Blue Collar Cuffin' - Jikook

Gold Rush

Jungkook raced down the Seoul streets, his hands shaking, his heart hammering in his chest. He wasn't even sure where he was going after having lost sight of the little yellow car miles back. Now it was just blindly following the direction his heart was pulling him: it was a visceral thing, tugging at him as if it were tearing his bones out of his body, pulling and pulling and pulling, and Jungkook completely surrendered himself to it.

He couldn't tell how fast he was driving, only that the world around him was a blur of tall buildings, taxis, and city streets. He passed the park (as in park: trees and not Park:Jimin) Jimin and he had their first real date in and something inside him screamed at the sight. Rage like he had never felt before tore through him and a sob croaked out of his throat.

The park was now full of so many things. A place where his heart accepted Jimin. A place where he had played with his dad back when he was younger. And a place where the Jieun's bars loomed in the distance like a shadow.

Jieun. Jungkook could barely hear as blood pounded in his ears. He swiveled the car, pushing further on the gas as he drove away from the park, the small benches and full trees nothing more than tiny figures in the distance behind him.

There was nothing to describe the pain that shot through Jungkook's body at the thought of her. Of her sharp smile, of her empty, cold, grey eyes, of her standing at his doorway days ago, arms crossed, silver hair falling over her bare shoulders, as she asked if Jungkook was injured badly. If he was hurt. If there's something he needs. As if she hadn't hurt him enough herself. Not physically, never physically, but the psychological warfare she was playing cut just as deep.

Jungkook gagged as the memory of whatever acid blue liqueur she always made him drink before their nights out and wondered if maybe it was a mercy to block out them out with alcohol.

Mercy, that's what Jungkook thought he was giving Jieun by giving into his guilt. She had lost her mom to suicide and that is unimaginable and horrible and life shattering, but Jungkook had lost someone too. He had lost his dad years before the car crash took him out; he had lost him when his dad decided to gamble his son's life away. The old man with kind eyes and strong hands that could lift and spin Jungkook up in the air crumbled away into nothing but a black shadow who's strong hands shook and kind eyes shadowed.

They were both children of grief and Jungkook was not alone to blame. He never was and never would he be again. People couldn't keep getting hurt because of her, but neither could he continue to shoulder her grief for her.

Jungkook needed to get to Jimin. He needed to find him and tell him that he loved him and that he was going to fight Jieun for freedom from her leashes of unprocessed trauma. He wanted to ask Jimin to help him, that he couldn't shield him nor would he want to protect Jimin when he knew the beautiful boy was stronger than the both of them and could fully protect himself. But Jimin was calm and he was kind and he saw the good in people: he wanted to ask Jimin to help him find a way to help Jieun; help her find a way to let go of her grief.

Have her let go of him.

Jungkook took another turn, that tug in his chest like a rope as Yoongi's car swerved over onto a long, steel, bridge.

There was also the matter of Namjoon, but Jungkook wasn't sure what to make of it. Of the letters. But there was something in the way Namjoon had grabbed Jimin's arm as Jimin got into the car that didn't sit well with him - or the fact that Jimin was completely under the impression that Jungkook had sent those letters. Which was offensive in and of itself.

The bridge stemmed far and soon the city walls that had always brought Jungkook comfort, many buildings which he himself had worked on, began to fade behind him. The sky was closing in, dark hues of grey covering the sun and a fog was pooling around the base of the water underneath the bridge. Jungkook shivered, the hair on the back of his neck starting to stand as the world went completely and utterly silent. Like the earth itself was holding it's breathe - waiting.

Then, like a bullet setting of a race, Jungkook heard the blaring of a police siren. Not one, not two, but a choir of high pitched whines screaming around him as he drove into the fog at the base of the bridge. Slowing down, Jungkook turned his car into the side of the bridge and parked, looking behind him, fully expecting a cop car on his tail, only to see an empty steel road staring back at him.

Somewhere through the fog, he could hear a voice, male, shouting as something hit the ground with a thud.

Jungkook furrowed his brows, why did everything sound so muddy? Like there were ears muffled muffling the sound. Slowly, as if he were watching himself, he got out of the car and walked deeper into the fog. First, a couple steps, the sound of walkie talkie buzzes whispering around him. Then, he picked up the pace, the sound of an engine and a cloud of smoke emerging in the distance, and lastly, he broke into a full sprint.

He could feel someone grab his arm as he ran, yelling at him to stay back, but Jungkook shrugged off the man in the dark blue suit and shiny medal badge. The ground felt hard underneath him as he pounded his feet into it, gasping for air, until he collided with a small body with silver hair.

Delicate little hands were digging their nails into his arms, "Jungkook, Jungkook, please, look at me. I didn't mean for this, I never meant for this. It wasn't part of the plan, you have to believe me."

Jungkook shrugged the girl off, the sound like an echo against the screaming in his head, but he didn't move. Couldn't move, couldn't manage to command a single muscle in his body as he stared at a yellow car, small and sleek, flipped over upside down at the edge of a hill, a couple feet off of the main road.

There was smoke all around it, a tree having completely impaled the back seat and back set of wheels. The front door near the trees was crushed inward and the windows shattered so drastically that the glass glistened around the car like snow. There was no sound, not even that of his heart beat, when Jungkook took in the pool of blood seeping out of the front windows of the upside down car as police and medical workers worked to grab an unmoving body out of its seat.

_________
A/N:
I was meaning to write this chapter for forever but somehow it never came out right. Then, Christmas Eve, I was getting ready and Gold Rush came on off of Taylor Swift's Evermore, and I just dropped everything, sat down, and this chapter came out of me.

It's funny how sometimes you just have to wait for the chapter to come to you.

Love you guys, we're in the home stretch.

- Violette