hotel_omelas | 121618. jungkook & seokjin.

WINTER.
December 16, 2018.

WHO jungkook & seokjin
WHAT checking up on hyung

WHERE jin's apartment
TIMELINE cycle 1

JUNGKOOK Each passing day seems to make things a little easier. Not lighter, necessarily - there are too many unspoken conversations and too many unseen faces for the burden to be lifted - but it becomes easier for Jungkook to navigate his emotions, deciding what it is he wants to do next. Right now, more important than anything else is making sure that everyone is okay. That there's still a cohesive whole to hold onto. And inevitably, it starts with visits, face to face, so Jungkook can see the full extent of what's happening.

It's bad enough that it's taken him two days to get around to Jin hyung, but Jungkook thinks that taking the day yesterday to walk around the zoo was good - helped him recharge, so that he's in a better place to watch over everyone else today. There's not all that much that he can do, young as he is, limited funds and resources at his disposal, but with winter break started and a little extra cash likely to come in during the holidays, he figures that a few pieces of bread won't hurt anything. They might help to sweeten the mood.

He reprimands himself for never bundling up enough to suit the weather, shoulders hunched about his ears as he hops from one foot to the other in front of Jin's door, plastic bag crinkling as it hits his thigh. Jungkook knocks with a quick and steady rap of his knuckles, glancing down the hall to make sure he's not disturbing anyone else.

SEOKJIN There's hot tea already on the table in anticipation and a mug of coffee in Seokjin's hands when he opens the door. Seeing Jungkook, all pink-cheeked, shoulders scrunched up, makes him give a faint tsk. "It's freezing outside. Hurry up and come in," he says, pulling his friend in with a one-armed hug. Not too close though, because Jungkook is cold to the touch.

"Do I need to grab my hair dryer and thaw you out, Kookie?"

JUNGKOOK Even as the warm air hits Jungkook's body, he lets out another shiver at the sharp change in temperature, laughing by the time he sidles up against Jin. As he steps into the apartment, Jungkook shakes his whole body for a few seconds before finally taking off his shoes, carefully lining them up by the entrance before he steps further inside. Someday, he'll learn that it's better to layer up than to suffer through the cold. Someday. Maybe.

Fashion is still important, after all.

"Ah, no hyung, I'll be fine. Just don't tell my mom that I failed to dress warmly enough again," he says, jaw tense to prevent his teeth from chattering. He lifts the bag of bread in offering, glancing around before noticing the tea on the table. "Should I set this by the table?"

SEOKJIN "You'll have to answer to me first before I rat you out to your mother," Seokjin says, wagging a finger like he's the one actually occupying that role. "You're going to steal all the warmth in the apartment."

He doesn't grab the hair dryer but he does detour on the way to the table to pull over a space heater he doesn't bother to put away in the winter. He sets it just beneath the table where it will warm hands and feet.

"Jungkookie prefers tea, right?" he says, nodding at the covered mugs.

JUNGKOOK Jungkook watches Jin for an extended moment before breaking into an even wider smile. There's a certain reliability in the way that Jin hyung diffuses a situation, using humor to deflect the attention elsewhere, onto thoughts that are warmer and rosier. While Jungkook doesn't yet have the skills to meet Jin head-to-head, he thinks that he's starting to get the hang of it - how to push optimism to the forefront until one can't help but feel a little brighter.

"Ah, hyung, that's impossible," Jungkook says, wagging his finger. "An apartment will never lack in warmth as long as Jin hyung is in it."

He watches as Jin emerges with a space heater, bowing his head gratefully before he sinks into one of the chairs, carefully opening the plastic bag and trying to avoid too much crinkle as he pulls out the rolls of bread, passing over the cutest to his hyung. After a pause, he reaches for one of the pair of mugs, gratefully using its warmth for his hands. "I do prefer tea," he admits, nose wrinkling slightly as he smiles. "Although I'm trying to learn how to drink black coffee. I'm... not having great luck with it, so far."

SEOKJIN That's better. Seokjin doesn't say it out loud but it takes away some of the tightness that's lingered in his heart over the last few days. If he can't be bright for himself, he can be that for Seokjin. "You say that, but I'm actually a heat sink. I steal it," he warns. "These shoulders? Actually solar panels."

Smiling, he takes off the silicone cover and pushes one of the mugs to Jungkook in exchange for the smiling bear bread. It's still steaming hot, perfect for eating sweets on a cold day.

"I still can't drink black coffee. You should see my orders. It's always, always lots of milk and syrup. I don't think I'll ever change."

JUNGKOOK "Solar panels? Heat sink? I don't buy it," Jungkook protests, scooting his chair closer until he's within arm's reach of Jin. He turns, careful to make sure that Jin's drinks aren't at any risk before he reaches an arm out to wrap behind his hyung, resting his head on Jin's shoulder. "If you ask me, these shoulders are actually pillows. Some of the best pillows. You could fit two dongsaengs on each." He pulls back with a grin, silently wondering how many of them have already visited Jin's apartment since the fallout.

Jungkook suspects it's probably at least half.

He turns his attention back to his tea, torn between wanting the heat to retain as long as possible, and wanting the drink to cool enough to drink. For now, he settles on keeping both hands wrapped around while he gently blows at the steaming surface. "I do like mochas a lot," Jungkook admits. "Or lattes, lattes are okay. But it looks so cool when people can take their coffee black, right? I keep thinking that if I practice, I'll start to like it after a while."

SEOKJIN "Are you suggesting that I'm saying anything less than one hundred percent verifiable, scientific fact?" Seokjin asks, putting on the appropriately scandalized face. "Such disrespect and doubt from the boy I raised on my back since I was fourteen years old!" It's maybe a little strange, how comfortable the melodrama as a defense has become. Sometimes, he's not even doing it on purpose.

"And you look plenty cool without drinking black coffee," he adds. Leaning further into the side hug, Seokjin gently taps his head against Jungkook's. "Drink all the mochas you want. Seokjin-Hyung gives you permission!"

JUNGKOOK Jungkook snickers at the mock offense from his hyung, cheeks flushing at the mention of being raised by Jin. It's not entirely untrue. As humbling as it is, Jungkook likes to think that so much of what he's learned over the course of his time in high school has been picked up from his hyungs - the whole reason he stands taller now, the force with which he chases after the activities he loves. There's a certain passion for life that all of his hyungs have in slightly different ways, and Jungkook feels like he's landed perfectly between all of them.

"You know, after a certain point, the new generation has to take over, and what we accept as fact changes with society," Jungkook jokes with a solemn shake of his head. "...but maybe hyung can keep the helm for a little longer, if it means I get to drink mochas without reserve."

Relaxing a little more heavily into the side hug, Jungkook does his best to glance at Jin without shifting away. "How are you doing, hyung?" he asks, tone softer.

SEOKJIN Seokjin dips his head just slightly and gives Jungkook his most sober look. "I plan to stay at the helm until the boat falls apart," he says. The exaggeration, here, only makes it sillier. Jungkook is right, of course, but they've both got a long time to figure themselves out and drink mocha the whole way.

He sits there and enjoys the warmth of his friend, trying to decide on an answer, to put feelings into words that will be somehow palatable. "Still feeling stupid, but I'm working on it."

JUNGKOOK "Yah, you'd take us down with you?" Jungkook laughs, more brightly than perhaps the answer deserves. Truth be told, he can't think of anything better than to live out the rest of his days with his hyungs, no matter how messy and chaotic things may get. Any storm would be a bearable one, provided they're all together. A moment later, the laughter fades a little as Jungkook remembers - they're just a little more split than usual, these days. It's part of the reason he's here, wondering how to help everyone heal.

"Feeling stupid... about Namjoon hyung?" Jungkook asks, leaning forward slightly so that he can get a better glimpse of Jin's expression, before opting instead to reach for one of the buns and unwrapping it from the crinkly plastic. Sometimes, he finds, the heavy weight of a gaze is enough to throw off a conversation. "I don't think you were at all stupid, hyung."

SEOKJIN "No, I'd make sure you all got off the boat and then go down with the ship. Because I'm the captain," Seokjin says. "But also, We wouldn't go down because it's my ship." Seokjin has learned how to fight to keep things together even if he's got nothing but duct tape and twist ties, metaphorically speaking. He'd never put his friends in such danger to begin with but if he did, he'd make sure they got out alive.

"But I think it was pretty stupid." He just wants things to go back to normal. To lock all of his mistakes back down where they came from. Is that so much to ask?

JUNGKOOK Jungkook hasn't necessarily ever been the best with extended metaphors, though he considers for several seconds, lips parted before he finally shakes his head in surrender. He doesn't exactly want to push back against Jin's conclusion, anyway. It's the correct one, Jungkook thinks. If there's anyone whose boat will make sure that all passengers are carried to safety, it's Jin's. That's just the way his hyung is.

But the problem, Jungkook thinks, also sometimes lies in that very generosity. How Jin puts the comfort of happiness of all others above his own. It has to be lonely. Suffocating, perhaps.

In this case, it's all too easy for Jungkook to imagine how things might have turned out differently with Yoongi - how he believed so strongly that the friendship would forever be torn, shoved somewhere it couldn't be pulled back from. "I still don't think it was stupid, hyung. You were just being honest about the way you feel." He glances down at his lap, then up again to meet Jin's gaze. "How exactly did he react?"

SEOKJIN Jungkook shakes his head and Jin shrugs back, knowing that they're at a very real impasse in the midst of the metaphor. There's something that shifts in the way Jungkook looks at him for a moment but Seokjin can't say what it is, except that sometimes Jungkook makes him feel utterly seen sometimes, all without saying a word.

Seokjin grimaces at the question, forced to relive the torturous and embarrassing memory that he's already committed to memory. Every time, his gut just burns with humiliation.

"He looked at me like I'd stopped speaking in Korean. Like there was no way I'd said what I said. So I told him to just forget it and go to sleep."

JUNGKOOK When Jin winces, Jungkook leans a little more heavily against his hyung, reaching out with a hand and laying it heavily on Jin's thigh. A little bit of contact that he hopes is grounding - that he hopes will serve as a reminder that Jin doesn't have to face any of this alone. Even still, Jungkook frowns a little as he listens to how the events played out. It's hard to imagine exactly what Namjoon hyung might have been so surprised by. That Jin likes boys? That a boy likes Namjoon?

Or is it the fact that it's Jin which tripped Namjoon up?

"I guess... that's pretty bad, but. But it would be worse, right?" Jungkook says haltingly, wondering if it's possible to comfort without it coming across as getting another's hopes too high. "It sounds like he was just surprised. Not like he was totally disgusted by it, right? I mean, he can't be - we all know that Taehyung likes both boys and girls, and Namjoon hyung loves spending time with him."

SEOKJIN "It could be worse but it's not exactly great," Seokjin says. "If I was going to tell him, I wanted it to be at the right time, in the right way. Not by accident over dinosaur shaped nuggets." Which, in the end, they hadn't even finished because he was too busy ruining things. He'd tried to pick at leftovers the next morning and just felt so morose that he'd thrown them out. He'd ruined things and wasted food, a double tragedy.

Jungkook's right. He knows that Namjoon isn't the type to be bothered by such things, though he'd feared it might be different when that kind of attention was turned on him. "There's a big difference between not being disgusted and being happy to hear that kind of thing."

JUNGKOOK There's a bit of comfort in the fact that Jin knows Namjoon won't hold his sexuality against him, but not a second later, Jungkook finds himself steeped in sympathy for his hyung again. Jin wanted it to be at the right time, in the right way. Jungkook can understand that. His own confession, however clumsy, was a decision that he had wholeheartedly made, for better or worse. For the thought to slip out, unbidden - there's not much worse. There isn't even anyone else that Jin can blame.

"I'm sorry that he wasn't... I'm sorry that it didn't just click for him, hyung," Jungkook says quietly, shifting his hand from Jin's thigh and seeking out the other boy's hand. It might not have the same gravity as when they held hands weeks ago, when Jin was comforting Jungkook over his stepfather. But the company is still important, Jungkook thinks. None of them must ever be alone. "I'm sorry that you didn't get to tell him on your terms."

SEOKJIN Seokjin's head drops, chin against his collarbones, so the fall of his hair can hide the way he's squeezing his eyes shut, trying to even out his breaths. "I don't know what I expected," he admits. "That I was going to say I love him and then he'd fall into my arms and that was that?" Lightning can't strike twice. Maybe Yoongi and Jungkook got lucky, but not him. That's simply how it is. The odds weren't in his favor.

"Aish, you didn't come here for this sob story, did you though?"

JUNGKOOK The way Jin's hair falls and obscures his eyes from view makes Jungkook's heart ache. He gives his hyung a few moments, eyes carefully watching the rise and fall of his back. Before his confession, all of the roads Jungkook had mapped out ended in failure - in disgust, in pity, in silence. But even Jungkook let himself dream of the impossible sometimes, of what it would be like if Yoongi returned the feelings, of what it would be like to kiss while seated together on the piano bench. Jungkook isn't sure just how optimistic Jin has ever been about his feelings, but something tells him that perhaps there was enough that it started to feel like hope.

He raises a hand, brushes it soothingly through Jin's hair.

"I came to make sure you know your dongsaeng loves you," Jungkook murmurs. "And to see if you're okay. I know that... keeping all of this inside can make it feel even worse, hyung."

SEOKJIN This isn't how it's supposed to be. Seokjin is the eldest. Shouldn't it be his job to take care of Jungkook? To take care of all of them? This whole mess has kept him from being the hyung they deserve. It's still comforting to close his eyes and let Jungkook's fingers card through his hair. No one had ever touched him this gently until he was a teenager, until America, and it's still a comforting novelty.

"I keep a lot of things inside," he says. "Whether they're healthy or not." It's something he thought he'd been able to conceal but maybe it's only that he never had friends who looked close enough.

JUNGKOOK The remark gives Jungkook pause, his heart aching at the thought of anything that's needed to stay suppressed. Jungkook knows how it is - and Jin hyung has seen that first-hand, the memory of their first handhold still bright in Jungkook's memory. He continues to thread his fingers gently through Jin's hair, a soft and regular motion, the kind that his mother has used before to coax him to sleep.

"You don't need to keep them inside around me," Jungkook says softly. He wants to add that he's pretty sure none of their group would ever turn Jin out, that all of them would rather share in the burden than leave Jin to it alone. But Jungkook's never been good at speaking on behalf of others, and right now, he suspects it would hurt more than it helps, with what's just taken place with Namjoon. "I'm always here to listen, hyung. And to help, whenever I can."

SEOKJIN It's the kind of caring touch that Seokjin doesn't remember from his mother. Baby-sitters and nannies, later from his first boyfriend, and then the only girl he'd ever seriously been with but never from family. Seokjin wants to close his eyes and just melt into that touch, hoard all the care and comfort that can be given until his heart is packed full. Greedy.

"You're helping now," Seokjin says. He moves away from Jungkook's hold but only long enough to change position and pull his friend into a tight hug. The truth is that Seokjin still feels foolish and stupid, still feels like he's broken something irrevocably. But he also feels less alone.

JUNGKOOK Jungkook practically melts into the hug, easily hooking a chin on his hyung's shoulder and wrapping his arms back around Jin's shoulder blades. It comforts Jungkook to know that, at least in this small way, he's able to help Jin. His hands bunch in Jin's shirt, holding him close, then open to smooth a palm against Jin's back in large circles. It's the least he can do after all the times Jin has supported him, after all that Jin does for the group. He deserves to have someone look after him, too.

"It's because I brought the bread, right?" Jungkook jokes brightly, trying his best to approximate Jin's humor - just a little self-deprecating.

SEOKJIN "And hugs," Seokjin corrects. Watching Jungkook try and imitate Jin's levels of melodrama undoes some of the tension in his chest and he breaks into a proper smile, shoulders trembling with the laughter he tries to hold back. The change in mood from gentle and nurturing to humorous should feel more abrupt but after all the heaviness of the last few days and of this conversation, it feels perfectly timed.

JUNGKOOK There's a certain quality to Jin's laughter that makes it one of Jungkook's favorites - something about the way that you can see it in the movement of his shoulders before the laugh itself even hits, something about how the laugh is unbridled and almost childlike. Jungkook giggles himself, spurred by Jin's reaction.

"Ah, hyung," Jungkook sighs, leaning his head against Jin's shoulder. "I should just move in, shouldn't I? I'll earn my keep with hugs and washed dishes."

SEOKJIN "I wouldn't complain if you did," he says, absolutely serious despite the lingering giggles. Seokjin know that Jungkook has his reasons for staying with his family but he'd still welcome the other boy with open arms if he ever changes his mind. At the same time, Jin fears that a day will come when Jungkook comes here because it got too bad to stay.

It's a sad thought and he tries to force it away.

"And you can make custard now!"

JUNGKOOK "And I can make custard," Jungkook confirms with a laugh, shaking his head and hiding the snicker behind his fist. "Which goes well with coffee and tea, right? But maybe I should work on learning a few more recipes so that we can have a balanced diet while I'm here. I can grill meat? And make ssam?"

Jungkook pauses, struck with a sudden thought. "What are hyung's favorite foods?"

SEOKJIN Seokjin tilts his head thoughtfully. The first thing that comes to mind is lobster but he'd never name such an expensive treat for a friend's budget. "Meat," he says first, grinning. Because that's not exactly specific. "Anything that we can grill and cook together."

Ssam sounds more than perfect, honestly. "I'll make sure we have plenty of lettuce for Christmas to do that."

JUNGKOOK "Ah, is that why we're having barbecue for Christmas?" Jungkook teases, even though he's sure that there's a bit more to it. Meat isn't just Jin hyung's favorite, after all - Jungkook is pretty sure that most of the group would gravitate to meat over most options, especially if the variety and spread of meats is extensive. "I like the idea of cooking together, though. As long as we're not making the maknae cook everything, because grilling for seven all night... I might never get to any meat, myself."

He wrinkles his nose at the thought, then turns to tear another bite from his bread. "We should have a Christmas cake, too. I like cakes, 'cause they're easy to share."

CODE BY TESSISAMESS