Chapter Text
Prologue
It was supposed to be more fun.
The New Death paced through his own dimension, wondering what had gone wrong. He’d made two deals. Both had reached their inevitable end. He should have been happy.
He wasn’t.
He was simply bored again.
The first deal had been a failure. Kid up and lit himself on fire, which was unexpected. Not in the method, so much, but in the timing. Music had still run hot in his veins, and the New Death thought that would be enough to keep him struggling pointlessly against the misery of his deal for years.
He had dug into the reasoning, so he’d know better next time. Turned out that humans were more fragile than he’d thought. Their minds, most of all. On April 11th, a boy had died. A useless boy. Nothing special. Practically invisible. Ruled an accident at the end. But still, that was enough to send his victim over the edge, the music no longer outweighing his guilt. Before Death could do a thing, the music boy had stopped his own heart from beating.
The second deal, though. It worked. All the way through. Watching this boy’s mind slowly crumble until, instead of giving in to death, he gave into killing. The lust of vengeance, of hatred, of years of building wrath, finally coming to a head with shards of glass driven into his father’s chest. Over. And over. And over again.
The blood staining his hands.
He’d be in prison until he died.
Death had hoped that perhaps there was a little more that could be done with him, but the kid was broken. Nothing left of his soul to play with.
And so, Death paced through the three realms.
He needed something to do. More deals, maybe? Something stronger. Someone more desperate than scared children. Something more… ruining. More twisting. More violent. Something with potential.
A weird ringing had begun in his head. Something like thirst. Something like fear. He should not be Death, and he knew it. But this was not the time to think of that.
There.
He felt it.
Someone desperate enough to listen to a soft voice.
A young man sat on the edge of the cold sea, head pressed into his hands. The waves lapped up every few seconds, stopping far short of him.
Regret filled him. Oh, so much regret, and he hadn’t even spoken to the devil yet.
Death could work with this.
He slithered through the boy’s memories. Hmm. What a coincidence. He knew them. The fire-music-boy and the glass-bottle-boy. Death felt the moments. The times where this young man had seen the others. Where he’d thought of saying hello, but had walked away instead.
A million possibilities flitted through Death’s mind.
Yes. This would work.
Death became beautiful. His voice sweet, not cold.
Make it simple. This kid was distraught enough to not even realize what he was saying.
“What would you do to save them?” purred Abraxus.
“Anything,” said Kim Seokjin.
Death had never played with time before. This would be very fun—and, in theory, would never end.
Part One
Euphoria
Who, who are you, who are you really anymore?
I said who, who am I, I don’t know what I’m heading for.
-Neighborhood, American Authors
Chapter 1
May 2, Year 22
“What?” The voice was louder than Jungkook thought it should be, but everything seemed loud these days.
“You left him there? Alone?” This time, Seokjin was definitely shouting through the phone. Shouting at him.
Things had been better, for a little bit. Two weeks of thinking maybe, maybe they’d all be okay again. Seokjin was home and it didn’t matter what had happened in the past, they’d all be fine, because they were together again.
And then…
“He cussed me out,” Jungkook said. “He was really drunk. Said he wanted me to get out of his life, so I left.”
Now Seokjin was swearing, but Jungkook felt that it wasn’t directed at him. More at the universe than at any particular person.
It still stung.
“How far away are you?” he finally asked.
“I dunno. A few blocks.”
“Then turn around and get back there. Please, you have to be there tonight.”
“You go see him, if you’re so worried,” Jungkook snapped.
“It doesn’t work with me,” Seokjin said. What was that supposed to mean? “He always liked you best, we have to try this, why can’t you just…”
Jungkook hung up. Tears stung the back of his eyes, but he blinked them away.
He didn’t want to, but he turned back.
He wouldn’t go inside. He’d just walk by, because Seokjin sounded so desperate. Why did he care, anyways? Wasn’t Seokjin the one who’d sold them out before running away to America? When he really thought about it, wasn’t Seokjin the reason that Yoongi was living out of cheap hotel rooms, spending what little money he made on soju and cigarettes?
Jungkook kicked a rock into the street and turned a corner. Stupid motel. Everything was stupid.
Once: they were happy. Then: they grew up. What was the point of even trying to go back to what had been before?
He stopped in front of the motel. He’d made sure to memorize Yoongi’s door code. Why, he wasn’t sure. Maybe… maybe if he went up there, Yoongi would be asleep, and Jungkook could crash on the couch and wake up and go to school without Yoongi ever knowing and then Jungkook wouldn’t have to go home and…
He laughed to himself and kept walking, leaving the motel behind him. Stupid. Avoiding tonight’s punishment would make tomorrow’s that much worse. If he took the bus, he still might get home before his stepbrother, and maybe no one would notice him.
His phone buzzed.
Seokjin.
He declined the call.
Then he heard the scream.
It was a child. Somewhere behind him. High and shrill, fading into a sob. A pause for breath, followed by another wail.
It shouldn’t mean anything. Just a kid throwing a fit.
A shiver ran up his spine anyways.
He’d miss the bus if he went back to investigate.
He seemed to remember a nightmare he’d once had. No. A memory. But it certainly hadn’t really happened, because he’d left Yoongi only twenty minutes previously, and Yoongi had been alive.
The child kept screaming, and he heard some adults shouting, too.
He turned back, his walk turning into a run. More clamoring voices. In front of the motel, a crowd had gathered, growing every second. The screaming child clung to her mother. The hotel manager had her phone out.
“What’s going on?” He didn’t recognize his own voice.
“There’s smoke coming through the vents,” said the mother.
He heard the manager on the phone. “Yes, but we don’t know which room it’s in, the vents are full of smoke—hey, kid, stop!”
Jungkook knew one thing: Yoongi was not in the parking lot.
Jungkook thought one thing: Yoongi was smoking again, which meant he had a lighter.
Maybe not. Maybe not. Best case scenario, Yoongi was just passed out drunk, and Jungkook could drag him out before the firefighters even showed up to save the building.
He ran up to the second story. He tapped the code. The numbers were warm. Grabbed the door handle.
It took him far too long to rip his hand off of the searing metal. He dropped his sleeve over his left hand and tried again.
Smoke poured out as he opened the door. Jungkook choked, tears streaming unbidden down his face. He covered his nose with his arm and went in.
He already felt lightheaded. He dropped to his knees. Smoke rises, right? That was what they said in school fire drills.
Look. See. Find him. Don’t run away.
Flames licked up the curtains. Sheetrock in the corner crumpled and fell in ashy bits. The carpet was littered with patches of fire, and they leapt up onto the mattress…
There he was. Jungkook tried to call his name, but he could only choke. He crawled past the flames. Sweat drenched him. The searing heat sucked the air from his lungs.
Fire surrounded the still form of his best friend.
Jungkook lunged forward. He grabbed Yoongi under the arms and dragged him off the bed.
Was he still breathing?
His head hung limp as Jungkook dragged him towards the door.
Jungkook couldn’t breathe.
The room started spinning.
The door had closed. He reached for the handle, not thinking to cover his hand. He had no voice to scream with as pain ripped through his other hand.
A cloud of smoke followed them, clinging to his throat and lungs, but air fought its way in. He gasped and coughed, clarity jumping back. Not safe yet. The flames had ripped through the roof. Get him down the stairs.
They reached the parking lot moments after the fire trucks.
Jungkook’s knees went out. He tried to say Yoongi’s name, but his throat, his eyes, his everything was covered in smoke. Uniforms swarmed them. Pulled him away from Yoongi, and he couldn’t even fight them. “No,” he managed, “Is he okay… I have to…” More coughing. What did he have to do? Save him?
Yes.
“Son. What is your name?”
He couldn’t answer because they pushed a plastic mask up against his face. Sweet oxygen scraped through his smoke-coated throat and filled his lungs.
“What is your name?”
The mask came off.
“Jeon Jungkook.”
“That was an incredibly stupid thing you did.”
“Did I save him?” Did he really want to answer?
“The roof collapsed just now.” That wasn’t an answer. He wanted to scream at the first responder, Is he alive, but a fit of coughing hit him again.
They had Yoongi on a stretcher, lifting him into an ambulance. The door slammed shut.
“Do you know him?” asked the first responder.
The sirens pounded inside Jungkook’s head like a jackhammer. They were going to take him away. They wouldn’t let him see Yoongi. Yoongi could die alone, and…
A little lie wouldn’t hurt anything.
“He’s my brother.”
###
He stood with Namjoon and Seokjin outside the emergency room. Watched as Yoongi’s heart flatlined. Burns covered his body. The doctors tried to bring him back, but it was useless.
Namjoon turning away. The look of horror in Seokjin’s eyes. Jungkook’s knees slamming the linoleum… Yoongi had killed himself and Jungkook couldn’t do anything to save him.
He flashed back out of the nightmare that felt so real it seemed like a memory.
This was reality:
Jungkook sat in a chair in a stark hospital room. Yoongi lay on the bed. The monitor beside him beeped steadily. Gauze wrapped his left arm. He’d have a nasty scar. His lungs would probably be fine. He should definitely stop smoking.
The doctor—Dr. Lee was his name—had yelled at Jungkook when he’d discovered they weren’t really brothers. But when neither of their families showed any concern about their injuries, he’d allowed Jungkook to see Yoongi.
As for Jungkook, he couldn’t feel his hands, thanks to the painkillers. They were covered in bandages. In a week he’d be fine.
Yoongi had wanted to die. He would have succeeded, too, if Jungkook hadn’t been there. And he almost hadn’t. He’d been trying to find a place to stare at the stars when his phone first rang and—
The door opened. Jungkook jumped up, expecting Dr. Lee or one of the nurses.
“Seokjin?” he said.
Seokjin rushed across the room and hugged him.
Another nightmare:
Tripping, sky rushing through his hair until he heard his body crash into the pavement. Rewind, replay with the tripping, falling, but someone caught him and pulled him back into a hug…
Reality: Seokjin, hugging him, while the machine hooked to Yoongi beep-beep-beeped.
“I’ve been here for hours,” Seokjin said, “And they finally let me in. I’m… your hands… what…”
“I’ll be fine,” Jungkook said. “For real.”
Seokjin glanced toward Yoongi. “Is he okay?”
“He’s got a pretty bad burn on his arm, and if he doesn’t want to die of lung cancer before he turns twenty-five he has got to stop smoking, but…”
“He’s alive.”
“He’s alive,” Jungkook repeated. The next words stuck in his throat, but he forced them out. “Does he want to be?”
Seokjin shook his head.
“Is he going to be in trouble? Are they going to arrest him for setting the fire?”
“Thank goodness no one else was hurt,” Seokjin said. “Thank goodness his blood-alcohol level was so high that the police think it was accidental. Still his fault, but not on purpose. And thank goodness the owner was so touched by your selfless act of courage that she isn’t going to press charges.”
He put a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder. “That was really brave, you know? What you did?”
“You’re the one who made me go back.”
“I didn’t make you run into a burning building. You take all the credit for that.”
But Jungkook had to ask. “How’d you know?”
“Hmm?”
He brushed Seokjin’s hand off his shoulder. He really didn’t want to ask. He wanted to forget the nightmares and the memories that never happened. He wanted to think it was his own concern and courage that had saved Yoongi’s life.
The truth was, if Seokjin hadn’t screamed at him over the phone, Yoongi would be dead.
“How did you know I should go back?” he asked, voice just above a whisper. “How’d you know he was going to set his room on fire?”
“I did not know any of that,” Seokjin said, and before Jungkook could protest, he continued, “I just had a bad feeling. He’s been depressed lately, and I knew he started smoking again, and when you said he was drunk enough to cuss you out…”
It wasn’t enough of an answer, but Jungkook didn’t argue. Seokjin pulled him into another hug, and he stayed stiff until Seokjin let go. Mostly, he just wanted to lay his head on Seokjin’s shoulder and cry until he fell asleep, but this was real life.
“I’d better leave before he wakes up,” Seokjin said. “Make sure he knows you saved him. Make sure he knows he’s an idiot, but we love him anyways.”
Less than a minute after Seokjin left—a minute where, every time he blinked, Jungkook was sure Yoongi was dead and this wasn’t reality—Yoongi sighed and opened his eyes.