Sehnsucht 52- interlude

Jungkook and Taehyung had been best friends since Jungkook had started to have tangible memories. For Him, there had not been a moment without Taehyung. He honestly thinks there’ll never be one.

They could not be more different people on the outside because Taehyung was warm, sociable, full of ideas and everyone loved him. While Jungkook instead was more taciturn, reserved and could interact with few people. Yet they shared the same fire, the same desire for adventures and only Jungkook was able to keep up with Taehyung. When they were kids these were the only differences that Jungkook could find. He did not think there were any other because Taehyung had a nose, eyes and a mouth like him. They were the same height (even though Jungkook insisted on being higher than his friend).

It was only when they started studying history in their first year of primary school that Jungkook began to realize that maybe it was not only that. The world was divided into number twos and zeroes and apparently there was a big, big, difference. Being number two was a good thing—being something else it was not. Jungkook couldn’t understand why. He tried to ask the teacher, but she replied harshly to him, saying that it was just so. "Being a number zero is wrong.” He still didn’t get it but the teacher's eyes made him realize that she would not answer any more questions and it was better if Jungkook behaved well.

He wasn’t satisfied with that even when the others were. So he decided to ask his mother, she knew everything. When he returned home after having left the backpack in his room, he went into the kitchen where his mother, like always, was waiting for him for his usual snack.

"Jungkookie dear, how was school?”

"Mum, what is a number zero?" Jungkook asked as he bit into the cake and waited patiently for his answer. But the answer did not come.

When he looked up he saw tears coming down her face. Taken by panic he ran to his mother and apologized even though he did not know why. It seemed right to do so. However, it looked like his apologies made her cry harder.

"Oh sweetheart is not your fault,” his mother reassured him as he took him in her arms.

Why had Jungkook instead felt like it was?

When he was seven, Taehyung came looking for him one afternoon of a day without school, to play together on the playground in front of their houses. Taehyung waited for him at the door under the watchful eye of his mother. Jungkook put on his shoes as fast as he could because he could not wait to go play, but his mother released him only after having made him a thousand recommendations.

The two ran laughing into the park after promising to Jungkook’s mother to come back in two hours. Instead of going to the swings or to play ball with the other children, Taehyung dragged him toward the trees at the edge of the park.

Jungkook was accustomed to the strange ideas of Taehyung, they were often synonymous with adventure and laughter but when Taehyung sat under a tree and used his jacket as a cape, he didn’t know what to think. He then proceeded in spitting on his hand and ordered Jungkook to do the same with his. Jungkook was still confused but followed the instructions nonetheless. But when Taehyung took his hand and squeezed it, he could not help letting out a disgusted groan.

"I promise that we will be friends forever. Till death!" Taehyung shouted.

“Bleh, Taehyung!" Jungkook scolded him. When his friend finally released his hand, he ran quickly to the fountain to wash his hands, despite the protests of Taehyung who insisted that for the oath to work both of them had to abstain from washing their hands for a month.

"It is a solemn pact! I read it in a book! So no one will ever divide us, "Jungkook glared at him.

Jungkook years later discovered that day Taehyung’s parents had made the speech on numbers two and numbers zeroes.

Jungkook was twelve years old when he began to understand.

At that age, the girls and the boys began to be interesting. But not for Taehyung. Taehyung was still the child who dragged Jungkook in new adventures although now they didn’t climb trees anymore. His best friend was not interested in the others in any way different from before. He was, like always, full of energy; cheerful and extremely kind to everyone.

When Jungkook told him that he found a girl in their class pretty, his best friend smiled but didn't say anything.

"What do you think about her? Isn’t she cute?”

"I guess she is,” Taehyung said, shrugging.

"That's all?" Jungkook asked, doubtful.

"Yes? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter to me. She is not my soulmate,” he concluded. Jungkook felt short of breath and Taehyung realized he had said the wrong thing because of that day he bought him two cones of ice cream.

Jungkook had never wanted to think about numbers and status. He had never wanted to think about how he and his best friend were different.

After that day, however, he wasn’t able to stay oblivious anymore. He had thought of asking the girl out, but after that conversation, he decided otherwise.
Why does Taehyung have a soulmate somewhere and he does not? One day Taehyung would stop looking at him with affection and adoration, and Jungkook would be left behind. The thought of not having his friend hurt a lot. Taehyung was not his.

In retrospect, Jungkook wondered if his best friend hadn’t been his first love.

Jungkook was hiding in his closet. He didn’t even remember how he got in there, he only knew that it was a safe place, Taehyung used to hide in there during their sleepovers and the sky was thundering. Jungkook had to go and rescue him every time and those nights he would let him hug him to sleep.

However, he was the one hiding now. He was aware someone was sobbing but he didn’t realize it was coming from him. Jungkook was no longer there. He was somewhere and he pretended that his world was another.

I didn’t even know him, he told himself. He barely remembered his name. And when Jungkook that morning had seen the empty desk, he didn’t think of anything. No one had.

It was just an empty desk after all.

Later the sad news of the suicide spread throughout the school. That classmate—of which Jungkook barely remembered the name—had committed suicide that morning before going to school, throwing himself from his bedroom window on the fifth floor.

That guy was a number zero.

At school, however, no one had cried and the teachers didn’t comment. Who would feel sorry for a barren branch? Nature was taking charge and getting rid of yet another nullity.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to remember the boy's face. He had looked normal, he had seen him smile.

"Jungkook!" Jungkook was not there. Jungkook was in another place.

It was Taehyung. He was in the house, he probably entered through the back door. He had come to him as soon as it became clear that Jungkook wasn’t anywhere on the school grounds.

"Kookie, Kookie.” Taehyung got in the closet next to him even though they were uncomfortable and their elbows kept crashing. He unravelled the hands of Jungkook that were entwined in his hair and pulled him in his arms.

"I’m here. I'll be forever here by your side. Didn’t I promise you? Till death!”

From that day on, Taehyung took to the habit of taking his hand when he felt that Jungkook was anxious or sad. He did not care that the gesture was reserved for soulmates; for him, it was more important that Jungkook knew he was there.

Jungkook then learned another thing: He was a number zero and Taehyung a number two. His friend had a soul mate and he wasn’t the one. There were no bridges that could rejoin the disparity in their destinies. And even if he was loved, it wouldn’t change the state of things.

Even if Taehyung would have noticed his feelings, they had no future. But as friends, they would have a forever. Jungkook could work with that.

The first time Jungkook really looked at someone who wasn’t his best friend was when he was mesmerized by the performance of a student in high school. Jungkook was pretty sure it was a number two, but that didn’t prevent him from admiring the beauty of his movements, from remaining enchanted by his smiles.

A few months later when he started high school, Jungkook learned that the boy's name was Park Jimin. So if his gaze had dwelt on him when he saw him pass through the halls and if he had gone to watch him training, it was all coincidental. Jungkook admired his talent, not the senior himself.

Besides, Park Jimin was with someone else so his crush (that he didn’t have) was hopeless.

It had been a shock to finding out the truth.

"Doesn’t he have a backbone?" Jungkook exclaimed angrily. He had seen Park Jimin waiting for a whole hour for his number two to end the training and go home together, only to see the number two decline his offer.

"Taehyung, promise me you'll hit me if I become like him.”

His best friend looked up from his notebook. For once they were in the library for a research the history professor had given them for the week.

"Aren’t you being a bit too harsh? I don’t know, is there no sympathy between numbers zeros or something?”

"Sympathy? As you may have some when he behaves like that!” Taehyung shook his head.

Jungkook didn’t understand. Park Jimin was brilliant. Park Jimin had everything. Yet he had fallen so low that you could not see the bottom. It was annoying to see how despite everything he still loved so much.

Jungkook couldn’t stand the sight of it.

He could not bear to see something so beautiful, ruined.

Looking at Park Jimin, Jungkook vowed to never fall in love.

Jung Hoseok could only be the soul mate of Taehyung. Jungkook had waited for this moment since he was twelve and he realized he might have feelings towards his best friend. He had long-shelved those feelings, though. There hadn’t been jealousy or animosity towards the future soulmate of his best friend for years now. After all, who would want a forever with someone who blows the flute with his nose as a hobby?

Hoseok had a beautiful smile, was lively and tended to raise his voice every time he was excited—which happened often. When didn't he resolve in screaming?

When Hoseok entered the room, Taehyung lit up like a Christmas tree.

Jungkook smiled. Taehyung was in very good hands.

A weight that he didn’t know he had was lifted from his shoulders. Jungkook had finally let it go.

Perhaps it was the new college, the fact that he wasn’t always and at all hours with his best friend and that he was then forced to make new friends.

Somehow he found himself in a relationship after years he schemed to avoid all of them. She is a number zero too, she can understand, he told himself. However she did not, and when the opportunity presented itself, she let herself being dragged into an arranged marriage.

"Loving you made me realize how much I was actually lonely, Jungkook.”

Something seemed to freeze permanently within him. “That…how dare she!" said an angry Taehyung when Jungkook told him everything. But part of Jungkook believed she was right, maybe he really wasn’t able to love properly (even though he had felt so sure to be so in love with her)
and it was better if didn’t try to do so.

Yet he felt consumed, the weight of loneliness was like ice water dragging him to the bottom of the abyss, deeper and deeper.

Was it a good thing, right? After all, he had seen what love did to number zeroes. It made them fly from the windows; made them go mad.

Park Jimin who waited an hour in the cold, for the number two who was not his, would never be his.

Jungkook wanted to cry but this time there were no closets to hide.

In that dark hour, he knew he had to succumb or find a reason to live. In his desperation, he then clung to the only certainty in his life, the only thing that would never change no matter how many tears he would shed: being a number zero.

From that moment on, it would his reason and his pride.