That night we all quietly shuffle off to bed, and fall asleep quickly. Sitting alone in my room, contemplating the request and the self-reflection of Yoongi’s lyrics, I decide to see if Jungkook is still awake. I wonder if anyone gave him any blankets for the night, so I grab a couple from the closet and step quietly through the hallway so as to not wake anyone who was already being gripped by the forgiving emptiness of sleep.

    Jungkook is lying on the couch with his eyes closed, but as soon as I set foot in the living room he opens them and sits up.

    “I just uh… wasn’t sure if you had any blankets.” I say, nervously scratching my neck for some reason. Jungkook just looks down at the blanket draped over him, and I mentally curse myself for not realizing that Jin would have of course taken care of him.

    “Well, I’ll go back to my room now. Sorry for disturbing you.” I smile politely, then turn to awkwardly head down the hallway, completely unsure now why I had initiated that uncomfortable exchange.

    “Wait,” Jungkook says behind me. He doesn’t say it as a command, nor sharply like he was afraid of my leaving. He speaks quietly, letting the word hang in the air almost as a request, an invitation to linger in the living room a little longer. I turn back, looking at the young man, his innocent eyes hidden under a defensive wall of false stoicism. How brave and alone he has been all this time. I decide then that it would be my job to make sure Jungkook would never feel alone again.

    I join him on the couch, and we sit there in silence for several long minutes. In the end, we start telling each other stories. Not the painful stories of the past six months, but stories from our childhood. I tell him a story of the time I tricked my little brother into skiing down a hill way too steep for him, and how even though he nearly got sent to the hospital, he got his first girlfriend out of the whole fiasco. Jungkook tells me about a time he went on a vacation with his family, and he and his older brother convinced their parents they were staying back at the hotel, but really went to a party they had been invited to by some of the locals, and there Jungkook had his first kiss with a girl.

    We tell stories like that for hours, simple things, small events that seemed so important at the time. We talk about our favorite games to play with our friends, and the inside jokes we had with our siblings. We talk about family recipes and the way everyone has that one aunt that is probably certifiably crazy.

    We talk until I can feel my eyelids getting heavier and heavier, and Jungkook’s head starts to lean on my shoulder. Just before sleep takes us, I hear Jungkook mumbling,

    “I lost my older brother… and you lost your little brother… maybe we were meant to meet each other-” Jungkook’s thought doesn’t seem finished, but I shush him, for some reason disliking where he is heading with the analogy.

    “Just go to sleep, Kookie…” I whisper, moments from sliding into dreamland.

    “Kookie… I like that.” He mumbles, just before we both give in and darkness envelopes our consciousness.

    We wake in the morning to the sounds of a thunderstorm viciously pounding on the roof of the house. My first instinct is to worry about the rain pouring in from the broken windows, but I quickly remember that Namjoon and Hoseok had luckily finished fixing and replacing the windows and the roof just last week. My second instinct is to wonder why I’m in the living room instead of my room, and my third is to jump off the couch in embarrassment when I realize that Jungkook and I are basically spooning.

    Jungkook wakes up, blinking his eyes and looking around. When he sees me standing next to the couch, avoiding eye contact and most definitely blushing brightly, he thankfully doesn’t say anything, and only comments on the weather.

    “Is that thunder?” He asks.

    “Yeah, it seems like it,” I mutter, still looking at anything but Jungkook.

    “Well it looks like we’re all stuck inside today, then.” He concludes.

    Finally my gaze has somewhere to land as Taehyung cheerily enters the room.

    “Good thing I have board games!” He winks, and I’m pretty sure I can hear Yoongi groaning from elsewhere in the house.

    Several weeks pass, and Jungkook has taken to sleeping in the study with me. I admit that it’s comforting to have someone else in the room while I sleep, and I think Jungkook feels the same way. Fortunately, (unfortunately..? No, definitely fortunately) there hasn’t been any repeats of the awkward situation from the first night when we fell asleep on the couch together. Jungkook and I slowly become closer to one another than we are to any of the others, though they are still very much like family. I can’t imagine losing any one of them, and I know the others all feel the same.

However, the same way that Hoseok has Taehyung, Namjoon has Jin, and Yoongi has songwriting, Jungkook and I have each other. I admit that I even though I was determined to be responsible for him, and make sure he never felt lonely, he has done more than the same for me.

And so the months pass.

Fall turns to winter, and slowly winter thaws into spring. In the desert the winter wasn’t quite as harsh as most places, seeing as how it rarely snowed, however the air was dry and cold and food became much harder to find throughout the dark months of the season. We were all overjoyed to see the vegetation and animal life begin to appear again, signaling that spring was near.

One warmer day, while Taehyung and Jungkook are outside chasing each other like idiots, and Hoseok and Namjoon are napping lazily on the couch, Yoongi, Jin and I sit at the table in the dining room discussing what to get on our next necessities run. Yoongi, Taehyung, and myself were the ones appointed to make this run. Namjoon had injured his foot while hunting, and Jin is insistent that he won’t be walking anywhere for the next few weeks. Namjoon pretends to be annoyed by Jin’s overprotectiveness and doting, but every once in a while I’d catch him smiling while Jin rants at his carelessness, or forces him to eat to have more energy, and I know that Namjoon is grateful to Jin for looking after him.

Once the most needed supplies are agreed upon, Yoongi grabs Taehyung and we all start gearing up for the venture into the town. Jungkook watches us curiously, piping up after a moment.

“Can I go with you this time?” He asks tentatively. The three of us look at each other, raising our eyebrows.

“I thought you didn’t want to go back to that town?” Yoongi questions delicately, recalling a few months ago, when we had invited Jungkook to come along on a raid, and he had declined, saying he had lived there for too long and there were too many bad memories there.

“I think I’m ready. I’ve had time to move on and heal, and besides, I know that town better than anybody. I’ll be helpful, I promise.” I wonder what happened to make him change his mind, but I decide that it’s none of my business. I look at Yoongi and Taehyung to see if they would be okay with Jungkook coming along, and Yoongi just shrugs, dropping his bag.

“That’s fine with me, I’ll just go back to bed,” he says, and disappears before we have a chance to say anything else.

“Alright, it looks like you’re coming.” I say, and Jungkook beams, eagerly donning the equipment we’d need for the trip.

    “Be safe!” Jin calls, and we wave, before sneaking past the sleeping Namjoon and Hoseok.

    “Don’t you want to say goodbye to Hoseok?” I ask Taehyung, as we shut the door behind us. Taehyung makes a face.

    “Nah, he’ll just try to come with us, and after he got jumpy last time and shot at a cat, which nearly got us caught by some of the afflicted, Namjoon says he’s not allowed to go on any more necessities runs for a while.”

    “Suit yourself, but you know he’s going to be intolerable once he realizes you left without saying anything. Jin’ll probably kill you.” I tease.

    “In that case I’d rather stay in town with the afflicted.” Taehyung laughs, and I roll my eyes. Jungkook chuckles, always amused at Taehyung’s antics.

    We head out, spending the better part of the day in the desert. We stop once or twice to refuel and rest, but we try to reach the town right around sunset. As the dusk settles in, we finally come upon the outskirts of the town. There are a few houses dotting the outer rim, mostly abandoned out in the desert, then we start to enter the suburbs. Roughly half of all the suburban neighborhoods are still inhabited by the afflicted. Namjoon and Taehyung had drawn up a map of which neighborhoods were most densely populated, and which ones were virtually deserted. Following Taehyung closely, we make it through the neighborhoods with not even the smallest sign of any afflicted.

    Finally the neighborhoods start to get denser, the buildings slowly get taller, and business start popping up. Gas stations, supermarkets, and other useful stores are within sight. Now we carefully stick to the shadows cast by streetlamps, and stay as hidden as possible. We slowly get close enough that a convenience store is just across the street, however it’s impossible to get there without running across a well lit road and risk being seen. Knowing we have to run as quickly as possible, Taehyung counts to three, and he and I nearly barrel across the road - except Jungkook holds us back.

    “Jungkook, what on earth -?” Taehyung begins to ask, but Jungkook points at the road, and we can just make out something we hadn’t noticed before. From behind the convenience store a person appears, dragging something with it. I have trouble holding back my dinner when I realize that he is dragging a person, and I can see that Taehyung is disturbed as well. Jungkook, however, just looks at us gravely.

    “I know somewhere better, more hidden. Come on, this way.” He says, and Taehyung and I exchange a glance before we follow him.

    We round a few corners, and cut through a couple parks with street lamps flickering ominously on the abandoned playgrounds, until we come across an old apartment building. The building is decrepit and falling apart, and it literally looks as though it’s within minutes of collapsing. Jungkook stops us at the entrance, glancing inside nervously.

    “Wait, this is ‘somewhere better?’” Taehyung questions, his voice laced with doubt.

    “Kookie, why did you bring us here?” I ask lightly. Finally deciding it’s safe enough, Jungkook doesn’t answer until he ushers us inside the building. As he runs around visually scanning the place, he starts to explain.

    “I know it doesn’t look like much, but there’s a gift shop -”

    “A gift shop?? Jungkook, we need supplies, not knick-knacks.” Taehyung scoffs.

    “Just listen! There’s a gift shop with a lot of food and snacks, and there are supplies here too.”

    “Where…?” Taehyung questions.

    “I’ll go get them.” Is Jungkook’s reply.

    “I’ll go with you,” I offer. Jungkook looks as though he’s about to stop me, but hesitates, and instead starts cautiously heading down the hallway.

    “I’ll see what I can glean from the gift shop.” Taehyung says to our backs.

After turning a few corners, I decide that I’m curious enough to start asking questions.

    “Jungkook, what is this place?”

    “It’s an old apartment complex. It was abandoned even before the world went to hell.”

    “So then… how do you know it so well?”

    “This...this is where I lived before I found you.”

    I fell silent, my suspicions confirmed. I shudder to think of Jungkook nestled here, all alone, surely frightened out of his mind. I wish I could go back in time and give that past Jungkook a hug, assure him that I was there for him, that he wasn’t alone.

    We finally reach what must have been his room, gauging by the sleeping bag crumpled up and gathering cobwebs in the corner. On the back wall of the room is a pile of exactly what we had come for - toilet paper, soap, salt, medicine, etc. I am impressed by how prepared Jungkook had been back when he was holing up here. We gather the necessary supplies, then turn to head back to Taehyung. However, something I hadn’t noticed along the wall next to the door catches my eye, and I stop for a moment. Was that...a second sleeping bag…?

    “Jiminie?” Jungkook says, waiting just outside the door.

    “Uh, coming.” I decide to ignore it. Perhaps Jungkook just had two sleeping bags, for some totally random and not meaningful reason at all…?

    As we start heading back to the gift shop, we can hear a scuffle, and something shattering. Jungkook and I share a look of panic, then race down the hall to make sure Taehyung is alright.

When we reach the small store, we can see Taehyung standing frozen behind the glass cashier counter with wide eyes. Facing away from us, looking toward the counter, is a girl. Her hair is long and black, and we can’t make out her face from our position. She seems to be holding a knife defensively, and Jungkook and I immediately tackle her before she can get to Taehyung.

    She is surprisingly swift and strong for her small size, and she wrestles me off of her quickly. I fall clumsily into a hat rack, and after throwing everything from sun hats to snapbacks to tacky fedoras off of me, I look up to see Jungkook still struggling with the girl. He manages to force her to drop the knife, clutching her arms to hold her still. I’m about to join in again to help him hold her down, when her dark hair swings out of her face, and the two of them make eye contact.

    “...Dahyun?” Jungkook sounds shocked, though much to my annoyance, he doesn’t step back, and only freezes, continuing to grip her wrists tightly.

    “I knew you’d come back,” comes the quiet, relieved, pain-laced response.

Hello all! I apologize for the long time it took to post another chapter. School has started, I've started a couple new jobs, and things are overall chaotic. But hopefully I'll be able to find time to update this more frequently~ 

Have a great weekend!! <3 Comment and subscribe! ^-^