I LOST A FRIEND
FINNEAS
I lost a friend
Like keys in a sofa
Like a wallet in the backseat
Like ice in the summer heat
I lost a friend
Like sleep on a red-eye
Like money on a bad bet
Like time worrying about
Every bad thing that hasn't happened yet
I know I'll be alright, but I'm not tonight
I'll be lying awake counting all the mistakes I've made
I'd apologize if I thought it might make a difference
Or make you listen
I'd apologise if it was black and white
But life is different
Just try to listen to me now
Jeongguk is cold as he sits in the jail cell. The cold metal bench that's beneath him and the cold metal bars that press against his back and the cold metal handcuffs that dig into his raw skin. He's not just externally cold, though. His heart feels empty, numb. The look on Seokjin's face is permanently burned into his memory, the ghost of Haneul's hands pushing him away still on his skin. Hoseok's pale body in the hospital bed imprinted into the backs of his eyelids. The acrid taste of vomit lingering on his tongue, the video of Hoseok's body jerking violently and dropping to the ground churning his stomach and making him feel the urge to vomit more. The pool of blood around Hoseok's limp body staining the very edges of Jeonngguk's subconscious.
He's tired, not physically, but emotionally exhausted. Jeongguk has lost everyone he cares about in the span of a few hours, and the one person left who cares about him is dying because of him. He wonders if living this long was worth anything at all, if all he did was hurt people with what he was. He doesn't know how long he's been in the cell, staring at the raw skin of his wrists. When the officers handcuffed him, he didn't try to struggle, but they set the cuffs too tight, and didn't take them off even when he was alone in a cell. He knew this was because they considered him dangerous, though he didn't know what dangerous activity he had done other than be born two hundred years ago and live without someone who is destined to love him.
Guilt seeps through the flimsy walls of his pity party the second that thought passes through his mind. That's not true, at least, the last part isn't. How could he have gotten so caught up in self loathing that he could forget about Jimin? Jimin, and his bright smile and meaningful words and gentle touch. Jimin, with his soft kisses and fluffy hair and sparkling eyes as fresh in Jeongguk's mind as if he saw them yesterday, not a dozen decades ago. Jimin, whose pretty lips were stained ruby red as he coughed up blood and died. Jeongguk shivers, suddenly even colder than before. The vivid crimson only reminds him of the bloody puddle sourced by Hoseok's body.
Jeongguk sighs, leaning his head back against the bars. He's tired, and his head aches from thinking, but he keeps his eyes wide open; he fears what his dreams will bring him more than he fears his thoughts. He should have known better than to try to make friends. Someone like him doesn't deserve friends; they'll only get hurt.
"Wanderer. You alive in there?" The gruff voice of a police officer penetrates his thoughts, and he looks down from the ceiling at the officer's hateful eyes and set jaw. Yes, but I wish I wasn't, he's tempted to answer, but instead, he sits up straight and manages his best, most well-behaved smile.
"Yes, sir." Jeongguk replies, his teeth gritted in his smile. The amount of choice words he has for this officer, this ruthless, apathetic officer who insisted on bringing him here for "questioning" only to lock him up and not speak a word to him, to deny him his one phone call (though Jeongguk doesn't know who he'd call if he had the chance), is uncountable. But he doesn't want to know what kind of trouble he'd be in if he said even the kindest out of the expletives, so he bites his tongue and puts on his best act.
"Should've known you'd be. Unfortunately. Well, someone's bailing you out. Don't know who in their right mind would want to let something like you out, but money can work wonders, can't it, Wanderer?" The officer practically hisses as he unlocks the door, walking over to a positively stupefied Jeongguk. Who would come to get him out of here? He is shocked out of his stupor when the officer takes care to make sure the metal cuffs chafe against his red and ravaged skin one last time before removing them. Stumbling to his feet as he rubs his wrists tenderly, he follows the officer out of the back of the police station where they keep prisoners and to the front.
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