Jungkook woke up in their practice room lair, with a fast asleep Hoseok lying next to him on the couch, hands draping over Jungkook’s body. He pushed Hoseok onto the floor, stirring him awake. As Jungkook moved to sit up, his head was pulsating, the hangover catching up to him.  

Hoseok rubbed his eyes as he sat on the cold floor. “Not the type of morning I was dreaming of… waking up beside another man”, he muttered groggily and he dragged his body back onto the couch, lying stomach flat on top of the pillows.  

Jungkook got up to make space for him. He walked out to the bathroom, splashing a handful of water on his face to sober up.  

—

He recalls storming out of his house, with his mind consumed in a complete vacuum from the conversation he just overheard. His parents had both saw him at the door when Hoseok let out a tiny gasp behind him. Jungkook paused outside the giant metal gates of his house. Waiting.  

But the voice that came was not what he waited for. “Jungkook!”, shouted Hoseok.  

Jungkook clenches his jaws, deeply inhales and closes his eyes out of torment. When his eyes fluttered opened again, he stalks off towards nowhere.  

“Hey, wait for me!”

They ended up in a posh club in town. Jungkook downing shots after shots, partying harder than he usually would. He entertained almost every single girl who approached him. Luring them in, taking what he needed from them, be it attention or affection, and then throwing them away.  

“Jungkook!”, a girl’s shrill voice pierced through the music as she landed herself next to him on the sofa he was resting on. Was she the third one tonight? Or the fourth? He was sure he had lost count.  

Jungkook doesn’t recognise her, “You know me?”

“Of course I know you, the famous Jeon Jungkook”, she laughed.  

“At least you know me…”, his smile at her, although drunken, would have made every heart in that place flutter.  

Hoseok who had been watching him worriedly the whole night decided that this was enough; Jungkook was either way too drunk or on the verge of losing his mind.  

“That’s enough for tonight Jungkook, let’s go”, he demanded as he dragged his friend away from the woman still clinging onto him.  

“Where are we going? I just found someone who knows me!”  

“I know you too buddy! Come on, let’s go!”, Hoseok yelled at a struggling and staggering Jungkook.

“Heyyy Hoseokkkk, get me another shot… I want one more…”, Jungkook was whining like a spoilt kid.

“Alright, ok ok, I’ll get you everything you want, let’s just get out of here first.”, Hoseok tried to pacify him while taking his uncontrollable friend back to the school lair.  

—

Jungkook stared into the mirror at himself for a long time, he looked at himself up and down a few times. What should he do now? Since his mind was no longer working, he’ll let his heart dictate – his heart which must already have started to decay.  

—

A few days have passed since you had the conversation with Jungkook at the bus stop near Yunsu’s place. He never came to find you again. Well, to be fair, you did tell him to leave you alone and never retracted it. For the past few days, you couldn’t stop thinking about what he said.  

It was true that you could feel someone’s pain, but that does not always mean you understood the meaning of it all. You always thought your condition allowed yourself to stand in someone else’s shoes when it came to the hurtful things in life. But it was far from it.  

Even if you know how it felt like, you would still never truly know what those feelings mean to that person.  

—

Hoseok walked into the book store and spotted you at the counter in your daze.  

“Y/N”, he solemnly approached you.  

You jumped up from behind the counter. “What are you doing here?”, you asked cautiously, reminiscing the last time he came to find you here to satisfy his ulterior motives.  

He frowned in response to your tone, choosing to ignore your hostility. “I haven’t been able to contact Jungkook for quite a few days. Just came to check if he appeared around here? Although the chances are pretty low… but I have tried looking everywhere”, he murmured listlessly.  

“You guys fought?”, you asked.  

He looked up in slight irritation. “We did… that night after you left his birthday party. Not this time though. So, I guess you haven’t seen him either?”

You shook your head and he nodded, turning towards the door. He walked a few steps away but then he turned around, marching back towards you again.  

Staring closely into your eyes, he decided to tell you, “Something happened to him. He’s definitely not alright. He turned off his phone for the past three days and I haven’t seen him around in school or anywhere which we would usually go.”

Concern started to grow within you as well, “Maybe he’s just at home? Have you checked?”

“That’s the last place he would be… I was there with him when it happened… at his house… he won’t be going back there any time soon.”  

So… something happened to him at home?  

“Whether you still wish to believe me this time, that’s up to you. As much as I hate to admit it, between the two of us now, he might want to see you more than me. But he’s still my best friend, and if he comes to look for you, or if you find him anywhere… just let me know whether he’s ok”, he relented. You were stunned as you watched him leave for real this time.  

Good thing your mind was still operating though, “Hey Hoseok!”, you shouted after him. “I don’t have your phone number yet… if I see him I’ll let you know.”  

—

You tried calling Jungkook and messaging him a few times after Hoseok left, as expected to no avail. Where could he have gone?  

The next day you waited and waited to see if he would appear at the lecture. “Are you possessed by a meerkat?”, Namjoon wrote on a piece of paper and slid it over your lecture notes.  

You side-eyed him with the best death glare you could pull off and he leaned over saying, “Your neck’s gonna break at this rate. He’s not here and it doesn’t seem like he’s coming at all, the lecture’s ending in fifteen minutes.” Namjoon was probably right.  

—

Your phone buzzed in your pocket as you were arranging a new row of books, you threw everything down instantaneously to check who it was, but it was just an advertisement from the ice cream place up on the second level of the mall.  

As you were putting your phone away in disappointment, this brought back a memory to you. When Jungkook was talking about his father once, he had told you about how he fancied this one ice cream place near his elementary school, because his father used to fetch him from school and then they would hang out there. You mind flashes back to the conversation:  

“Remember I told you he became the CEO after I turned eight years old? And he never came to fetch me again. But I still go there from time to time, whenever I feel like being reminded of those times.”  

“Can’t imagine a guy like you just sitting around having ice cream. Isn’t your heart already cold enough?”, you joked.  

“Very funny Y/N.”, he replied, cocking up an eyebrow at you.  

You texted Hoseok, asking him if he knew where Jungkook’s elementary school is. He replied you almost immediately with the answer and questioned why you were asking.  

“I have a hunch on where he may be… but I’m not exactly sure where it is, I’ll just give it a shot. Let you know if I find him”, you replied to Hoseok.  

—

You clocked out early and headed down to the vicinity of the school address Hoseok sent to you. You searched for a list of all the ice cream parlours nearby and there were about eight of them pinned onto your map app.  

It’s going to take a while to get to all of them, so you hurried on your way, hoping none of them would close before you reached them.  

The first one you got to had a bright pink interior, it was filled with school kids, mostly girls. The second and the third places were close by, but none of them had any signs of the man you were hunting for. You ploughed through another three stores, glancing inside quickly through the huge glass windows and leaving whenever you failed to spot him.  

It was the second last shop on the list, and you saw that they were supposedly closing for the daygiven that it was almost 10pm. You ran towards it and through the glass door, ignoring the greeting of the girl at the counter, frantically scanning the place.  

Even you were shocked by yourself when you saw the familiar silhouette you had been searching for the whole day. There he was, sitting at the far end, by himself in a corner. Amazing that your guess was actually right.  

You walked over to him, and stood next to the table he sat at, really minded to yell at him for turning off his phone and disappearing for so many days. The bowl of ice cream sitting in front of him looked untouched, it had already melted into a puddle of mint green goo peppered with brown chocolate flakes.  

His eyes widened to see you there. How did you find him here? Or was he just hallucinating now? He reached out his hand wanting to test whether you were really there but his finger hovered just a centimetre away from touching you.  

“I’m sorry, we are closing for the day, is there anything else you need?”, a young girl wearing the shop’s uniform asked politely from behind you.  

“No, it’s fine. Thanks”, you turned to reply to her.  

Before you managed to spin back to look at Jungkook again, he had gotten out of the chair and was blazing out the door. You ran after him, hopping down the short flight of steps outside the shop.

“Where are you going?”, you shouted towards his back view.

He turned around to face you and the way he looked at you, in the dusk of the orangey street lights, had you stopping a few feet away from him. “Where do you think I’d be going? You should know by now what kind of person I am, so stay out of my business.”  

His eyes were reminiscent of someone you knew not too long ago – you were watching him transform back to that same guy you met the first time.  

“You know that that’s a lie”, you snapped at him.  

“Do I? What do I know anymore? I don’t even know… so, don’t pretend like you know me either”, his voice brewed over with annoyance and disdain.  

He turned to walk off again and you ran up to him this time, grabbing hold of his arm to stop him. He flung you off immediately and you stumbled back almost falling. He belatedly realised what he just did, but he did not apologise, he showed no emotions in fact, he had to keep it up.  

Yet he just couldn’t bring himself to walk away again without making sure that you were alright.

Once you regained your balance you quickly went back up to him, your eyes boring a hole into his face given the intensity you were staring at him.

“What happened? What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this again? Hoseok told me something happened to you at home. I’m guessing it has to do with your Dad, seeing that you are here brooding over ice cream. Right? You are not going anywhere until you answer at least one of my questions.”  

“The club, I’m going to the club. You asked where I was going just now, so I’ve answered one of your questions. Happy now?”, he said begrudgingly.  

You gaped at his attempt to escape, and you could already start to feel the pain quaking your heart from watching him put up his defences again.  

“Is this how it’s going to be? Fine, then I’ll try to figure this out myself”, you declared as you took two steps closer to him, bringing your face so close to his chest that he could feel your breathing. You took his left hand in both of yours. Surprisingly you didn’t feel that much worse, your heart still hurt that much but your body hurt a little more than your heart did.  

He froze for two seconds, perhaps three, because he wanted to feel your hands holding his just that much longer. But eventually he tried to hurl your hands off.  

You were relentless, however, gripping onto his hand tightly. You lifted your head to look him right in his eyes, and he froze again. He knows you must be feeling it too, and he knows how horrible it feels. But he wants to hold onto you, he wants you to hold him like that. That is selfish of him, right?  

As time trickled, the feelings within you also built up; a feeling that reminded you of the times he first touched you but so much worse, like it was now piercing and clawing holes into you. Only this time you were certain – you couldn’t tell the difference anymore, which feeling was his, and which was your own. Which feelings came from you grasping his hand and which you felt just by seeing him broken like this.

You didn’t even realise that a tear was rolling down the corner of your eye. All you could see was the depths of hollowness in his. Even then you wanted to know, what this feeling truly meant to him.  

But he couldn’t bear to watch you any longer and with one forceful jolt, he yanked his hands out of yours finally. You staggered from the force and he fought hard to stop himself from reaching out to you again.  

“Leave me alone, Y/N. You of all people don’t need someone like me around. Ignore me like you said you would. Don’t come looking for me like this again”, he didn’t think he was capable of feeling any worse up until this moment. Pushing you away like this made him hate everything even more, the darkness pooling inside his mind overwhelming himself.  

“Stop telling me to leave, I’m not leaving until you tell me what is wrong!”, you rebuked with such determination.  

“I need you to leave!”, he suddenly shouted, “I would rather all of you leave me when I tell you to, at least then… I can tell myself…”, he paused, covering his face with his hand, trying to maintain his façade. He closes his eyes, swallows hard and inhales harshly as he tries to push all his emotions back inside. 

“Just leave, Y/N. If you are hurt too… I hate it…”

And it dawns on you now. He was pushing you away. He didn’t want to have anybody. He was afraid of losing them. That feeling – it was not sorrow or anger. It was the trauma of abandonment, the feeling of loneliness, the pain of desolation.  

You walked up to him yet another time, unyieldingly. Just like the benign wind of the night, your arms wrapped around him. You slowly pulled yourself close to him, resting your forehead on his shoulder.  

“Even if it hurts, I’m not leaving.”  

—

♫ “You wanna hurt yourself, I’ll stay with you.  

You wanna make yourself go through the pain,

It’s better to be held than holding on…” ♫