Falling 🔞 || BTS Jungkook || JJK

Chapter One

The thing everyone needs to know about Park Jimin, is that he'll do everything for his friends before he'll do it for himself. Which is why he's begged you to make a midnight run to the 7/11 to buy red wine for the guests at his leaving party, even though he swore he'll never drink the stuff again because it tastes like rat poison.

'Malbec de las Terrazes...or Sangres Apis?' you text beneath the bleary grey buzz of the alcohol aisle.

'How the hell should I know?'

'Well how the hell should I know? I'm only drinking Cass.' And it isn't as if Taehyung and Hoseok and Seokjin and Yoongi and Namjoon prefer red wine either.

You rub your nose as you inhale in impatience, the sting of Shin Ramyeon and scorched rice mulling in the back of your throat as you wait while he's probably Googling it.

'Just get the most expensive one—it's the best. Probably.'

Thirty thousand won is hardly expensive, but you won't be the one puking it up tomorrow morning.

Bottles clink as you shove the Malbec back on the shelf, an adult version of some lullaby. Twinkle twinkle drunken little star. And you sigh like sleep isn't the worst idea in the world as the ahjumma behind the counter pushes aside the out-of-date gimbap she's scanning to ring up the bottle of Sangres Whatever with a too-cheerful smile.

"Jimminie's having a farewell party before his big solo debut in the U.S.," she coos, as if he's her own son—as if they all are. As if they've saved the nation in a previous life. "I bet you'll miss him while he's gone, won't you."

No one's supposed to know about the debut, but the gated community Jimin lives in is close-knit and full of other celebrities who are as eager to keep his secrets as he is to keep theirs. Including the secret of you.

You try a smile, starlit galaxies already clouding the outer reaches of your vision. Ten more minutes then you can drop off the wine and fall into Jimin's spare bed. The day after that, and the days after that when you'll miss him, could wait until you're ready to face them.

"It's only one month." One moon. You reply, juggling the bottle and your phone as you drag your black card from the reader. "I'm sure I can survi—"

Dust and midnight heat sweeps the bell above the door as it swings open, and you don't realise there's another person coming through it until your face is slamming into their chest.

"Ow—seriously?"

You immediately know it's Jungkook, from the blur of his tattoos as you both try to catch the ill-fated bottle; from his unique scent, the one that stains the air as he seems to disappear from every room you enter. From the gentle hold of his palm across your lower back, those gestures of his nature that you've only seen from afar, keeping you from the whiplash of the impact.

Still. That's the least of your problems.

"That...was the last bottle," you breathe, tipping your head back until the fluorescents burn through your heavy eyelids.

When he doesn't reply, despite the yells from the ahjumma telling you both not to move as she fills a bucket of water out back, your eyes slip open on the too-bright angles of his face, his jaw, his eyes. You don't know what you expect to see. An annoyed pout? Because his unusual choice of a white t-shirt is now bleeding red. Confusion? Because you're buying wine from a convenience store.

But it's nothing like that.

He's staring—past where your chests touch, where your own hands are inevitably anchored, where your sneakers are threaded between each other's—to the puddle of smashed glass and Sangres as if it's...you don't know what... But with the return of the ahjumma, it's all gone. Replaced with the glisten in his big round eyes and the smoulder of a bunny smile that's slapped all over billboards from Seoul to San Francisco.

His persona.

"Imo," he calls, finally recoiling his arm from around your waist, "let me clean it. I was in a rush, it's my fault."

He's right about that. The engine of his black Benz still hums on the curb out front, white headlights gleaming up the hill towards the summer flowerbeds of Jimin's apartment building. But why is he even in a rush when he's always late? If he'd at least replied to their group chat then he could have picked the wine up on his way and you could have already been asleep.

The ahjumma snatches the dustpan and brush out of his hands with a Jungkookie shouldn't this and a Jungkookie shouldn't that as he squats to clean the mess, and he sighs, looking at you for the first time in maybe ever. "No one was drinking it anyway."

Maybe. Maybe not. You don't know him well enough to know if he's trying to make a joke.

When you don't reply, he sighs at the shattered puddle again, and you realise how long his hair has grown since you met him—long enough to tie the top half up. A year. Almost two.

A month after Jimin saved your life.

Jungkook waits with the ahjumma until she finishes cleaning. Stretches as he stands. And it dawns on you that you've been waiting too. Waiting for... Not him. Not the wine. You don't care about the money. Not since the pay-out from the accident.

You shake your head. Doesn't matter. "I'm going back to Jimin's. Everyone's probably too drunk to notice there's no more wine anyway."

Jungkook stuffs his hands in the pockets of his black jeans with a nod. "You need a ride?"

"A...ride?" From Jeon Jungkook? Suddenly?