Chapter Text
September, 2000
They're only halfway through the show, and Jeongguk's shirt is already soaked through and through. He feels the sweat trickling down his back, sees some of it drip all nasty from his hair as he headbangs to the rhythm, just a little concussed.
Jimin is no better. Jeongguk stares at him, standing under the flaming red spotlight, looking a little too much like the devil incarnate.
He’s right there. Three steps and Jeongguk swears he would taste the salt on his glistening skin.
He’s right there, a shaded figure at the very end of the tunnel that is Jeongguk’s vision. Only three steps too far, but he could run forever and never get close enough.
Jeongguk watches as his voice rips from his throat, gruff and yet airy, like some sort of a spell, and the whole crowd is enchanted.
He pulls at the collar of his shirt, popping a button loose as he leans back on his haunches and screams his living lungs out through the microphone. The kind of shit only Park Jimin would do.
And he looks good doing it too. With his long, long hair sticking to his face and neck, a trembling hand running through it as he comes down from the high of it all. And the way he bites his lip, chest heaving with breath after breath. He’s all wet and sparkly, and it's not just the sweat that he's glowing with.
He looks delicious.
Jeongguk can’t shake the thought, even when they’re hand in hand and he catches Jimin’s stare, half bent-over as they bow to the fans. Jimin winks at him, and he just smiles back, a little tired. Both from the show and the game.
They’re changing their ruined clothes in one of the rooms backstage when he sees it kick in on Jimin’s face, like it always does after these things.
The low. When he’s tumbling down from the adrenaline and whatever else he’s got lingering around in his system.
“Hyung,” he calls, one arm through the sleeve of his shirt as he fiddles with the other one.
Jimin’s eyes slide here and there, over his bare torso before they’re on his face. Eyelids beginning to droop, just a little out of it.
“Jeonggukie?”
He always calls him that when he’s like this. Right before he gets his next fix. Might be the only thing that makes Jeongguk tolerate this whole ordeal.
“Wanna hit the pub?” He tries not to make it sound so hopeful, but it comes out that way anyway.
Because Jimin will get his hands on something one way or another. It’d be better to have him there, next to himself, even if he’s chugging down shots like it’s nothing. Because at least it’s alcohol, and at least Jeongguk is there.
Jimin squints for a second, and Jeongguk knows he has to hurry.
“C’mon, hyung. My treat, hm? We could catch last call if we go now.”
“Dunno, Jeonggukie—” he drags it out, and Jeongguk’s heart clutches. “Think I’ll just crash at the hotel.” He nods to himself. “Yeah, the hotel. Yeah.”
In his room, Jeongguk sits alone by the window, eyes glued to the silver sedan that pulls up to the parking lot, and then to the man that steps out of it. All the way until he disappears into the building, away from Jeongguk’s laser-sharp gaze. It’s a shame he hasn’t caught on fire yet.
He’s new.
Jeongguk waits to see if he’ll get a name. It used to be some white guy, the last few times. He knows, because he’d heard Jimin’s lewd voice calling his name through the paper thin walls back then. Wanted to punch straight through them, drag the man out of there and throw him off his balcony.
He chews on the skin around his nails, stiff and properly annoyed, until the guy shows up again. Eyes follow him like laser beams as he gets into his car and drives away.
No extra service then.
Jeongguk shrinks a little deeper into the seat.
He counts the minutes in his head. At eleven, he’s restless and knocking on Jimin’s door.
It opens with a creak and to a man not all there.
His room is all crime and no lights, plus the typical after-hours mess that comes with this side of the rockstar life.
There’s silence as he walks in, dodging and sidestepping everything scattered on the floor. He doesn’t utter a word as he brushes Jimin’s teeth and works his way through the knots in his hair. Doesn’t even say goodnight as he settles under the blanket just to be met with those fucking eyes again.
Deep brown wells of nothing that pull him so far down he can’t ever crawl his way back up. They’re the same eyes, except they’re all red and they’re lazy and they’re so high that Jeongguk can’t be sure if Jimin’s even seeing him right now.
Slowly, he pushes at Jimin’s limp body, moving his limbs around like a puppet on a string, until he’s fully turned, back against Jeongguk’s chest, and Jeongguk feels like he can finally breathe again.
It’s comforting. Soap and something minty, mixed with his own perfume.
It’s sad, too.
He falls asleep with his face buried into Jimin’s neck, arm clinging to the softness of his side, like that would keep Jimin from floating far, far away.
♮ ♮ ♮ ♮
At sunrise, Jimin is still there. Still breathing.
Jeongguk stares at his chest as it moves. Up. Down. Up.
Just like them.
He’s out before Jimin wakes.
They skip breakfast, end up shoving greasy gas station food down their throats, and they’re back on the road.
Jimin drives with a lazy arm on the steering wheel and another half bent out of the window. He’s got his killer shades on. A neglected cigarette burns aimlessly in between his chapped lips.
Jeongguk fidgets in the passenger seat. Any other day he’d whip out his polaroid camera, add this Jimin to his collection. His quite extensive collection of all of them. All the Jimins.
But he doesn’t, because it just doesn’t feel right today.
Instead, he barely brushes over Jimin’s lips, taking the half-burnt cigarette between his own fingers. Lets the wind take away the long line of piled up ash out the window and then puts it against his mouth with a breath.
It tastes like shit, and it burns his nose. He takes another drag.
“You don’t smoke, Jeongguk.”
He can’t tell if it’s just a statement or some sort of a twisted order.
“Well, I’m doing it now.”
It’s hard to hold in his cough as it builds up at the back of his throat.
“Well, don’t.”
Not a statement then.
“Why? You do it.”
It’s stupid, and it’s pointless, and they’ve been through this before. But times like this, Jeongguk can never quite control the sixteen-year-old in his head.
“‘Coz you’ll stink. Drive yourself nuts. You’re used to those pretty scents. Incense and shit.”
Jeongguk opens his mouth to spit out some other useless thing, but Jimin isn’t done yet.
“My pillows smelled like that this morning. Pretty.”
Jeongguk frowns, looks out the window to be faced with nothing but an endlessness of dirt and dead plants. This part of the States really lacks some good old scenery on roadtrips.
He’s about to drop it, because what can he even say to that? But then something in his brain clicks.
And it’s those ten years of baggage on that twenty-six.
“You know—” he turns in his seat, like he means business. “You say these things, sometimes, that—that nobody would. That nobody should.”
Jimin doesn’t bat an eyelash. Keeps driving with that dead stare. It infuriates Jeongguk. He snaps.
“Don’t even give a damn anymore, do you?”
About life, about their careers, about himself, about him. About Jeongguk.
Something tugs in his heart. Prove me wrong, it begs.
“Should I?”
He doesn’t give a damn about Jeongguk.
It shuts them up. The sixteen and the twenty-six in him.
♮ ♮ ♮ ♮
Jimin disappears the moment they reach Austin. Jeongguk unloads all the shit from the backseat, the amps and the cases and his own Fender. Helps Pete pack them tight into their van before he hauls them to prepare for the arena. But he takes the guitar with him.
All evening, he stays holed up in his motel room, plucking the strings quietly. The melody spills out of him, sounding like a whole lot of frustration from the three hours he’d spent in the car with Jimin. It’ll make for a good song.
That’s how most of them come to, nowadays. Their songs, a little too real, a little too close. But it’s got the crowds weeping their assholes off, and that’s supposed to be a good thing.
Because the people always eat that sorta thing up. The pain.
The pain has always been there to keep them going.
♮ ♮ ♮ ♮
Their stay is uneventful, their show smooth, for the most part. Jeongguk notices Jimin wavering here and there. Presses closer to his own mic, so that his voice tangles with Jimin’s, gliding over it when it breaks halfway through the chorus.
Jimin blinks at him from the center of the stage, looking pissed. He knows it’s just badly communicated gratitude.
“You don’t gotta cover for me.”
They’re in the backroom, and Jimin’s reflection stares Jeongguk down, motionless.
“I was harmonizing,” Jeongguk says in a clipped voice, pouting as he attempts to wipe the smudged eyeliner off of his face.
Jimin’s jaw twitches. He begins to pack up his stuff.
His thoughts are so loud, like they’re written on these palpable cartoon clouds above his head.
“Hyung.” Jeongguk sighs. “It wasn’t Dave. He told me nada.”
“This time, right?” Jimin’s voice drips bitterness. “Just this time. Prick nearly turned off my mic last week.”
“He can’t, hyung. And he won’t.” Jeongguk pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s just—a rough patch. Your voice has been through hell. Gotta let it heal.”
“Heal, yeah. Like anyone can heal their voice after this many years of screaming into a fucking bucket.”
“We only got one show left anyway. We’ll take a break after. Go to Hawaii or something. You can pretend to be mute the whole time and I’ll do all the talking, hm?”
Jimin huffs, throws his backpack on, before he’s strutting through the hallways, with Jeongguk trailing two steps behind.
“I don’t remember asking for a guard dog.”
Anyone else would have been offended, but Jeongguk just chuckles, holding the door open for Jimin, already used to Jimin’s snarky attitude.
He does tend to look more like a bodyguard than a bandmate anyway. With those ‘black big boy clothes and the thick neck holding up his dumb head’ as Jimin had once so nicely put it before.
Jeongguk usually likes to retaliate by making fun of Jimin’s size kink. He lets it go this time.
In favor of being the bigger person.
“I’m your driver, sir, not your dog.”
He jiggles the keys in front of his face, walks backwards towards their Mustang, smiling as he watches Jimin roll his eyes and get into the car as violently as he possibly can, all for show.
The ride is silent, comfortable as it can be. It isn’t until Jeongguk makes an awkward turn into a side road that Jimin stops picking at his nails, perking up.
“This isn’t the way to the motel, Jeongguk.”
“I know,” he quips.
“Then where the fuck are you taking us in the middle of the night?”
“Oh, don’t be so pissy. We’re almost there.”
He drives for an extra fifteen minutes before the bright pink lights come into view. He nearly lets out a sigh in relief.
“A diner?” Jimin’s dry voice cuts through the air.
Jeongguk grins at him.
“It’s been a while, huh?”
“We came all this way for a diner,” he deadpans.
“Hyung,” Jeongguk pulls on the handbrake, feeling giddy. “Hyung, it’s got the same milkshakes. I swear—”
“It’s all pastels too—” Trying his hardest to remain stoic, Jimin almost fails when the corners of his lips begin to twitch.
“They taste exactly the same, hyung. Had to bring you here before we left.”
Jimin’s face is this close to breaking into one of those pretty pretty smiles. The ones that turn his eyes into little crescent moons, make way for the wrinkles Jeongguk loves so much.
He turns and opens the car door, like he wants to hide it from Jeongguk.
Jeongguk’s heart flutters in his chest anyway.
He follows Jimin into the place, taking his time to appreciate the interior. Walls of a soft pink color, matching the slightly darker shades on the booths. Rows and rows of retro posters on the walls, flowers on every table. It’s quiet. No music, no other customers around.
“Where do you wanna sit?” Jeongguk asks, even though he already knows.
The plastic number sits proudly on the crumb coated glass. Table thirteen. And it's right by the window. Just like their own table all those years ago.
He slides in right next to Jimin, close enough that their thighs touch. Jimin doesn’t push him away.
A young girl walks up to their booth, her short bob of hair moving back and forth as she nods at them in greetings. She wipes the glass with a huff, then places two menus on the table. Paper prints so faded and grimey, they look like they’ve been through war, but it’s alright. They probably won’t need them anyway.
Jeongguk watches Jimin’s side profile as he gazes out the window. There’s nothing out there—save for a handful of street lights blinking in the thin fog, but Jimin looks like he’s entranced.
Jeongguk lets him be. Hesitantly wraps an arm around his waist, his fingers crawling their way on the warm skin under his crop top, massaging the soft muscle of his side.
He stills when Jimin moves ever so slowly, until his head is resting sideways on Jeongguk’s shoulder. Continues to stare at something Jeongguk can’t seem to see.
His lips press into Jimin’s hair before he can think anything of it. And then it’s his temple resting on the crown of his head.
“Vanilla?” he asks quietly.
“With fries, yeah,” Jimin murmurs.
“Okay.” Jeongguk can’t bring himself to get up and order anything. He lifts his head, looking around to see if he can motion for the waiter to come around again.
“Don’t.” Jimin’s voice is so small, Jeongguk barely hears him at first.
“What?”
“I liked it,” Jimin mumbles. “Like the weight of your head on mine. Don’t…”
Jeongguk’s fingers dig into Jimin’s flesh, pulling him even closer, before he lets his cheek rest on top of Jimin’s head once more. He closes his eyes, trying to memorize exactly how it feels with Jimin’s body pressed up against him, or the way Jimin’s hair tickles his face, all dry from the constant chemicals and box dye.
It’s quiet again. Jimin takes a deep breath.
“I never told you these things, did I?”
Shatters Jeongguk’s short-lived illusion of peace.
“Jimin...”
“I was never good to you. Even in the little things.”
He sounds a little out of it, like it’s not just Jeongguk he’s talking to.
“Hyung.” His voice shakes. Because he doesn’t want Jimin to believe such a thing. He doesn’t want to believe it himself. He can’t, no matter how much truth there might be to it. “You showed me. That’s fine. It’s fine. You don’t need to tell me anything.”
There’s a feeling. At the pit of his stomach. Something dancing around, twirling and pulling at his insides to get his attention, but all of it is on Jimin. Tunnel vision on him, like always.
“Jeongguk-ah?” It’s so soft, it makes Jeongguk shiver.
“Yes, my butterfly?” he whispers with a barely there smile, knows Jimin is smiling too. He might never admit it, but he loves it when Jeongguk calls him that.
“If you could turn back time…” He takes a moment. “Would you—would you still do it?”
It’s as vague of a question as it is a cry for something else. Jeongguk doesn’t even breathe before he says, “yes.”
“All of it?”
And Jeongguk can’t, for the life of him, imagine another reality in which he doesn’t—doesn’t meet Jimin, doesn’t do all the good and the bad and the rest, just to end up falling for him. To end up right here, on this night, to have their mingled warmth spread all over his skin, while they whisper their twisted confessions to each other the way only the two of them would understand.
“All of it,” he answers, gulps around something familiar that builds up in his throat.
“All of it.” He squeezes Jimin, feeling like
he never wants to let go.
“All of it,” and he says it a third time, because three used to be Jimin’s favorite number before thirteen became theirs.