Chapter 09

"Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect,
but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind."
- Thomas Jefferson

After having a silent dinner with his mother, Jungkook felt numb.

Not even numb. He just felt the gaping nothingness he left behind after shoving the guilty feeling towards his mother to the side.

He slowly made his way over the street, his hands dug deep into the pockets of his leather jacket against the cold. He didn't bother looking left or right. This neighborhood was deserted – not a place people liked to come.

But just as he was only a few steps away from the other side of the road, a black van turned around the corner with screeching tires, almost running Jungkook over if he hadn't leaped onto the sidewalk.

“Idiots!” he cursed under his breath and brushed the dirt off of his pants.

It never got to his mind how people could live carelessly like that. People like this, he thought, would never know how valuable their life was, risking it like that to seem cool to their friends. Jungkook was glad that he never got involved with people like this.

Still shaking his head, he continued his way to the closest bus stop. With his finger slowly running down the plan in the little cabin, he searched for the next bus that would bring him back to his dorm.

“20 minutes?” he mumbled to himself.

It was cold outside, every breath he took sending puffs of steam into the night. But there was no use. It was either waiting for a bus, or walking. He wasn't able to afford a taxi.

Jungkook let his body slump onto the bench in the little cabin and pulled his knees to his chest to warm himself up a little. Next, he dug out his phone and earphones, put them in and closed his eyes as the first notes of music reached his ears.

He sat like this for a while, completely motionless, until the song suddenly changed to his ringtone. His eyelids flicked open and he blinked against the bright light of his phones display.

Jimin.

“Hmh?” he hummed after answering the call, leaning his head back against the glass behind him.

“Jungkookie! Where are you?” his voice rang in Jungkook's ear. It seemed like he was somewhere crowded, since the background noise was really busy.

“Uhm, waiting for my bus” Jungkook answered quietly.

“Ah, do you remember this girl – ah, what was her name again? The one Tae dated a while back with the red hair? Ah, never mind, but we met her and are in this bar now. She's out with some friends. Come and join us!”

The way Jimin talked quickly and without pausing told Jungkook that he wasn't quite sober anymore. He sighed while rubbed the bridge of his nose and pondered a while. He actually didn't feel like going out – but what was there to lose?

“Okay” Jungkook replied expressionlessly.

Cheering broke through the speaker of his phone and Jimin gave him the address. Fortunately, it wasn't that far from where he was. It would only take him 10 minutes to walk there.

Heaving himself up, he started his way along the street. The moon shone bright from above, and, leaning his head back, Jungkook watched the stars in the clear night sky for a while.

When he was still living with his mother, he would come out here in the middle of the night. Down the street was a building Jungkook always used to sneak in at times like those, and took the steps up all the way to the roof top. He sat there for hours, watching the sky slowly turning from black, to blue, to pink. Until, finally, the night was over and there was nothing left to be afraid of.

The closer he got to the main road, the louder and more crowded his surroundings got. And the more crowded it got, the more the urge grew to turn around and go home instead of spending his night at a bar where a lot of people his age were mindlessly drinking their sorrows away.

As soon as he crossed the bar's threshold, the smell of alcohol hit him like a wall. Crinkling his nose, he started snaking through the crowd, his neck raking, looking for his friends.

It didn't take him necessarily long, though, since Taehyung and Jimin were probably the loudest and goofiest guests in the bar.

Without noticing, a smile crept on Jungkook's lips, as he watched Taehyung dancing on the counter. Jimin was cheering for his friend, clapping as the other boy tried his best to make the people around them laugh. Typically Taehyung.

Then, he suddenly stopped his parade, as his eyes found Jungkook in the crowd. He pointed at him, causing Jimin to turn around and wave him over.

“Jeon Jungkook!” Jimin yelled, pushing through the crowd and wrapped his arms around Jungkook from behind.

In just a split second, Jungkook's heart started to warm up again. A teeth-showing smile stretched on his face and he grabbed onto Jimin as he jumped onto his back. He carried his friend over to Taehyung, who held his fist out for Jungkook to bump.

His friends never failed to cheer him up.

They eventually all sat down at a table. From the way Jungkook's friends' cheeks were all flushed he could tell that they already were a little tipsy. Taehyung waved at a pretty waitress around their age and called “Three shots of Vodka!”

Jungkook sighed on the inside. They wouldn't let him get away with just a couple bottles of beer. No. They were going to get him wasted. And, just thinking about the day, he didn't really mind.

It turned out that, even though Jungkook felt less stressed when being drunk, he was still terrible with people he didn't know.

He sat alone in a booth at the bar, his fingers fidgeting with yet another empty glass of alcohol. His eyes scanned the room, looking for his friends that abandoned him a while ago to dance with some girls. Jungkook wasn't mad though. If anything, he envied them for their at ease personalities.

As the waitress passed by, Jungkook raised his glass, signaling her for a refill. She gave him a dashing smile as she took the glass from him, but he didn't realize it because he was focused on the crowd again.

Just a moment later, he locked eyes with Jimin across the room, who smiled at him and, with staggering steps, made his way over.

“Jeon Jungkook!” he yelled over the music and grabbed tight to the table top to steady himself. “What are you doing here, glooming around by yourself?”

Jungkook shrugged and his lips twisted into a sad smile. “What? Should I be glooming around on the dance floor?”

He was surprised how slurred his words sounded in his own ears. Maybe he should cut down on the drinking now.

“Well, would be a start, wouldn't it?” Jimin gave back, just as the waitress arrived back at the table.

Jimin, who hadn't had himself under control as soon as he had a drop of alcohol in his system, eyed the girl up and down. Thus Jimin being a handsome, well-built young man and Jungkook being barely average-looking – at least that's what he thought of himself – it seemed like the waitress only had eyes for Jungkook.

She set the glass on the table, gave him another dashing smile – she even blushed when he tried to smile back this time – and whirled around quickly to leave to the next table.

Jimin eyed his friend curiously. A