Yujin woke up to a loud crashing noise in the middle of the night.

She didn’t think too much about waking up all of a sudden and was about to fall back asleep when she heard noises coming from the other side of the wall. Jungkook’s room.

There were shifting noises accompanied by bumps against hard surfaces.

What got her to sit up was the noise of something falling on to the ground as if being clumsily slid off a table.

She shot out of her room when she heard a soft groan.

“Jeon Jungkook.” she said in a low voice, careful as to not wake Suga up. When there was no response, she knocked on his door repeatedly. “-yah! Jeon Jungkook!”

There was a thump from inside the room and Yujin didn’t hesitate to turn the knob. It wasn’t locked and she pushed the door open.

“-yah, what is goin-“

Yujin halted in her tracks. There was a mess in Jungkook’s room. Whatever he used to have on his desk was sprawled messily on the floor. His chair was overturned. The bottle of hair wax the Yujin remembered used to sit on top of his clothing drawer was on the ground along with the small alarm clock he had. The curtains were gently floating with the small night breeze that came in from the opened windows.

She saw him on the floor, leaning against the frame of his bed.

“-what the heck.” she muttered under her breath and pushed his door fully open to walk in.

“Don’t.” he said.

“What?”

“DoN’T COME NEAR ME!!” he yelled.

Yujin widened her eyes. Despite his warning, she rushed to him. She wasn’t worried about his threatening tone, she was worried his volume would wake Suga up.

Cupping her hand over his mouth despite his attempt to shove her away, she hissed at him. “Do you want to die?! Wake Suga up and you will!”

Jungkook swung her hand off himself. Yujin let him when she was certain he wouldn’t shout a second time.

Taking a second glance at him now that she was able to see him clearly from the street lamp’s light shining through the window, a slow frown worked up on her face.

There was a small cut next to his right eyebrow and even though there weren’t any visible bruises on his face, Yujin was certain that it would appear within the next hour. Jungkook didn’t look too sober either.

Sober..?

“-what the f- JEON JUNGKOOK!” she exclaimed in a slightly louder voice when she had a whiff of his breath. “-were you drinking???!!!!”

He didn’t look like he registered what she said.

“DON’T COME NEAR ME, I SAID!” Jungkook yelled incoherently. Yujin widened her eyes and she launched at him to push him down along with covering his mouth.

This time, he wasn’t going to allow himself to get attacked a second time. He retaliated by bundling her off, making her back hit his clothing drawer. She let out a loud groan when something hit her spine, most probably the drawer handle.

“-you people!” Jungkook lifted his index finger, struggling to point at Yujin properly. She took a sharp intake of breath as she tried to sit back up. “-stop.. following!- mE!”

“Who the heck is following you?!” Yujin growled.

“YOU!- know who yOu ARE!”

“Who? Men sent by your father??”

The increase in intensity of the anger on his face told her that she guessed right. Not much guessing to do, actually.

Yujin wasn’t happy she guessed right.

“-we just talked a few hours ago. How the heck did you manage to go out and get drunk so quickly..” she mumbled, leaning on his drawer. She didn’t want to move at all, not at least until the throbbing pain subsided. “-how did you even think of getting drunk..”

Yujin hadn’t gotten hurt in a while. Her pain tolerance must have dropped a little. Either that, or the impact was really big.

Jungkook’s silent groans between intervals filled the silence that engulfed both of them. They were facing each other. Only their bodies. While Yujin was staring at him, Jungkook’s head was hanging downwards. A thousand and one scenarios were running across Yujin’s mind.

Why would he drink?

How could he drink?? He’s not legal.

Why does he look like he got beaten?

Or is it just the alcohol..

The more she thought of it the more she was unimpressed at him.

A sniffle broke her train of thought.

Yujin lowered her head, trying to see his face. “Yah, are you crying?”

“Why does this happen to me?”

She kept shut. Jungkook raised his head uncontrollably to lean it back but it ended up hitting it against the corner of the bed frame. The boy roughly wiped the glistening tears away with his arm.

“-why.. why is it- why can’t I even make friends with whoever I want to?? Without worrying that they would get hurt by me!!”

“Who’s hurting your friends?” Yujin cut him off, upset that he was thinking that way again. “-is it you? Did you pick a fight with them again? Were they hurt directly by you??!!”

“NO! BUT TAEHYUNG IS HURT BECAUSE OF ME, AND EVERYONE ELSE IS STILL BEING TARGETED!!”

“DO YOU THINK I WILL LET ANYONE GET HURT AFTER WHAT HAPPENED TO KIM TAEHYUNG?!” Yujin yelled louder than him, long forgetting that the door was still open.

Jungkook kept quiet when he heard someone shouting above him.

Yujin breathed out loud. “-for goodness’ sake, Jeon Jungkook..” she glanced at him. “-this isn’t your fault. Why are we going back to square one? You have every right to be friends with whoever you want. Them getting hurt isn’t because of you. It’s because of your father.”

“He’s MY father..” Jungkook blabbered. “-because he’s my father, I’m his son, he has control over my life, he-”

“He doesn’t. He doesn’t have control over your life. Your life is yours. He’s just responsible over you, that’s all..” Yujin said.

Jungkook shook his head clumsily. “You don’t understand..” he started laughing. “-you don’t understand. You don’t understand at all. None of you will ever. What would you know? You’re from a normal family.”

Yujin held back rolling her eyes. “Then tell me. Tell me so that I understand!”

“My father.. he.. has something against me.. something he can use.. against.. I can’t.. no….”

She breathed out with an unimpressed face. Jungkook fell asleep. She spent a few more minutes sitting while staring around his messy room. He definitely came in through the window. As to what had happened in the time between them coming back from the playground to now, Yujin wasn’t planning to ask because she knew Jungkook wouldn’t be talking about it any time soon, if not at all.

When Jungkook didn’t show signs of being conscious, Yujin tried standing to move him on to his bed.

The sharp pain that shot up her back made her sit back down.

“I will really kill you someday..” Yujin frowned at him before standing right up, ignoring the pain.

***

Jungkook woke up to a strong headache and an uncomfortable body. His body was tangled in his sheets and the window wasn’t full shut. He groaned and flipped onto his stomach, covering his head with his pillow to try to fall back asleep.

“Jungkook-ah! Time to wake up!!” Suga called out as usual after coming out of his room fully dressed up for school.

“Mmphrghhhh!!!!!!” Jungkook complained into his mattress.

Why does my body feel like ??!!

He got up and it took him a lot of effort to enter the bathroom to wash up and put on his uniform. The headache wasn’t helping. He felt queasy.

“Oh, ‘morning!” Suga greeted him with a smile when he got down the stairs.

“..’morning, hyung..” he muttered.

Suga raised a brow and took a careful second look at the boy when he heard his response. “Jungkook-ah, are you not feeling well?” He put down his breakfast and walked over to the younger boy. “-do you have a fever?”

“It’s nothing.” Jungkook waved it off and tried his best to act normal.

“Hm.. if you say so..” Suga dropped it although he knew it wasn’t ‘nothing’. “-okay, now where is this Kang Yujin??” he said and walked to the stairs. “-yah KANG YUJIN!! ARE YOU NOT WAKING UP??”

“I’M UP!!” she yelled behind the closed door of her room.

Suga had a satisfactory smile and walked back to the kitchen. “Jungkook-ah, breakfast?”

“I think I’ll pass..” Jungkook frowned. “-I’m heading out first.”

“You sure?” Suga asked.

Jungkook only managed a nod before putting on his shoes, grabbing his set of keys and leaving.

After replying Suga, she blew on her bangs.

Yujin was still in bed, feeling awful. She knew the pain would eventually go away throughout the day — it wasn’t her first time getting jabbed in the back before — but the pain was always more intense after waking up.

“Why did I even bother helping him.”

She heard Jungkook leaving the house. To avoid Suga coming back up to check on her, she forced herself out of bed. Opening the door, she was greeted by a surprised look on Suga’s face with his hand up, about to knock on her door.

“Min Yoongi, what are you doing?”

“I was about to wake you up again.” he laughed. “-why are you so late today?”

“I got lazy.” she said and pushed him aside to head to the washroom. “-just go ahead of me.”

“See you in school?”

Yujin responded with a loud ‘HMM!’ from inside the washroom above the sound of water flowing out of the tap.

***

Jungkook walked up the stairs and got to the roof.