Lonely Hearts Club

Part 6

It's quick – he is fast, expert, so fast. Quick, rapidfire pricks into her skin, she flinches a little at first but quickly adjusts to the feeling. Jungkook stops, his thumb brushes over her wrist.

"All good?"

She just nods and he continues, for a moment the only sound is the sound of him breathing, his eyes narrowed in focus.

"So what does it mean, then?" Jungkook asks gruffly. "The wren bird?"

Wren glances over at him, he isn't looking at her, and she takes a moment to drink him in. The careful, concentrated crease in his brows. The earrings that dot his earlobes, the broadness of his chest as he carefully, precisely tattoos her. There's something about him that she trusts.

"It's my name." She murmurs. "Wren."

"Ah, that's your name?" Jungkook glances up, his eyes meet hers. "It's pretty."

She doesn't respond immediately, keeping her eyes on him.

"You weren't surprised," She says quietly. The pain comes in small pricks but it fades quickly, she stares up at the ceiling and breathes in deeply. Jungkook hums softly under his breath.

"About what?"

"The fact that I'm going to get Separated."

Jungkook's mouth twists and he sighs. "Mmhm. You're not the first. I've met people like you before. But no barcode at all, that's rare." He shifts a little in place. "How old were you then, when you were contracted to be Separated? Must've been young, to not have a barcode at all..."

She stays still, perfectly still. A few more pricks to her skin and her eyes almost fill with tears but she grits her teeth.

"Eight."

A heaviness falls between them. Jungkook's hand hovers and he lets out a tiny sigh. "I'm sorry." Jungkook says finally.

"Nothing you can do about it."

"Nothing any of us can do about it, I suppose."

They fall quiet, Jungkook's gaze intent as he continues to press the needle into her skin.

"So. How did you find me then?"

"Someone I... someone I knew mentioned you a few years ago. Said he was looking for you, he got a tattoo from you on his arm."

Jungkook smiles at this, his lips turning up into a smirk. "Huh, really? Does it still look good?"

Wren wavers, a shuddering breath falls out between her lips before she can stop it.

"It did."

Jungkook pauses. He doesn't look at her, but she can see his hands tremble.

"I see."

"He... he mentioned something about a rebel organization. Something about trying to find you to learn more about it. That was before he, before-"

"Is that why you're here?"

Jungkook's voice hardens. His face is perfectly still, dangerously still, and a beat of silence passes between them.

"No," Wren whispers. "I'm here because..." Her voice trails off. She has so many thoughts, so many emotions, all jumbled and tangled and she doesn't know how to feel anymore. Why she's here. "Because I miss him."

"He's dead?"

Wren feels an acute, awful twist in her chest and nods.

She misses Yoongi so much.

Jungkook's eyes meet hers and she can see it dancing over his features, inner conflict about what to say, how much to share of himself. He's so distrusting, so guarded, and it feels familiar to her. She must pass whatever test he's running through his mind because he sighs again, a few more pricks to her skin and then he speaks, so quietly that she almost can't hear the words he's saying.

"I don't know who he was," He says quietly. "But I'm not surprised to hear about that. Anyone who gets caught in association with my brother and his people face consequences."

Wren glances over at him, his face is carefully masked but she doesn't miss the flash in his eyes and the way his jaw trembles.

"Your brother?"

"Mm." Jungkook nods. "Big brother. Leader of the fuckin' rebel organization. Last I heard, the government was actually trying to hunt them down." He barks out a humourless laugh. "I have nothing to do with them. Not anymore, anyway."

Wren feels a pang in her chest, something inside of her wavers.

"Why not?"

"Because my brother..." Jungkook's voice trails off. "He's a good guy, he just... he sees the world in black and white. Not too dissimilar to the people who implemented this whole Life system and Separation system in the first place. They see the world one way, that it needs to be perfected, categorized, organized... and my brother thinks that chaos is natural. That there is no such thing as the perfect life." A muscle in Jungkook's jaw twitches. "The world isn't that simple though. Bad people do fucked up things. Good people do fucked up things. You know?"

Wren is quiet, absorbing his words. "Your brother believes in something, at least."

"Isn't it better to believe in nothing, if what you're believing in is doomed to fail?" Jungkook asks, his voice slanting up harshly.

Wren looks over at him. His eyes are pricked with emotion, glassy with tears and then he snaps his head back down, emotions teeming at the surface.

Another beat of quiet passes between them.

"Maybe," Wren whispers. "But I know what it feels like to believe in nothing. And I can't imagine there being any better alternative."

Jungkook is quiet, he picks up the needle again and she feels it pressing into her skin.

"What if the alternative is losing someone you love?"

A flash of Yoongi, of her mother, of the feeling of her body crooked into a furnace that is cold and dusty and dark.

"That's an alternative I'm pretty familiar with."

The words come out more bitterly than she had intended. Jungkook sighs.

"You and I both, then."

Wren's eyes snap up, to Jungkook who is staring straight at her with a pained expression written on his face. He gazes down at her, keeps rhythmically pressing the ink into her skin.

He lets out a sigh. "I was once by my brother's side you know. Believed in everything he believed, because he was my brother and whatever he said... that was it, you know? Endgame. I would've done anything for him.

When he wanted to rebel, to fight back, I was right there with him. I believed in it. How could I not? I never had a father, it was always me and my brother, protecting our Mum, us against the entire God damn world."

Jungkook's voice breaks apart, he swallows.

"We were finding all of this shit out about what the government and their PODs were doing, what they were experimenting on. Using Separation as a weapon, experimenting with other ways to use Life and take Life. How to control and use the minds and souls that had been Separated." Jungkook's lips twist up, his face darkens. "No matter how close we got, how dangerous it all was, hyung just kept... he just kept going. He thought he was fucking invincible."

Wren is quiet, knowing the feeling of standing by someone's side while they burned fierce and bright and hot, unstoppable to a fault. Ignited by someting powerful, unmovable - belief. She looks at Jungkook's face, hears the sudden thickness in his words and remembers what Yoongi's body looked like under the sheet, the filling of fear and powerlessness that had consumed her when she had seen it.

"He died, didn't he?"

Jungkook is silent.

"No," He says slowly. "My mother did. She was Separated. Right in front of us. They removed her mind and her soul and took her catatonic body with them. I thought they were going to kill me and my brother too. I wanted them to kill us. But they didn't. They left us."