учебники / forgive me father for i

corridor of the school, and fall into step beside one another, despite the gap in years between them, as if they were time travellers meeting in linear timelines. the problem is— they grew up, and when one fell in love, the other, unknowingly, followed. “i don’t want to be here anymore,” jungkook mumbles. it reads as i don’t want to be alive anymore . there are tear streaks down his cheeks. yoongi stares. i wish i could dream you another world, jungkook . “i can’t bear it.”

“it’s more painful to live than to die,” yoongi offers, understanding. jungkook raises his eyes at him. his teeth are pressing against his bottom lip, as if to hold the words in. “i want you to live, even if it hurts.”

“why?”

“because,” they are still looking at each other. there are things yoongi sees for the first time, things he didn’t allow himself to see before— colours on lips, on teeth, beauty marks, the length of eyelashes. those things were forbidden. jungkook lets him look. “you don’t have a dream yet.”

“i have your lighter,” there are shades of lesser browns in between hair strands of duskier ones, stained golden by the suns of summers past, and yoongi wants to know how would it feel to run hands through it. he feels gutted. he wants to know as badly as he wants to breathe, but knowing would perforate his lungs and kill him, airless.

“that’s not what i meant.”

“i have you,” jungkook says, then, and there’s a brief moment where yoongi has to still himself, lightheaded. he can’t look away, despite it all. something unsafe is brewing inside jungkook’s pupils. when yoongi’s throat fails to produce sounds, he walks closer, stopping so close their bodies almost touch. it’s easy to tell he’s grown, then. he’s not fragile. not on the outside. “don’t i?” and yoongi feels the air shift when he speaks, warm breath touching skin. in another narrative, it ends in jungkook kissing him. this isn’t that. in another narrative, it ends in yoongi kissing back. this isn’t that, either.

“— no,” yoongi doesn’t have anything to swallow down other than the foul taste the word leaves behind. jungkook’s pupils get smaller, in slight surprise. “i’m not a dream.” jungkook makes some sort of noise, then, as if his breathing is being strangled. he takes a step back. yoongi involuntarily reaches out for him, but his hand only hovers, unheld, unholding. there’s a crack in both of their chests, and they are bleeding from it— unrequited love stains their shirts and drips down the grey gravel. no, it isn’t unrequited. it’s just skinny and wrong and vile. yoongi breathes out slowly. jungkook nods, and then sprints. “jungkook, don’t— “

yoongi takes too long to follow.

)

(and then it’s too late to do so.)

“i broke something.” someone . “beyond repair.”

namjoon only looks at him, for a while. it’s unsure if he understands what those words mean in their underlines, the gruesome reasons tucked away between vowels. yoongi feels his fingers warm against the coffee cup. it doesn’t feel as good as it should. it reminds him of things he doesn’t want to be reminded of. “a heart?”

it feels good to be known so deeply, yoongi thinks, bitterly. it means he means . “yes.”

“hearts mend,” namjoon tells him, but even as he does, yoongi sees how the words start to falter. hearts don’t always mend, and namjoon knows it, and yoongi knows it. believing in the lie seems easier, though, because namjoon nods to nothing in particular. “it’s good to have you back, hyung.” it makes yoongi snort, and he hides his face behind his cup because it feels warm like his fingers. “don’t go away again,” and namjoon adds, casually: “some of us miss you.”

“there’s no point in missing me,” and yoongi swallows the remains of his coffee before tossing the paper cup away. namjoon does the same. they bow to the cashier as they leave, stepping out into the cold morning again. yoongi feels sober and exhausted all at once. he exhales slowly. “i keep dreaming about that sea.”

“that sea?”

“the one we went to see together.”

“are you bringing back the whole sea, hyung?” namjoon huffs, but he furrows his brows. they start walking, maybe back to the containers, but they’re too slow, as if none wants to. “you used to bring back all sorts of things.”

“i can’t anymore,” i broke something beyond repair , and that goes to the inner workings of his dreams, too. he has no one else to dream for. yoongi stops walking. “how,” he presses his lips together, fingers curling around his lighter. “how’s jungkook?”

saying his name out loud like that is like lifting a prayer towards the sky, a night lantern of sorts, hoping it’ll come back somehow in blessings, or in fire. namjoon takes a moment to reply. people walk past them. the street is slowly filling up with sounds and smells of a morning— fresh fish being brought out to tanks in front of restaurants, a nearby, rundown bakery putting out coffee signs, the whistling of ahjussis as they pass by towards the station, trains, in the distance. “— he’s alright.” another pause. “he’ll come around on weekends,” namjoon offers. “if you want to see him.”

“no, i’m,” and yoongi shakes his head, taking a step back. “i don’t want to— no,” panic washes over him like a wave that tastes like blood inside his mouth. he breathes in, then out, shaking, steadying himself. “i don’t have to see him.”

“why not?”

because i’m in love with him and it broke him and it is still breaking me and i don’t understand and i can’t do it— another step back. “look, i have to go,” namjoon looks disappointed. “i fucked up my phone, but i’ll be around.” sure, hyung, just hand me my clothes back soon . there’s no faith in those words. “tell him,” their eyes meet. yoongi feels at loss. he feels as if someone has drilled a hole in his chest and it’s leaking dark matter that looks too much like sea water under a bleak winter night. he’s dreamt those, too. they spiral inside jars hidden under his bed. yoongi can’t finish his sentence.

“i’ll tell him.”

once again, yoongi doesn’t say goodbye. he isn’t good at those. turning his back to people has always been the easier way. turn your back and you can’t see that they’re hurt because of you . it works both ways. he feels namjoon’s stare on him even after he’s gotten back to the workroom, after he has peeled off the layers of clothes that don’t belong to him, stepping barefoot on wooden boards that still feel damp. the piano is the only object unaffected by the water he dreams about. it’s a dream thing, too, that piano. some days it looks like the piano his mother used to play. others

— today— it looks like the piano at the classroom turned storage room. they’re both old, brown pianos. he touches one key, producing sound. it reverberates softly inside his ribcage as if it came from within. yoongi sighs. for that piano, the one he used to play with jungkook, all sounds come from within.

(

keys /fingers / keys “i would like to see where you go when you sleep.” “why?” “you look different.” “— different?” “like— like you’re happy.” “i don’t think i’m happier dreaming.” fingers / keys / soft giggles “i don’t know what happiness is.” “no?” “no.” keys / fingers / fingers “this sounds really nice.” fingers / fingers / chuckles “you always say that.”

)

( don’t you know what you mean to him? )

yoongi sits up in a jolt, fingers clutching damp sheets, inhaling deeply as if he’s been underwater. he’s been underwater, yes, drowning for the past three hours, never dying, just suffering. the water he brings back rains on him, dripping from the sea at the ceiling as if such thing is possible. yoongi has his vision corrupted by red, lungs painfully aware of how much work it is to keep on breathing. someone is knocking on his door— the sound only reaches his ears a minute later, when white noise gives way. he doesn’t know what time it is, but the street outside still seems dark in slumber. he’s still wearing the clothes he wore to busker, and they’re wet, jeans clinging, cold. yoongi pushes himself out of bed, frigid rain still falling. “yeah?” he asks, before opening.

“hyung.”

hyung

dizziness comes rushing, and yoongi stumbles backwards, releasing the knob as if it burns, getting into the rain again, soaking. the door remains closed. there’s nothing but the sound of water dripping and yoongi’s impossibly loud heartbeat for a while. no , yoongi breathes rapidly. no, don’t come here . “hyung—?” the call is soft. it’s soft in all of jungkook’s syllable endings, in his slight raspy tone, lower now, for some reason, but boyish as usual. “i hear water.”

just go, he had said once, a long time ago. piss off . yoongi shivers, cold. jungkook touches his knuckles to the door again. “it’s raining,” yoongi says, this time. he tastes salt on his tongue and his eyelashes drip.

“— inside?”

a sigh comes out of yoongi’s mouth, and it stutters on his teeth. “yes.” for a moment that extends to a minute, neither says anything. it takes a toll on him, the step towards the door, it slices his heart to twist the doorknob, it butchers him entirely to raise his eyes and find jungkook’s. yoongi’s just remains when he does so. it’s a miracle he’s left standing. jungkook’s eyes widen, wandering about him, then fleeting towards the sea above yoongi’s bed, the one that keeps on raining. yoongi wants to say something, but he’s trembling so bad his words will come out chopped and ugly. jungkook’s mouth is open as he peers inside. yoongi looks away, finally. “— why are you here this early?”

why are you here at all?

“did you dream it?” jungkook’s question overlaps with his, their voices blending together. it’s reminiscent of the days they would all talk over each other at the classroom turned storage room, questions always too greedy to be to stopped. yoongi nods. yeah, i did . “namjoon-hyung,” jungkook says as if it answers everything. yoongi stares. he doesn’t move over, doesn’t offer space so jungkook can step into the rain. “i didn’t know if i—“ his words get messy, faltering. then he does what yoongi has perceived impossible— he steps closer, wrapping arms around yoongi’s smaller frame, over his arms, forcing him to step backwards in order not to fall, forcing a gasp to leave yoongi’s mouth, forcing their bodies to be close enough they breathe in the same way; heavily, as if it’s difficult.

there are no more eighteens on nineteens about jungkook. yoongi can’t tell how old he is, he’s forgotten, but maybe he’s almost twenty-three. there’s always a gap between them, always the difference in years, the time-travelling duo stuck somewhere between reality and dreams. he’s taller, fuller, and he smells of smoke and a bit like sweat and a bit like the empty cold from outside. “you grew out your hair,” and yoongi huffs, and his voice sounds like it isn’t his own. jungkook only inhales. he does it deeply, and his body trembles when the air is expelled. yoongi feels it all over him— so he pushes jungkook away, gently, as if jungkook is also a thing with wings, a fragile thing.

he hasn’t seen jungkook in two years—

he doesn’t look as different, if anything. less boy, more— whatever you become after. yoongi stares through the cracked window to how his fists are curled, slammed against the keys. “ hyung

.” it’s surprising to hear his voice. maybe if he didn’t talk, yoongi could pretend the young man sitting at the piano is just flimsy imagination made up of yearning, contours in the neon magenta of the store sign. but jungkook speaks, and yoongi remembers .

(dreams are layered matter, and memories are, too

that day, and jungkook is seventeen, and he pushes the tables together. yoongi doesn’t stop playing, even when the sound of wood against wood makes him cringe. “i like that one,” the observation is made after some time, sleepily. yoongi looks over his shoulder. jungkook’s hair is falling against his eyes, the collar of his uniform is wrinkled. he looks— sincere about liking the song, his expression mild. yoongi then looks over his shoulder. jungkook’s hair is falling against his eyes, the collar of his uniform is wrinkled. he looks— pretty . “did you dream it?”

“i can’t dream melodies,” yoongi forces himself to say, looking away, cheeks flushed. “i can dream music boxes, but they’ll play the songs i want.” he tries another note, restarting the song. it’s a work in progress. he goes back to it whenever he’s alone with jungkook in the classroom turned storage room.

“can you dream me a music box with this song?” jungkook sounds hopeful. yoongi smiles just a little. maybe later . “i want to dream, too.”

“take a nap,” he offers, just slightly cheeky. it makes jungkook giggle. the sound mixes in with the keys he presses and it mixes in with the noise of people coming from the yards outside. it’s open house day. yoongi doesn’t think his father will ever attend those. his mother wouldn’t, either. he stops playing abruptly. jungkook doesn’t say anything, because he can probably hear the sounds, too, the gleeful laughter, the faint chatting. in that sense, they’re awfully akin — if someone were to cut them open, whatever pours out of them both would look sadly like analogous loneliness. yoongi hears a sniff, one too telling. he turns, again, looking . “why are you crying?”

“i don’t know,” jungkook says, blinking, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “i’m not crying anymore.”

i don’t like it when you cry. the feeling is said through keys he presses, through major lifts of wrongfully chosen, almost angry finishings. yoongi isn’t good at comforting people. he isn’t good at providing care. his edges are all rough and thorny, he’s never learned, he’s never been taken

care of. jungkook sniffs again. “don’t cry.” then, softer: “please.”

“hyung.”

but yoongi’s already standing up. leaving the classroom turned storage room is better than staying and not knowing how to care . he struggles with it, with steps, with leaving, and when jungkook sits up, holding onto his wrist, he does the only thing he wants to do, the vile, reckless thing he thinks about at night— and jungkook’s lips are chapped and they taste of salt and it lasts barely a second.

once again, breathy, against his mouth: “ hyung .”

everything ends from there.)

“what are you doing here?” jungkook steps over glass to approach him. it makes the kind of sound that appeases yoongi’s senses. he looks down at the old sneakers jungkook’s wearing, wondering if he’ll see them bloodied.

“i like it here.” it’s a simple answer, but jungkook’s voice is heavy as if he’s been crying. “where —,” he halts, unsure. “why did you leave?”

there’s no correct answer to that question. there are, in no order: self-loathing, confusion, shame, anger, loneliness. those words fill up his lungs, and it’s hard to breathe sometimes, and they all taste like sea salt on the back of his throat. yoongi’s so filled with them he knows he’ll die choking in his own sea-coloured, foam-like despair. it’s just how it is for some people. jungkook didn’t have to see it, or know it, or find him again. yoongi breathes out. where one goes, the other follows

. “i was expelled, i couldn't hang out with you anymore,” his reply comes out like an apology, even though he means not to. jungkook picks his bottom lip between his canine tooth. “i didn’t belong there anyway.”

“that was my fault—“ a car drives by, outside. yoongi’s first instinct is to turn, frightened, grabbing onto jungkook’s wrist. he doesn’t know why he does it. he means to let go of jungkook a moment later, quickly stepping away, and jungkook watches him do just that, arm still extended towards him, as if wanting to be held again. yoongi steps even further away, into the shop and closer to the piano jungkook had been playing. the keys have dust on them, and fingerprints. “i was trying to play your song.”

“yeah, i,” and yoongi sighs again. “i heard it.”

)

do you still go to the music shop?

(yes, in not-dreams, in not-dreams, in not-dreams—)

yoongi shifts on his weight, uncomfortable. “it’s been shut down,” he replies, after some time. his body adjusts to the warmer temperature of the fire. it doesn’t adjust to jungkook’s close presence. the hairs on his arms are up, his spine is painfully aware of their proximity, hurting. “after,” his eyes water staring at the flames. “after you broke in that time.”

“ah,” jungkook sounds embarrassed. “i’m sorry.”

“it doesn’t matter anymore.”

three years, yoongi remembers, suddenly. three years since the hospital visit, the smell of formaldehyde and ether still clinging to his nostrils and all the clothes he wore that day, the crack in the door from where he could see jungkook’s desolated expression. three years since the mountain, since the song that kept him alive, and he thought, then, that he’d never have to hear it again. it plays inside his head now, blaring. nothing of before matters, nothing of the now does, too, the after is unnecessary. yoongi’s adrift in a sea he keeps pouring out of himself. and yet. yet

— ( it’s a lantern , he had explained. we’ll always find each other ). he pushes his hand inside the pocket where the lighter hides. “hyung.” the call startles him. he glances jungkook’s way to see him glancing back. “i missed you.”

the words come out at him like a punch in his guts. yoongi clenches his jaw, agonising quietly. “you didn’t miss me, you missed,” he licks his lips. “you missed that sea,” and now he’s talking about himself, maybe, and the words come out aggressive. “you missed the idea of what the seven of us had because you’re lonely.” jungkook coils, shoulders lumping next to him, yoongi can tell. he can tell because it hurts him, and even then, he can’t stop talking. “there’s nothing about me that you should miss, jungkook—”

“ stop ,” and yoongi’s slightly alarmed how different jungkook sounds when he says it. “please.” they don’t talk for a while, then. yoongi doesn’t know what to say. he’s afraid his words will be brash, that he will deposit unresolved anger in every syllable and they’ll stab and maim them both. it startles him entirely when jungkook’s fingers reach for his, pressing very kindly, very gently, slowly touching. yoongi swallows and he wants to take his hand away. he doesn’t. jungkook’s

hand is warm, too, like fire. “can i hold your hand for a while?”

no.

“yeah,” yoongi nods, huffing as if it doesn’t mean anything. “for a while.”

their fingers don’t entwine, they just hold. yoongi’s fickle with it, jungkook is nervous. they stand there for too long, and yoongi knows it’s too long because the fire starts self-consuming, starts becoming smaller, starts losing against the cold around them. the homeless person sleeping by shifts, muttering nonsense words. jungkook breathes loudly. strangely, there are cicadas. yoongi knows they’re not real. they’re figures of imagination, ghosts of summers past, by that sea. those are the sounds of the night. there’s a melody to be heard there. it sounds like the song they play together, the one yoongi weaves into salt water. the fire dies some more. yoongi starts trembling. “it’s as if a part of me is missing,” jungkook says, then, after time has passed. he doesn’t give context for a while. yoongi has his eyes watery because of the smoke. he waits. “you not being there.”

“it’s not real,” yoongi offers, quietly. “i don’t matter.” he feels when jungkook tugs on his fingers, feels when they slide between his own, closing over knuckles. he wants to allow himself holding jungkook’s hand, just this once, just for a little longer, before he takes the step away, before he throws the lighter into the fire so it can burn, too. another car drives by. the sky is softer indigos now. yoongi looks sideways, finding jungkook’s eyes on him. they hold each other’s stare just as they hold each other’s hands. “i don’t do you any good, jungkook.”

“then,” and jungkook blinks, looking away, head down. “then i don’t do you any good, either.”

(

fingers / fingers / wrong key “pay attention.” jungkook giggles, it makes yoongi smile. “i’m not as good as you, hyung.” fingers / fingers / fingers “you just need practice.” keys / fingers “play me my favourite.” chuckles / smile / glance “alright.”

)

no, you do, you do, you do—