apartment is starting to fill with life again.

He doesn't have to take the blankets off the windows. Jungkook does it himself one day, when Yoongi is at work. He's so proud of himself for it that he tries to cook an omelette and ends up setting off the fire alarm, but overall it's a good day.

Jungkook has been back to his campus precisely once. After Yoongi had filed complaints against all the students Jungkook could name, he'd been called in for questioning. Yoongi hadn't been allowed in, but everything seems to have gone well. Some kid named Kim Taehyung had thrown in some information as well, and between his stories and Jungkook's, a whole lot of kids found themselves expelled and even more suspended.

Yoongi still wants to beat them all up - he won't be fully satisfied until he does. Someday he'll get his chance.

Jungkook hasn't decided if he's ever going back to repeat the semester, but he's started looking for a job. He paints vivid colours and shining lights that grow into pallid grays, and then eases it towards darkness, and at the same time towards light. He paints Yoongi sometimes, and Seokjin. He paints Yoongi's apartment and the skyline of Seoul. Most of his work ends up in the trash, like Yoongi's crumpled lyrics, but sometimes he's happy with it. Sometimes paintings stay.

Yoongi tightens his grip on Jungkook's hand, leading him through the streets.

"Why can't we go in the other direction," Jungkook mumbles behind him, for the sake of being contradictory. "Why do we always walk left? Do you really like the left?"

"Maybe I do," Yoongi deadpans. "So what."

"I like the right."

"And I don't care."

Jungkook makes a face.

"Left has lamb skewers," Yoongi points out, and all arguments die instantly.

At times like this he can convince himself that they're back in high school again, without a care in the world, just two kids who thought the world would be theirs. He thinks of how everything falls apart and how there are always pieces that still fit together.

He lets go of his death grip on Jungkook's hand, interlocking their fingers instead.

They're going to be just fine.

/