YOUTH. | JK | COMPLETE

bail

He stops dead in his tracks when he sees Seokjin. His heart fills with a desperation, a uninhibited hope. Seokjin came to get him out of this place. Seokjin doesn't hate him as much as the rest of the world does. Seokjin is a true friend, after all.

The officer nudges him forward, nudge meaning he fully shoves Jeongguk forward, and Seokjin steps back, his handsome features twisting into an expression of distaste, revulsion. Whatever hope Jeongguk had conjured up from the ruins of his heart disintegrates. Okay, maybe Seokjin does hate him to the same degree. Maybe their friendship wasn't as unconditional as Jeongguk momentarily thought. Maybe he was right not to tell him what he really is. "Get out of here, will you? My tolerance is wearing thin." The officer says, hand on the gun at his belt, Jeongguk's blood running cold. If the treatment he had been given before was considered tolerance, he doesn't even want to fathom what intolerance looks like.

Hesitantly and wordlessly, Jeongguk follows Seokjin out the door, and the February air is crisp, but not as cold as Jeongguk feels on the inside. He pulls open the passenger side door and gets into the car, the silence thicker than blood. Seokjin doesn't drive, doesn't even put the key into the ignition yet. He just sits there, eyes anywhere but on Jeongguk, who's eyes are on him. He wants Seokjin to look up at him, wants him to see all the burning questions in his eyes. But after a few minutes, Seokjin is still as stubborn as always, and although Jeongguk's voice is unstable and uncertain and laced with a nervous tremor, he is forced to speak.

"Why?" He chokes out, vocal chords only complying enough for the single syllable. Seokjin sighs, shaking his head. "Why" could mean a lot of things in the context of their situation, and Jeongguk wants to know all of them.

"I should be asking you the same question." Seokjin replies, voice so sharp and dripping with contempt that Jeongguk flinches.

"Seokjin, I apologize. From the bottom of my heart, I truly am sorry." Jeongguk blurts out, and he truly is. Sorry for not telling him that he's a Wanderer, sorry for being a Wanderer, just...sorry.

"It's not okay, Jeongguk!" Seokjin suddenly shouts, causing Jeongguk to flinch once more, tears prickling behind his eyes.

"Seokjin, I—"

"How old are you?" Seokjin interrupts him in a soft voice now, meeting his eyes for the first time, and Jeongguk is surprised to see a reflection of himself in Seokjin's own watery eyes. "How old are you, huh?" Seokjin asks, voice cracking. Jeongguk's lips feel like cotton as he utters out the number.

"Two hundred and twelve." He murmurs in defeat. Seokjin laughs, but there is no humor in it in the slightest. It scares Jeongguk, more than when he had multiple guns being aimed between his eyes. This isn't the Seokjin he knows and loves.

"You know, I always thought it was odd. Thought you were odd. The way you speak, and the way you act. I always just thought you had horrendous social skills and old fashioned habits. I never thought you actually were old. You had me fooled. And I bet you just enjoyed that, didn't you? Manipulating me into hiring you, into befriending you?" He says, and Jeongguk feels the tears in his eyes escape and flow down his cheeks. "Or is it even the real you I'm friends with? The person who I let into my life?"

"Seokjin, please! You reacting this way is precisely why I did not tell you! The sole person who found out about what I am is dying in the hospital right now, all because of me! Can't you see? I was trying to protect you, you don't understand!" Jeongguk explains, holding back his sobs, desperately trying to keep it together.

"No, you don't understand! You may be a Wanderer. You may be an unnatural, unloveable freak, and that's disgusting in itself. But what's even more repulsive is that you're a liar. A dirty, manipulative liar." Seokjin spits, violently shoving the key into the ignition and backing out of the police station parking lot as Jeongguk covers his mouth with his hands to muffle his sobs. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Everything hurts. "You were my best friend, Jeongguk! I trusted you with everything in me, and now—now I can't trust you at all. I can't, because you kept the biggest part of yourself from me. How can I believe anything else you've ever told me if the foundation of our friendship is lies?" He says, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know, I'm disgusting and I don't deserve you as a friend. I don't deserve you, or Namjoon, or any of the guys, and I especially don't deserve Hoseok, bless his soul. The second I get out of this car you'll never have to lay eyes on me again, I promise you. I swear. I don't know why you came and bailed me out of jail, but that is the last kindness you'll ever have to do for me, and for it I am quite grateful." Jeongguk rambles through his tears, thoughts a jumbled mess of hurt and pain and desperation.

"Don't thank me." Seokjin says, pulling into the familiar parking lot.

"What?"

"For one, I don't want your gratitude. For another—thank Hoseok. He's awake, and he's asking for you."

lol here's some more pain for y'all i apologize but i hope you enjoy this update and think a liiittle higher of seokjin than you did after last chapter—he's not a bad person, he just feels lied to.

edited 05/08/20