Archive of Our Own

At least Jungkook can say that he tried.

That he made an attempt.

Then again, this isn’t Jungkook’s fault. There were three of them. Three whole zombies and he was alone , with only a damn machete to help. How the hell was he supposed to kill all three of them by himself? It’s physically impossible, Jungkook is sure of it.

But, still, he’s trying.

The third one was the ace, apparently, because now the damn monster has Jungkook pinned on the ground, its mouth opening and closing just above his face, and each time it shuts the zombie’s rotten teeth make a sharp and terrible noise that echoes in Jungkook’s mind, rattles at Jungkook’s temples like a gun’s recoil.

He wishes he had bullets for his gun.

Jungkook is tired and that’s what’s truly fucking him up. He hasn’t had a decent meal in two days and barely found any water, so his body isn’t responding how it should.

He grunts, tightening the grip around the handle of the machete and on the blunt part of the blade as he keeps the weapon between him and the zombie. The blade is pressed against the monster’s chest but not on the right side, rather it’s pressed flat against it and Jungkook can’t fucking turn it around to at least try to cut the damn thing. He’s too tired, his muscles are aching like a bitch and his arms are shaking under the zombie’s strength and weight.

He tries to land a kick on the zombie’s hip with the hope of at least throwing its balance off, but it doesn’t work.

The soil under his back is wet and his shirt is drenched with moist dirt and grass, there’s a small rock that keeps digging in the back of his head and his arms are shaking , they keep lowering every time the zombie tries to bite him and Jungkook knows that this is it.

This is how he dies.

In the middle of nowhere, alone, and probably with a hole in the face.

Shit.

At least he tried.

If Hoseok were here Jungkook wouldn’t be in this situation.

If Hoseok were here Jungkook would survive.

If Hoseok were here—

If Hoseok were here Jungkook would be trying a lot harder than this.

Ah, fuck it.

Just as Jungkook lets go of the machete’s handle, though, a knife flies through the air and it stabs right in the zombie’s temple.

Jungkook blinks, the zombie stays still, unmoving and with its mouth wide open, rotten meat dangling from the exposed bone of its nose, and then it flops down against Jungkook.

“Shit,” Jungkook groans and he pushes the thing off of him with a grimace.

He stares up in the sky, looking at the way the sunlight filters through the leaves of the trees, warm rays cast in straight lines and it hits him that he’s alive.

He’s fucking alive .

Jungkook swallows and he sits up straight, chest heaving and sweat collecting down his neck. The panic still hasn’t left him, his entire body is trembling with fear but he’s alive.

How?

Jungkook casts a quick look at the zombie’s body and he stares at the knife. It’s completely made of metal, no wooden or plastic handle. It looks incredibly sharp and it glistens under the sun.

Jungkook hears a twig snapping then and he turns to the source of the noise immediately, his hand tight around his machete again.

It’s not a zombie.

“Shit, kid. That was too goddamn close, y’know?”

Jungkook remains quiet as he looks at the man walking towards him. The stranger is all frail-looking limbs and sharp eyes on too soft features and he walks in large steps even though he’s a good head shorter than Jungkook.

“I’ll take my knife back,” the man says as he walks past Jungkook and crouches next to the zombie. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

He’s short but his shoulders are broad. Hands large and fingers long and knobbed once they close around the handle of the knife. The man pulls it out of the zombie’s skull with a sharp movement and then he starts wiping the blade clean on his ratted jeans.

“Thank you,” Jungkook murmurs dumbly.

The stranger hums. He stands up and turns to Jungkook as he puts the knife back in a leather sheath that hangs from a holster, circled tightly around his chest with five more knives sheathed into it. Jungkook notices that the stranger has another strap secured around his waist, connected to yet another piece of leather that wraps around his right thigh, this one holding a large saw-toothed knife with a black plastic handle. Truth be told, Jungkook suddenly feels slightly under-weaponed with only his machete.

“Come on. Get up.” The stranger holds out his hand and helps Jungkook to his feet. 

“I saw two more like this one,” the man says as he nods towards the zombie. “Did you kill them?”

Jungkook nods wordlessly.

The stranger grimaces and shakes his head. “Shit, kid, what the fuck are you doing? Traveling alone with just one machete?”

Jungkook’s chest tightens, something sharp seems to be digging right between his ribs. “I wasn’t a-alone at first. I—someone was with me. We were split.”

Nothing changes in the man's expression but, Jungkook is sure of it, his eyes shine with something akin to empathy for a second.

“Ah.”

“I think he’s dead,” Jungkook murmurs. His eyes start burning and, before he can do anything about it, he’s crying. 

If Hoseok were here he’d hug Jungkook until the tears would dry.

“I think he’s dead,” Jungkook sobs. “He—he’s dead and I d-don’t know what to do.”

It’s kind of really pathetic to be sobbing his heart out in the middle of this shitty forest, in front of a stranger who just saved his life and with a dead zombie by his feet. But, sometimes, that’s just how life goes.

The stranger sighs and then puts his hand on Jungkook’s shoulder, squeezing it. “Okay, just—shit, stop crying.” He looks up to the sky, brows furrowed and then takes a deep breath. “What’s your name?”

Jungkook sniffles and he angrily wipes his dirty hand all over his face, trying to dry the tears but only managing to smear dirt and soil on his skin. “Jungkook.”

“Jungkook.” The man nods. “Okay. You’re staying with me from now on, Jungkook.”

The stranger’s name is Yoongi.

Yoongi’s backpack is a lot heavier than Jungkook’s and he knows how to start fires even when the wood they found isn’t much and it’s not even that dry.

He also knows how to skin a fox and how to cook its meat as if it were skewers.

The meat of a fox tastes only slightly better than the one of a rat but Jungkook’s stomach is so empty that he feels like he’s eating a fucking steak.

Yoongi doesn’t comment on how voraciously Jungkook is chewing the meat he cooked, instead, he rubs his nose as he uses a long twig to move the wood of the fire so that it stays alive.

He has a cigarette between his lips, it’s a bit crooked and there’s a red stain on it, but Yoongi doesn’t seem to mind. Jungkook guesses it’s hard to come across cigarettes these days, most of the stores have been emptied out in the past five years. 

With the way the flames move and light up Yoongi’s face, Jungkook can’t help but notice how dark the circles around his eyes are.

“So,” Yoongi suddenly says. He has a very deep and gravelly voice, the kind that the girls Jungkook went to school with liked and that are usually chosen to dub American actors in movies. “You said you used to travel with someone.”

Jungkook swallows a mouthful of food and he nods.

“His name is—was Hoseok.” Jungkook throws in his mouth the last piece of meat and chews around it slowly. “We were friends when we were kids but then we lost touch with each other. We met again a couple of months after the disease started spreading and we kinda just stuck together.”

Yoongi hums and his eyes flicker to him. He has really intense eyes, Jungkook notices. They’re sharp and the shape reminds him of half-moons, and even if they’re not particularly big they’re hard to ignore when they land on him.

“So, you traveled together for what? One, two years?”

“Three.”

Yoongi nods. “‘m sorry, kid. That you got separated. How did it happen?”

“You run!” Hoseok screamed. He shot an arrow in the head of one of the zombies that were trying to break in but there were too many, there were just too fucking many of them, they were going to break through that shitty barricade they had made. “Jungkook, you fucking run now! I’ll find you, yeah?! I’ll—shit, get out of here!”

Jungkook’s eyes start burning again. He closes his eyes, rubs at his eyelids before he straightens his shoulders.

“We were hiding in an old church, we fell asleep. When we woke up they had found us already. There were—fuck, I don’t know. A hoard of them. They broke down the door in minutes...We tried leaving from the back, but they’d surrounded the place. So Hoseok, he—he helped me climb up to one of the broken windows, I tried to get him up too. But—” Jungkook’s fingers twitch. “His hand was wet. With blood. So I couldn’t hold him. He fell. That’s when they started breaking in, to push down the barricade at the door. Hoseok told me to-to run. That he’d climb up by himself, he’d use one of the church benches. So I jumped out, but there were so many of them outside too.” Jungkook stares at the fire in front of him, blinks when one of the twigs snaps, red sparks flying up. “I had to run off in the woods and try to lose them. I waited for him at our usual lookout spot the whole night. He didn’t come. So I went back there the next day and there was no one. Well, there were zombies. No Hoseok. I couldn’t even get close to the damn place, there were too many of ‘em.”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything. He just keeps smoking his dirty cigarette with his head tilted up to look at the night sky.

It’s starting to get cold lately, Jungkook guesses it must be close to November. He’ll have to find warmer clothes or he won’t survive this winter.

Hoseok’s backpack had the clothes. 

Yeah, he’s gonna have to find new ones.

“You call them zombies?”

Jungkook looks at Yoongi with a frown. Nervously, he rubs his hand against the rough fabric of his jeans, and he shrugs. “Well, yeah.”

Yoongi snorts and then he laughs this quiet, kind of clicking chuckle. 

“Shit.” Yoongi sniffs and he shakes his head. “Zombies.”

“Well, what do you call them?” Jungkook asks. It’s not that he feels self-conscious but—shit, Yoongi just looks put together. A survivor. Has more metal on his body than blood, maybe.

Yoongi pouts his lips around the cigarette, takes a long drag, and then he sends Jungkook a glance. “Fuckers.”

Jungkook blinks. “What?”

“I call them fuckers.” Yoongi shrugs. “Shoot the fucker! Watch out for the fucker! I don’t know, I feel like it suits them.”

Jungkook is dumbfounded for maybe a couple of seconds, but then he’s chuckling. He can see that Yoongi’s lips curl up in a tiny grin at this, like he’s satisfied that he made Jungkook laugh. “It does suit them.”

“Told you.”

“What about you?”

“Mmh?”

“Why are you traveling alone?”

Yoongi’s fingers twitch around the cigarette and Jungkook sees the man’s jaw setting in a hard line. 

Ah, maybe he shouldn’t have asked that.

“I used to travel with someone,” Yoongi says with a sharp voice. “We got separated too. He ain’t dead, though. I’m looking for him.”

How does Yoongi know if he’s not dead?

“You should sleep.” Yoongi takes one last drag of smoke and then throws the cigarette in the fire. “I’ll keep guard.”

“Oh, no, I can do that.”

“Please, you can barely stand up straight. Get some sleep, I’m used to not sleeping much. Don’t worry, kid.”

Jungkook thinks about protesting for maybe half a second before he starts feeling his body literally shutting down. 

“‘kay,” he murmurs. He gets off the log he was sitting on and lays down next to the fire, grabbing his backpack to put under his head and use as a pillow, trying to find a comfortable position. 

He’s not used to this. Not the sleeping outside, that’s fine. He’s not used to sleeping alone . Without Hoseok’s chest under his cheek, or his lap to use as a pillow, slender fingers carding through his hair, voice rough but still so soft with the words he chose, lulling him to sleep, promising that everything would be alright the next day.

“We made it through another one, Kook-ah. We’ll make it tomorrow too.”

Jungkook squeezes his eyes shut, teeth grinding together, feels a tear slide down his eye, catch at the slope of his nose.

He’s falling asleep when he hears Yoongi saying, “I’m sure your friend is alive too.”

The next morning, the sky is so bright that Jungkook’s eyes sting.

With a sigh he pushes himself up, grimaces at the way his bones crack and his muscles throb with soreness. Yoongi is awake as well and Jungkook looks at him for a few moments as he sharpens one of his knives on a whetstone balanced on top of his thigh, expression blank, eyes blinking lazily. 

“You—” Jungkook frowns. “Did you sleep at all?”

Yoongi looks up from the whetstone. “Morning. And no.”

“I—fuck, I’m sorry.” Jungkook straightens up, rubs a hand over his face. “Shit. I swear I didn’t mean to make you keep guard all night, I—”

“Don’t sweat it, Jungkook,” Yoongi says easily. “I’m used to not sleeping much. Especially these days.” He starts sharpening his knife again, fingers pressed on the flat side of the blade, drawing it down the whetstone in large, circular motions. Jungkook looks at Yoongi’s hands, fingernails bitten short, knuckles prominent, veins bright blue beneath pale skin. “You hungry?”

Jungkook shrugs and Yoongi nods towards his own backpack. “I think I still have some cereal bars in there. You know those things’ shelf life is, like, eight months? But they’re five years old and literally taste the fucking same.” Yoongi clicks his tongue. “Capitalism was a goddamn poison. Glad we got rid of that, at least. Too bad the rest went to hell, too.”

Jungkook snorts, drags himself to the backpack. He rustles through it for a few moments, then finds the bright blue wrapping of the cereal bars, and grabs two, handing one to Yoongi. And he’s right, they do taste the same; they’re hard as a piece of wood at first, sure, and the flavor is a bit dull—but they’re edible.

Plus, Jungkook has eaten far worse things than an old cereal bar.

Yoongi goes through his bar in maybe a handful of seconds, then he throws the plastic wrap in the now-dead fire, but the wood is still crimson and scorching hot, so the plastic melts immediately. He must have also worked hard to keep the fire alive all night.

Jungkook swallows down his mouthful of cereal and dried blueberries and says, “Thank you.”

Yoongi blinks at him. “For the food? Don’t worry about it.”

“Not just food. Everything.” Jungkook nods to himself. “Saving my life. Helping me. Keeping guard and keeping the fire alive. Just—thank you.”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything for a couple of seconds and then he scrunches up his nose, squirms where he’s sitting on the ground. He fidgets with his knife, rubs at his cheek with the blunt edge which, well, kind of makes Jungkook shiver since that thing looks like it could cut diamonds. Then, Jungkook notices the blush on Yoongi’s cheek.

“Well, I mean—” Yoongi mutters, quickly sheaths the knife back in place, right above his heart. “Couldn’t exactly leave you to die.”

“You didn’t have to help me after that. I’m a stranger. But you still shared your food with me. Kept guard.”

Yoongi’s lips part as if he wants to say something, but then hesitates. He looks at Jungkook for a while, then sighs and rubs at his hair, black and unkempt and in need of a cut. “How old are you?”

Jungkook replies, “Twenty-two.”

Yoongi hums. “You from Busan, yeah?”

Jungkook blinks. “How—”

“Accent.”

“Oh.”

“That’s why.” Yoongi stands up then, dusts off his ragged jeans with the palm of his hand, then goes to put the whetstone in the backpack. “Your accent. I recognized it. And you look to be around the same age. That’s why I helped. ‘m not a saint.”

Jungkook frowns, shakes his head in confusion. “Who—”

“The one I’m looking for,” Yoongi answers, voice dry. “He’s from Busan, too. Can’t shake off the accent for the life of his. Only one year older than you.” Yoongi breathes in deeply, rolls his shoulders once. “Kids. Both of you.”

Jungkook arches an eyebrow at this. “You can’t be older than thirty.”

“Still older than you.”

“That’s—”

“What are your plans?”

It’s goddamn hard to keep a conversation going with this guy. “I don’t have any.”

Yoongi hums. “Not gonna go back to that church?”

“He’s not there,” Jungkook says, words too sharp, they could make his gums bleed. “He’s not anywhere.”

“Alright.” Yoongi presses his lips together, then he grabs his backpack. “Then you’re coming with me. I’m headed to a safe house right now, it’s our get-back point for when we get separated. He’s probably waiting for me there with the others.”

Jungkook stands up as well, eyes wide. “Others?”

“There’s a community, by feet it’s almost two weeks. I live there.”

“A community—” Jungkook gapes, chest tight. “Are you serious? Hoseok and I were looking for one. Couldn’t run into any for months.”

“Most are gone, but our stands strong. There are about three hundred people living there, it’s safe. Looks like a fucking military base from the outside, but it’s actually nice inside.” Yoongi grins. “If you have no plans, you can join us. We do have to go back to the safe house first, though, and that’s a three-day journey from here. But, we also have a van with gas waiting there, so it would take nothing to go back to the community.” 

Jungkook stands still.

Isn’t this what he wanted? What both of them wanted. 

Hoseok loved people. People loved him. Couldn’t shut up about finding a decent community to settle in, have a support system, other folks to help and receive help from.

“ Think about it,” he’d say as Jungkook was falling asleep against him. “ We’d have a house. I swear I’ll fucking grow crops in our garden. And I’m shit at cooking, so you handle that.”

Hoseok is gone now.

He probably didn’t even leave a body behind to bury. He probably walks with the dead ones now.

Jungkook’s hands clench into fists, his lungs burn when he replies, “I’ll come with you.”

The first day goes away in a blur of walking and Yoongi’s deep voice.

It’s weird.

Yoongi’s weird , but more-so it’s how he talks. He talks a lot , words spilling from his lips like rain in late August, but it still feels like he doesn’t speak much. Maybe it’s how his sentences are, always cut short where they could be longer, words spoken like he’s running out of time.

“You’ll be given a house once we get to the community. We have ten that are still free. It’s located in Mokpo , the founders basically rebuild half of it. It got fucked up pretty hard when the disease broke out. Gets fucking cold in winter. You’ll also get a job. Depends on what you can do. We’re in fucking dire need of decent cooks. To dry meat.”

“I can only really just boil ramen.”

“Yeah, well, ramen is kind of a dream of the past. But it’s fine. Can you hunt?”

“Hoseok took care of that.”

“Mh. Then, can you kill?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Guess we’ll be coworkers then.”

The sun is a nasty thing today despite them getting close to winter, but because they’re close to Seoul, the winter is slower to catch up. It only really shows itself when night comes.

They run into a pond at one point, water clear, and they’re quick to refill their bottles and flasks before they get washed up. Jungkook gets rid of his shirt, pants, and socks and immediately dives in, sighing once he rises up, water cooling off his heated skin.

“Careful,” Yoongi tells him as he starts undoing the holsters wrapped around his body. 

“Water’s not that deep.”

“Mh, but what about the zombie fish?”

Jungkook freezes, hands still in his wet hair. “The what?”

Yoongi looks at him, eyes wide, face serene. “Zombie fish. You know. Zombie carps. Zombie bluegills. Zombie basses. Dreadful little shits.”

“I—” Jungkook frowns, then his arms drop in the water. “You’re fucking with me.”

Yoongi snorts and then he takes off his shirt. “Of course I am.”

“Hilarious.”

“Can you imagine, though? A zombie bluegill?” Yoongi crouches by the pond’s bank, scoops up water, and starts washing himself. “And I know I’m hilarious.”

“I didn’t laugh.”

“That’s too damn bad.”

Jungkook pouts and ducks half of his face underwater. He looks at Yoongi for a few moments and realizes that he only looks small; even though his muscles aren’t obvious, Jungkook can see that with each movement they flex, that his back could withstand his entire weight, that those fingers can close around a throat and not let go. And maybe Yoongi has pretty features and pale skin, but the scars on his chest and arms are deep, bright red. 

Jungkook isn’t a stranger to those either, but his are consequences of his own mistakes, of a zombie that turned out too fast. Yoongi’s appearance looks like  death has been eager to get a taste of him.

Jungkook gets out of the water after he’s soaked, and he dries himself off with the clothes he was wearing earlier. He puts them in his backpack and grabs a clean set; he hopes he’ll find new ones, warmer ones, at the community since the rest of his stuff was in Hoseok’s bag. In his, there’s only water, a gun with no bullets, and his journal.

“I’m hungry,” Yoongi says once he’s changed into clean clothes, and after he’s gone through the long process of strapping back on his holsters. “Forest is nearby. Maybe we’re lucky enough and find a rabbit.”

They find a rabbit. Yoongi throws his knife and the blade cuts air without a sound, stabs the animal right in the skull. 

“I hate killing animals,” Yoongi tells him later, as he skins the rabbit. He’s so quick about it that Jungkook can barely keep up. “But we gotta do what we gotta do. Know what fucks me up? Killing infected dogs. Infected cats usually just hiss at you, they’re too crazed to really attack you. But dogs? They can’t help it. Will aim straight at your throat. Hate killing those.”

Still, the meat is good once it’s cooked on the fire Yoongi starts, and it fills them enough to put them up on their feet again immediately after they’re done, energy high enough for them to walk across the forest before the sun begins setting down.

They find a small hut once it’s already dark, one that was probably built after the breakout so that it could host travelers. It’s empty of people and of furniture, but it will keep the wind away during the night. 

Yoongi locks the door with the bolt that’s already attached to the wood, and Jungkook starts a fire in the pit built in the center of the hut. They go through more cereal bars in silence, sitting opposite to each other on the floor. From outside, Jungkook can hear grass and leaves brushing with the wind, a howl somewhere in the distance.

“Was your Hoseok good at killing too?”

Jungkook blinks and looks at Yoongi, heart warm at the choice of words.

His Hoseok.

“Yeah,” Jungkook answers. “Had a scary aim. He took up archery in high school, and he learned how to build arrows by himself. When I met him he already had his bow—a hunting bow he stole from a shop on the first day of the breakout.”

Something in Yoongi’s gaze shifts. Darkens for a moment. Then, he’s looking away, at a random spot at the wooden wall by his side. He hums, lost in his own thoughts, and then says, “I’ll keep guard.”

“No, I will—”

“Let’s take shifts,” Yoongi relents. “Yeah? I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

Jungkook sighs but he nods, grabs his backpack, and lays his head on it. “But do wake me up. Don’t stay up all night again.”

Yoongi chuckles, and it’s a quiet thing, barely a sound, only his pink lips curving in a smile and his shoulders shaking. “I’m still a human. So, yeah, I’ll wake you up. Now get some sleep, Jungkook.”

“Don’t scare me like that again,” Jungkook sighs, face buried in the space between Hoseok’s neck and shoulder. “Never again.”

Hoseok’s lips press on the crown of his head, a hand rubbing soothingly at the small of his back. 

“I’m sorry, love.”

“I take care of myself, you take care of you, That’s our deal.”

“I know.”

“You can’t just run out of arrows to help me.”

“Never again.” Hoseok pulls back to look at him in the eyes. “I swear.”

And Jungkook believes him, he does, but— 

It was just too close today. The town was supposed to be clean, that’s what the guy they ran into that morning had told them, but not even halfway through the zombies appeared out of nowhere, dashed at them with their feet moving so quickly they barely touched the ground, teeth snapping together, crazed and starving. Five were immediately on him, trying to bite at his arms, to grab his legs so that he’d lose balance. Two more aimed for Hoseok, throwing themselves on him, and pinned him to the ground. Hoseok had always been quick at reacting though, had the blood of a snake, mind as sharp as the tips of his arrows. Already, he had a pocket knife in his hand and he stabbed the zombie on top of him in the head, used the now limp body as a shield against the second one until he managed to reach for his gun and shoot it in the head. 

Jungkook wasn’t worried. Hoseok was deadly.

So he focused on his own issues, swung his machete with as much strength as he could muster, and cut off the head of the closest zombie clean off its neck. Stabbed the second one right between the eyes, went for the third one, but that’s when the zombie suddenly ducked, dashed to the side, and Jungkook’s machete got stuck deep into the dead thing’s ribs. 

“Shit,” Jungkook hissed, tried to wedge the weapon out, and failed. Soon, he was on the ground. Soon, there were more of those things crawling out of the abandoned buildings.

Jungkook heard the arrow cutting through the air before he saw it pierce through the zombie’s skull, then another arrow, and another one, until the ones who were surrounding laid on the ground, unmoving. 

Jungkook sighed, relief and adrenaline wild in his system, and he threw the dead body off of him, straightened up, and turned to Hoseok only for his blood to run cold. 

He was out of arrows, the gun in his hand clicked uselessly twice before Hoseok threw it by his feet and tried to reach for his knife, but it was too late, a zombie was already on him, pushing him to the ground. Hoseok had fallen on his side, arms bent awkwardly, his elbow the only thing he could use to keep that thing’s head far from him, yellow teeth snapping with ghastly sounds, close to Hoseok’s face, already grazing his cheekbone.

Jungkook sprinted forward, the machete forgot behind him, and he threw himself at the zombie, rolled down the ground with it, and landed on top of it. Body frantic with panic, gaze red with rage, Jungkook grabbed the zombie’s head, dug his fingers into its skull until he had a good enough grip, and then started bashing it down onto the asphalt, once, twice, and more, until numbers were lost and the thing beneath him had long stopped moving, its head misshapen, pieces of skull stuck in its empty eyes.

“Jungkook, Kook-ah, it’s done,” Hoseok had said then, voice careful, arms steady when they wrapped around Jungkook’s torso. “Ssh, it’s done, it’s gone, we’re fine. I’m fine.”

And yeah, they are. Right now, hiding in one of the few houses that still stood up in town, doors locked and barricaded, laying on a bed that once belonged to someone else, they are.

But Jungkook doesn’t know if they will be tomorrow. Or the day after. Or a month from now, a year, ten. Right now, Hoseok’s body is alive and warm. Now, Hoseok smells of sweat and his own scent, something he can’t name, that reminds him of home. Now, Hoseok kisses his forehead, the space under his eye, his mouth, and for now that matters. For now, it has to.

“Don’t do that to me again,” Jungkook whispers, and Hoseok quiets down all his fears with another kiss, lights up heat beneath Jungkook’s skin where his hand touches him, slides under his shirt, fingers pressing like scorching feathers on his chest.

So Jungkook sighs on Hoseok’s mouth, chases after it like a starved man, spreads his fingers over his heart, where it’s still beating.

Yes. They’re fine right now.

Something touches him. Someone grabs him.

Jungkook’s eyes snap open, his hand closes around the handle of his machete hidden under his backpack and he swings it, fast, until Yoongi’s face comes into vision and the blade stops merely an inch from his throat.

Jungkook stares at him, eyes wide and breathing ragged, adrenaline surging through him and then fading away in a slow wave. “I—”

“Easy,” Yoongi murmurs, tips the blade away with the tip of his index. “Sorry. I wanted to wake you up. Didn’t think I’d scare you.”

Jungkook blinks and realizes he’s still holding the weapon close to Yoongi’s face. He lowers it immediately, tucking it back under his backpack. “Fuck. Sorry, I just—”

“It’s alright.” Yoongi stands up. “It’s good, actually. That you’re quick to react even when you’re asleep.”

“Right.” Jungkook straightens up too and he rubs at his eyes. “Still night?”

“Mh. You slept for about four hours.”

“I’ll keep guard. You sleep, hyung.”

Yoongi arches an eyebrow at this, but he heads back to his spot on the other side of the hut, sits down. “Haven’t been called that in a while.”

“Oh.” Jungkook rolls his shoulders, tries to shake the sleep off of him. The fire is still alive, and he tells himself he won’t let it burn down. “Sorry.”

Yoongi huffs out a breath and grabs his backpack, lays his head on it, face turned to the ceiling, arms crossed over his chest, so that his hands are always near his knives. “Don’t apologize for being polite. Some of my friends should learn from you.”

Jungkook smiles. He sits straight, back pressed to the wall and grabs his flask of water, downs several gulps trying to chase off the dryness in his mouth. For a while, there’s only the cracking of firewood, the sounds of wildlife in the night. Yoongi’s chest rises and falls with a slow rhythm, eyes closed. 

Jungkook looks down at his wrist, his fingers brush along the leather band wrapped around it. Hoseok had found it whilst they were looting a small town; there was a shop that had been left mostly alone as it only sold handmade jewels and leather accessories, and  Hoseok had taken two thick, leather bands and given one to Jungkook. 

“Happy anniversary, ” he had said with a shit-eating grin, mouth a heart, their anniversary nowhere near.

“You were calling his name.”

Jungkook startles at the sound of Yoongi’s voice, and looks at him. His eyes are still closed, body still. “What?”

“In your sleep,” Yoongi replies with a low voice. “You called his name.”

Jungkook feels his face flush and clears his voice. “Sorry.”

“Maybe he’s still—”

“No.” Jungkook wraps his hand around the leather band. “No. He’s not. Don’t tell me he is.”

Hope is a terrifying thing. Jungkook wants nothing to do with it.

Yoongi remains silent for entire minutes after this, but Jungkook can tell he’s not sleeping. In the end, Yoongi’s eyes open and he heaves a sigh.

“Jimin.”

Jungkook blinks and frowns. “Who’s that?”

“The one I’m looking for,” Yoongi answers. “His name is Jimin.” And he sounds different when he pronounces it. The vowels become long, the consonants too soft, his voice filled with something overwhelming.

“What—?” Jungkook swallows. “What is he like?”

The corner of Yoongi’s mouth quirks up. “Rude. Never calls me hyung.” A pause. “I’m telling you because I might call his name when I sleep, too.”

And then, he rolls onto his side and says nothing else.

The next morning, the sun is covered by thick, grey clouds, and the wind is cold enough that it makes Jungkook shiver under his light jacket. Yoongi lends him one of his sweaters, the wool hardened with how many times it’s been washed, but still warm and comfortable. 

They find berries along the way and munch on them as they head forward, towards what once was Chunchon. Now, the city is nothing but broken buildings, cracked concrete, ravaged roads. There’s only one way through, one Yoongi’s own community cleared, that cuts the journey towards the safe house by a day.

On their way there, the weather holds, and Jungkook wants to know more about Jimin.

“What about him?” Yoongi asks, eyes still puffy with sleep.

“Just—what is he like?”

“Told you. Rude.”

“Apart from being rude.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes and mutters something under his breath, but it’s a poor show of his acting skills. Jungkook can see that Yoongi wants to talk about him. 

“He’s insane.” Yoongi grabs for his pack of old cigarettes, all crooked and stained. There’s only three left. He lights one up. “Isn’t scared of anything. Which makes him reckless as shit. But, fuck, his aim is terrifying. You should see him.” Yoongi points two fingers to a spot in the distance. “Can shoot a fucker right between the eyes from a two miles distance.”

Jungkook smiles. “Yeah?”

“Mh. He used to be unbearable, though. First time I met him, he asked for me to go on a clean-out mission with him. ‘Cause he works long-distance, he only goes on missions with close-range fighters. So he asked for me . Still bitched the whole time. Wanted to fucking slap him.” Yoongi grins, eyes warm, his voice endlessly fond. “But I kept working with him. Started to understand him. He’s got a will to live. Most people nowadays don’t. They just survive. Not him, though. Jimin wants to live .” He stays quiet for a few moments then, their steps on the grass the only noise between them. “That’s how I know he’s still alive. Jimin could be standing face to face with God and still refuse to die.”

Jungkook clenches his jaw.

Hoseok had that too. The will to live. 

Didn’t really help him.

“Can you shoot?” Yoongi asks then. “Only ever saw you with that machete.”

Jungkook nods. “I’m good. But all the bullets were in Hoseok’s backpack. Only have a useless gun with me.”

Yoongi stops walking and stares at him as if he has never heard something dumber. Then, he shakes his head and shrugs off his backpack. “God’s sake, Jungkook, how about telling me? I’ve got so many bullets on me and no guns.”

“I—” Jungkook’s lips tug down at the corners. “You’re always using knives, how was I supposed to know?”

“Don’t pout. Jimin does that, too, and it’s unnerving. Can’t ever stay mad at a pout for the life of me.” He opens the bag, grabs a box of bullets, and throws it at Jungkook’s chest. “Now load up that gun of yours, kid. And hide it in your boot.”

Hours later, they reach the ruins of Chunchon. It started raining about half an hour ago, and with a grey sky behind it, the city looks like a massive piece of dark rubble. As they walk, their steps echo in the empty space, bouncing off laminates and pulled, massive pieces of asphalt. There’s only one way in, and even that route is hard to navigate. They climb over rusty cars, have to tiptoe their way around a hole in the ground that might be ten feet deep, crouch under branches and wildlife that have taken over the city from the cracks, broken buildings looming over them on either side.

Then, Yoongi stops walking. “What—?” He frowns and takes a few more steps forward. “What the fuck?”

Jungkook, too, looks ahead in confusion. The road is blocked. Not by nature, not by a fallen building: barbed wire. Several lines of it, standing at least nine feet tall, if not more. Jungkook follows the lines of wire and sees the edges of them securely hammered to the walls of the buildings around them, nails crooked, and that’s when it hits him: this is the work of humans.

Yoongi, too, realized. 

“We need to fucking go,” he hisses, turns around, then freezes when the unmistakable noise of guns clicking reaches their ears.

“ Nobody move, ” a voice booms then, echoes around them. “ Weapons down .”

“Fuck sake,” Yoongi murmurs. Then, louder, he says, “If you’re looking for food we have jackass.”

“I said weapons down!”

Yoongi sighs, sends a look at Jungkook, and nods. Slowly, they pull down their stuff. Jungkook is stiff as he lowers down the backpack, slower still when he lays down his machete. He doesn’t like running into other people in general. Humans are scary. Scarier than the zombies. The desperate ones are deadly.

He looks at Yoongi as he slowly unfastens the straps around his chest and thigh, putting down the knives. Jungkook taps on his left boot, arches an eyebrow. Yoongi shakes his head and slowly straightens up, hands raised. Jungkook does the same, the gun remaining hidden in his boot.

“They’ll leave once they get our stuff,” Yoongi whispers. “Just let them.”

Jungkook inhales deeply, hoping he doesn’t look as nervous as he feels. They come out of their hiding spots one by one—there’s four in total, all males. Three of them look athletic, trained, the other one a bit thinner than the rest. Younger, too. Jungkook knows that if he wants to use someone as a hostage, he’s the one to go for. 

What’s truly setting his alarms off, though, is how they’re dressed. All of them wear similar clothes, old leather jackets, ratted jeans, and combat boots, but the thing that catches Jungkook’s attention is the symbol sewn onto their jackets: a red circle, with an upside-down triangle inside. It’s on their chest, above their hearts, and on the hems of their left sleeve. Coat of arms aren’t a good sign in general, let alone when the fucking apocalypse is raging. Jungkook heard stories about groups of people who worked as mercenaries, under direct orders of those who used to sit on top of the world when it was still alive and that, somehow, managed to stay that far up ahead the rest even when it died. Weapons, drugs, humans. In some circles, in some places, those still count for something.

All four of them are armed, but only three walk forward, the other staying a few steps back, arms crossed over his chest, large eyes scanning over Jungkook. He’s the leader. 

“Check for hidden weapons,” he says, voice steady, pitch higher than Jungkook expected. 

One of the three men starts patting Jungkook down. The younger one. Jungkook holds his breath, looks over to Yoongi, who’s being checked by the second man, whilst the third one keeps his weapon aimed at them, a 1301 comp . Whoever they work under is powerful, firearms like those are impossible to find just by looting.

The man who’s checking Jungkook is hesitant, maybe it’s his first mission out in the field. He pats Jungkook too lightly, doesn’t notice the handgun hidden in Jungkook’s leather boot.

“They’re clean,” the second one says, steps away from Yoongi.

“Bags, then.” 

They go through the backpacks. One of them finds the leftover bullets in Jungkook’s bag and clicks his tongue. “Bullets but no gun?”

Yoongi glances at Jungkook, then replies, “Our friend had the guns.”

“Yeah?” The one staying back tilts his head to the side. “And where is your friend?”

Jungkook clenches his jaw. “Dead in a church.”

The man grins. “Ain’t that fucking poetic? What else do they have?”

“Nothing much,” one of the men answers. “Some water. Cereal bars. Useless shit.”

“Just take everything.”

They grab the backpacks, but they don’t leave. They linger there, look them up from their head, and down to their feet.

“They could do,” one of them says, walking closer to Jungkook. “This one’s pretty enough.” His eyes lower down to Jungkook’s arm. He grabs his wrist, checks the leather band Hoseok gifted him. “You don’t mind, do you?” He starts undoing the laces that keep it tied and that’s a good enough excuse to act.

Jungkook pulls back his arm, closes his hand into a fist, and punches the man in the nose, feels it cracking under his knuckles. He goes down with a groan and Jungkook braces himself for the hit that comes next. The younger one reacts immediately, slamming his gun’s buttstock on Jungkook’s temple. He lets himself fall down and curl over himself, clenching his teeth when a kick lands on his thigh, gives him an excuse to draw his legs even close to his chest.

“Ah, stop that, stop that!” The leader exclaims. “We need him looking pretty, not like a fucking stray dog.”

The kid walks away whilst the man Jungkook punched stands up. He’s clutching at his nose, hands bloody, and he snarls, “Fucker broke my nose!”

“It was ugly to begin with, get over it.” 

“You people,” Yoongi begins saying, voice like steel. “You’re from Lilith .”

A short silence follows. Jungkook stays on the ground, hand slowly inching closer to his boot, agonizingly so.

“Well, look at that,” the leader says and Jungkook sees him walking closer to Yoongi. “You know us?”

Yoongi stares at him, eyes taking in the man’s face inch by inch. A grin takes over his mouth, a crooked twist of Yoongi’s lips—Jungkook didn’t know he could make a face like that.

“Oh, I know you,” Yoongi whispers. “I know you very damn well.”

The man frowns, regarding Yoongi as if he were looking at an ant. Then, he grabs Yoongi by the chin, tilts his head to the side. “You know what, let’s take this one. He’ll work too, skinny shits like him sell well. That one on the ground looks like he’d put up a fight,” he says. “This one, not so much.”

Yoongi spits in his face. “Try me, fucker.”

A clap of thunder strikes in the air, splits the sky in half, the moment the man lands a blow on Yoongi’s face. It’s enough distraction for Jungkook to work with.

Quickly, he reaches inside his boot, grabs the gun and then rolls onto his back, shooting the guy with the broken nose first; the bullet pierces through his throat, blood spraying red mist in the rain. The younger one looks terrified for all but one moment, then he screams something incoherent, raises his rifle with shaking arms, finger hesitating on the trigger, and Jungkook had lost his mercy the moment he lost Hoseok. He shoots again, the bullet hits the guy in the eye and he falls down without a sound. 

The third man has less of an issue with the trigger and Jungkook is already sprinting to the left when the first bullet goes off, feels it grazing by his leg; it burns but the pain doesn’t explode, so he’s fine.

He sees Yoongi has already reached for his knives, kicking his leg around, and the leader falls onto the ground, too, hitting his forehead pretty hard. Jungkook decides Yoongi can handle it on his own, and makes to shoot the third guy, but just as he aims,  one of Yoongi’s knives lodges itself in the man’s throat. He loosens the grip on his rifle, clutching uselessly at his throat as blood spurts out heavy and stumbles on his knees, falling face-first on the ground.

Jungkook turns to Yoongi. He has a foot pressed on the leader’s chest, pressing down with his entire weight, the man beneath him struggling to breathe right. 

“Oh, I know Lilith damn fucking well ,” he hisses, voice like venom. Then, he lifts up his arm, palm outstretched in Jungkook’s direction. “Gun.”

Jungkook doesn’t hesitate. He walks to Yoongi, hands him the weapon, and stands back, breathing fast.

Yoongi kneels down on the man’s chest, lips quivering when he groans, his forehead  profusely. 

“And you know me,” Yoongi says. He presses the nuzzle of the gun on the man’s left thigh, just above his knee, then grits out. “This one is for Jimin’s leg.”

The bullet goes through the muscle, burning a hole in the man’s pants, who howls and snarls in pain, thrashing under Yoongi, spit clinging to his upper lip. Yoongi watches him for several long seconds, rain coming down hard, sky black. 

Then, he aims at the man’s head, shoots one more, and everything falls quiet.

Yoongi stands up, rolls back his shoulders, neck stiff. He turns to Jungkook and walks to him in fast steps, grabbing his chin with his free hand. “You good?”

“I—” Jungkook nods. “I’m fine.”

“They hit you in the head, are you sure?”

“It wasn’t that hard.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“Good.” Yoongi lets go of him, breathes in. “Okay. Good.” He looks around himself. “Grab their shit, then we’re out of here.”

By the time they manage to unhook the barbed wire from the buildings, it’s night. They walk fast under the rain, shoulders heavy with the new weapons and extra backpacks, and they leave Chunchon behind them.

It takes them almost another hour to find shelter.

Without realizing it, with the rain being so hard and the sun having long set, they’ve been walking by railroads. They run into what used to be a halt back in the day, and it’s nothing more than a cramped, tiny space, the tiles on the floor cracked and pushed up by overgrown roots, but the rooftop is sturdy enough and there are no leaks, everything is dry. 

They move in silence once they put the bags down. Yoongi notices an old bench in a corner of the tiny station and gestures at it, so Jungkook goes  and kicks it down until the wooden planks break. Yoongi starts collecting the wood and Jungkook works on one of the three small windows, pushing it until the stiff glass panel slides open. The air is cool and moist when it fills the station, but at least they’ll be able to close the door and light up a fire without the smoke choking them. 

Once a small fire is lit just beneath that window, they wordlessly rid themselves of their drenched clothes, put them around the fire so they’ll dry, then do the same with their belongings, emptying the various backpacks and laying the content on the ground. Yoongi hands Jungkook a folded thermal blanket and Jungkook wraps it around himself, noticing it’s big enough for both of them. He sits next to Yoongi, who’s going through the backpacks that belonged to the Red Triad’s men, and grabs a hem of the blanket to drape over Yoongi’s shoulders.

“We can both fit in it,” Jungkook says.

“It’s fine.”

“You’re freezing cold, it’s not fine.”

Yoongi sighs but, in the end, he relents and grabs his side of the blanket, pulling it around himself after scooting closer to Jungkook. “Look at all the shit those fuckers had.” 

It is quite a spectacle: apart from another rifle and seven handguns, plus a multitude of bullets, there are hunting knives, ropes, dried meat kept in plastic containers, water, and a bottle of whiskey. 

Yoongi grabs it and uncaps it, sniffs at it, and then hisses. “Well, shit. It’s basically poison.”

Jungkook grimaces at the strong smell, eyes watering. He gapes when Yoongi brings the bottle to his mouth and drinks a large gulp of the whiskey.

“How can you drink that shit?”

“You don’t really spit at your luck during the apocalypse,” Yoongi replies. “Plus. Old whiskey is good whiskey.”

“Does it taste good?”

“Debatable.” Yoongi hands him the bottle. “See it for yourself.”

Jungkook holds the bottle in his hand for a few moments, nose burning whenever he gets a waft of that smell. In the end, he closes his eyes and takes a sip. He almost spits it out right away, but somehow manages to swallow it down, his entire mouth dry, throat on fire.

“What the fuck?” He croaks out.

By his side, Yoongi laughs quietly, shoulders shaking. “Oh, your face right now…First time drinking whiskey?”

“I think even a raging alcoholic would have problems with this.”

Yoongi shrugs and reaches for the dried meat. “Maybe. But you know what? I’m starving, and I still feel like I should have made that fucker suffer more.” He glances at Jungkook. “So let’s have a very sad feast tonight.”

Jungkook doesn’t know if he’s drunk, but he feels a lot warmer than before under the thermal blanket, his vision swaying from time to time, and the bottle of whiskey looks a lot less full than it was when they started.

Jungkook sighs, eyes on the ceiling, trying to keep up with the way the flames cast moving shadows over it, and when that gets too confusing, he leans his head on Yoongi’s shoulder and stares at his arm, perched over a bony knee. 

“How—” Jungkook clears his voice, then traces a thin, long scar that runs from Yoongi’s elbow down to his wrist. “How did you get this one?”

Yoongi, who looks a lot soberer than Jungkook feels, breathes in deeply, lets it out softly. “Was on a cleanout mission with Namjoon. You’ll meet him soon. We ran into a hoard, had to squeeze our way out of an old farm. Fell over a saw. Still don’t know how I didn’t get all kinds of diseases from that shit.”

Jungkook hums, fingertips light over Yoongi’s forearm. “This one?”

“Bullet.”

“Who shot you?”

“They’re dead,” Yoongi replies. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You killed them?”

“No.” A pause. “Jimin did.”

Jungkook looks at him. Yoongi is all soft features and hard eyes, jaw clenched. Whenever he talks about Jimin, his voice loses the roughness, becomes a delicate sound so thick with longing that Jungkook always ends up worrying if he sounds like that too whenever he mentions Hoseok.

“Those men from earlier,” Jungkook begins saying. “You knew them.”

“Not them specifically. But yeah. Lilith has bases all over Korea. I ran into them once before, near Daegu.”

Jungkook finds another scar to look at, this one ugly, nasty, the skin just beneath Yoongi’s collarbone uneven and red. “What did they want?”

“Same thing they still want. They traffic humans. Money doesn’t matter jackass anymore, but weapons do. Drugs. Meds. So they get those for payment.” Yoongi rubs at his neck. “They ambushed us. Shot Jimin in the leg.”

“How did you get out of it?”

Yoongi squints his eyes at the fire, Jungkook sees his fingers twitching. “Barely. Almost—fuck. Almost lost him that day. But I told you. Jimin would turn his back in front of Death herself and just walk away.”

Something starts hurting, suddenly. Jungkook grimaces at the nasty feeling inside of him, how it bites and scratches at his chest, tries to poke a hole through his lungs.

“How did you two get separated?”

Yoongi doesn’t reply immediately, and Jungkook’s head feels muddy, his lips loose. 

“We were looting this supermarket, it was basically untouched. Lots of canned food. But then I dropped a can, made noise. The fuckers were hiding in a storage room, they came after us immediately. Fucking hoard of them. We ran for the exit, but a few of them made a shelf fall down, started climbing on it. Jimin was on the other side. He just told me to run, he’d go from the back. So I did. Wasn’t even worried. Jimin’s deadly, so I wasn’t worried.” Yoongi swallows, Jungkook’s eyes follow the movement of his throat. “When I circled around, the back of the supermarket was just—filled with them. Maybe eighty of them. Place had warehouses, so that’s where most of them hid. They spotted me immediately so I had to run again. I lost them in the woods.” Yoongi clears his voice, glances at Jungkook for a moment. “But it’s fine. He’s fine.” 

That aching gets nastier and Jungkook can still taste that whiskey on his tongue. “How do you know he didn’t die this time?”

At this, Yoongi turns his face around to look at him. “I just do.”

“And what if he did? What if he’s dead?”

“He’s not.”

“But what if he is?” Jungkook asks, voice loud, heart racing. Yoongi says nothing, but his eyes widen, lips parting wordlessly. “You can’t know if he’s alive! If he’s waiting for you! People die even when they’re deadly—they just do !”

“What the—?” Yoongi stares at him. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Everything!” Jungkook grabs Yoongi’s wrist, leans in. He’s yelling, he knows, sudden and loud, but he can’t help himself. “What’s wrong? Look at us! Chasing after dead people!”

“Jimin is not— ”

“But what if he is ?” Jungkook cries out, exasperated and he feels ugly, unfair, but he can’t stop. It fucking hurts and he can’t stop. So he holds Yoongi’s face between his hands, lips heavy with the flavor of whiskey, eyes burning too much to notice the look on Yoongi’s face, only thinks that there’s so much inside of him that is hurting and that maybe—just maybe— Yoongi’s lips might feel like Hoseok’s.

He doesn’t find out. Yoongi’s hand presses gently over his mouth, stopping him without even applying pressure. Jungkook doesn’t move, and Yoongi gazes at him for several silent seconds, the expression on his face forgiving, understanding.

“Don’t,” Yoongi whispers. “You don’t want this. I don’t want this either. And do you wanna know why?” He drops his hand, tucks Jungkook’s hair behind his ear. “Because as much as it hurts, you’re not my Jimin, and I’m not your Hoseok.”  

That nasty gremlin in Jungkook’s chest explodes. Throws venom all over his heart, his lungs, ribs, until the pain gets unbearable and the first sob rips through him in a shudder, chokes his voice out. 

“I know,” Yoongi breaths, coaxes Jungkook into his arms until he’s sobbing in Yoongi’s shoulder, hands shaking. “I know, Kook-ah.”

Jungkook holds him tight and cries louder, wails like a child, and he knows he’ll be ashamed of this in the morning, of everything he did and tried to do, but he needs this. “It hurts!”

“Yeah,” Yoongi sighs, a hand stroking Jungkook’s hair. 

“I wa-want it to stop!”

“I know.”

“I want him back,” Jungkook whines and coughs when another sob gets stuck in his throat. “I want Hoseok back. Bring him back!”

Yoongi’s arms tighten around him, the kind of embrace that should hurt and feel suffocating, but God, Jungkook needs this.

“If I could I would. I really would.” Yoongi presses his mouth over Jungkook’s temple, doesn’t move for a few moments. “You’ll be alright, Kook-ah. Hyung will help you.”

Jungkook doesn’t know if he believes him, but he wants to. So he cries more, doesn’t let go of Yoongi until the tears dry and his body stops shuddering, and when his ribs stop feeling like they’ll break with how heavy his heart feels, he lets Yoongi help him to lay down. 

His face feels warm, head numb, and with his head laying over Yoongi’s legs, long fingers combing through his hair, exhaustion creeps in and his eyes close, Hoseok’s face hidden somewhere in the dreams that creep upon him.

The next morning, the sky is the clearest it’s been in a while, the sun hitting them without care for their sweat. It’s as if the rainstorm from the prior day had never happened.

“If we don’t stop we should be at the safe house by tonight,” Yoongi tells him as they get ready. “Think you can do it without taking too many breaks?”

Jungkook nods. He takes most of their new equipment and supplies himself, his backpack being the one with fewer things, and he’s about to leave the liquor behind until Yoongi tells him it can help with burning wet wood.

They have to get back on track during the morning; the incident in the city and the rain made them lose ground and time, so hey walk fast, eating the dried beef without speaking much to save their energy. Eventually, they stop by a stream to wash up and drink, and Yoongi says, “Let’s take a break here. We’ve been walking for hours, we can rest a little.”

“You sure?”

Yoongi nods as he rubs his wet hands over the back of his neck. With how pale he is, his skin gets reddened quickly under the sun. “Yeah. We’re almost back to the woods, so we’ll be fine.”

Jungkook sits down by the stream at this, sighing in relief once he takes off his boots and dips his swollen feet in the cold water. The sky above him is bright and blue, and even when the world was alive, Jungkook thinks there was never a color as vivid as this.

“Sometimes it almost feels nice,” he says. “Y’know. When there aren’t zombies trying to bite your throat open, it feels nice to be alive. The world is a lot quieter.”

Yoongi hums, drinks some water from his now re-filled bottle. “Yeah. But then the fuckers try to bite your throat open again.”

“Ever the optimistic.”

“Realistic. It’s different.”

“Right, sorry for offending your life morals.”

“You’re unbearable at times. Teasing little shit.”

“You like me anyway.”

“Unfortunately so.”

Jungkook smiles. 

He thinks Hoseok would have liked it here. That he would have thrown Jungkook in the water and then kissed his scowl away. 

“Hyung.” Jungkook turns to Yoongi. “I’m sorry for what I did yesterday.”

Yoongi looks at him. He shakes his head then. “Don’t apologize for being hurt.”

“Still. I shouldn’t have tried to kiss you.” Jungkook dips his hands in the water, then presses them on his cheeks. “I don’t even know why I did that.”

“It’s alright, Kook-ah.”

“I just—” He presses his lips together. “I don’t know. Maybe I was willing to pretend you were him.” He grimaces. “That sounds shitty. Sorry.”

Yoongi snorts. “Don’t sweat it. If I ever entertained the idea of kissing you, I think I would pretend you were someone else too.”

“Wow.”

“Don’t act offended. It doesn’t suit you.”

Jungkook smiles. “It’s a good thing you won’t have to ever pretend. Because he’s alive, right?”

Yoongi’s eyes widen a fraction, something coloring them a delicate color. “Right,” he murmurs. “He is.”

Jungkook hums and looks down at the stream. The water is so clear he can see the pebbles at the bottom perfectly, their surface iridescent, sunlight reflecting blue and green on them.

“Can I ask something?” 

Jungkook turns to Yoongi. “Yeah, sure.”

“When you said you knew how to kill,” Yoongi begins saying. “You didn’t just mean killing dead fuckers, did you?”

Jungkook hears a twig breaking behind him, a bird then lifting up in the sky, wings fluttering wildly. “Humans are scarier than zombies.” He leans down over the stream and lowers his arm in the cold water until he manages to grab a handful of pebbles, wipes his thumb over the wet surface. “Zombies don’t know what they’re doing. Humans do.”

“You faced them before,” Yoongi muses then. He pulls up a leg, props his chin over his bent knee. “Dangerous humans I mean.”

Jungkook nods and he picks the prettiest stone out of the bunch, throws back in the water the rest. “A couple of times. Once, it went particularly nasty. The weather was awful, like, actually dangerous, and we ran into a farm with a family living in it. They offered us shelter for the night, food. ‘t was a woman, her husband and their two kids, looked like the sweetest people. So when they offered us food we trusted them. But, well, it was drugged.” Jungkook lifts up the stone against the sky, squints his eyes at the black ring that forms around it. “Woke up tied up on the ground, Hoseok was on the other side of the room, still unconscious. Turns out they had another kid. A little girl. She got infected a few years prior, they kept her in the cellar. They were gonna feed us to her.”

“Fuck,” Yoongi hisses. “Are you serious?”

“I know, for a second I couldn’t believe it either.” Jungkook sniffs and then stuffs the pebble in the pocket of his jeans. “But they weren’t strong. Just—insane with grief, I guess. There was a nail sticking from the wall so I managed to undo the ropes, tried to get us out of there. Obviously, they tried to stop us, the mom was especially vicious. But as I said, they weren’t strong. So, in the end we managed to run away.”

Yoongi asks, “What about the kids?”

“Killed the infected girl.” He pauses. “The other two, I couldn’t do it. But their parents were dead, and we left them there alone. With no protection. In a way, it’s like we killed them anyway.”

“Maybe they’re still alive.”

“Maybe.”

“Can you duck for me real quick?”

Jungkook frowns, but when he sees Yoongi’s hand inching towards one of his knives he immediately lays down on his back. The knife flies over him, noiseless, then it gets stuck in something, a loud thud follows. Jungkook looks to his left and finds a zombie unmoving on the ground, the knife stuck neatly between its eyes. 

“Break’s over,” Yoongi says as he gets up. “More might come if this one caught our scent. Let’s scram.”

The woods are silent when they finally arrive, dusk approaching. The sun is low just above the trees, the sky bleeding red.

“It’s maybe three hours from here,” Yoongi tells him, walking a few steps behind him. 

“Tell me more about the community.” Jungkook throws him a look over his shoulder. “The people there.”

Yoongi smiles, clearly fond of the people he lives with, and Jungkook looks back ahead of himself, a maze of trees in front of him.

“Ah, they’re good people.” Yoongi sighs. “Our head, she’s an impressive one. Built that place from scratch with her partner. Then she went out to look for more people to shelter. Soon enough the place got huge. The smaller communities saw us as a threat for a long time. I was part of one of those. Not a good one. When they offered to let me in, I didn’t have any second thoughts. They’re family. Especially my team. You’ll like them. Namjoon is smart like a fox. Don’t give him a knife though. But he’s good with setting up traps.”

“Are all you on—what did you call them, clean out missions?”

“Yeah, we are. Usually, we split up into two teams. Namjoon, Seokjin and Taehyung, Jimin and I. Jin-hyung is a sniper. Taehyung close range. Fast as fuck, that one. I saw him outrun things that no human should be able to outrun. And Jin-hyung has the blood of a snake. A fucker could be inches away from his neck and he’s not even going to blink.”

Jungkook grins. “They sound cool.”

“Mmh, they are. I think you’d work well with Taehyung. You’re both smart, fast on your feet. And—” Yoongi stops walking and Jungkook hears the sound of the rifle he’s carrying on his back being cocked. “ Come the fuck out. ”

Jungkook spins around, immediately grabs his gun, and points it towards the direction Yoongi’s aiming at, between trees. For a few moments, nothing happens, then there are stepping sounds, dry leaves cracking. Jungkook tightens the grip on his gun, brushes his finger over the trigger. A person walks out of the shadows offered by the trees slowly, hands raised. Slowly, Jungkook lowers his gun.

“You following us?” Yoongi asks.

“No. Not looking for trouble, I have no business with you. If you want my stuff, just know I don’t even have a fucking gun, only clothes and—”

“ Hyung? ”

Both Yoongi and Hoseok turn to him. 

Because it’s Hoseok . 

Jungkook entertains the idea that he’s just dreaming Hoseok up, but even in his clearest moments of imagination, he wouldn’t be able to make Hoseok look so real. 

It’s Hoseok.

There’s a moment when time locks and trees fall silent, where no one breathes , and then his legs are moving on their own and Hoseok moves so fast he stumbles, almost falls to the ground and then in Jungkook’s arms, his arms so tight around Jungkook it fucking hurts.  It never felt as blissful to be aching. 

“ I knew it!” Hoseok yells, a smile audible even when his voice cracks, lips brushing over the crown of Jungkook’s head. “Fuck! Cut through a city and there were dead men and I knew it was you! Throat and eye, you always—always aim for the throat and eye, I knew you were alive!”

Jungkook rubs his face against Hoseok’s chest, jaw stiff and sobs sounding more and more breathless, his hands frantically trying to hold all of Hoseok, clinging tighter when he pulls back, cradles Jungkook’s face in his hands, thumbs wiping at Jungkook’s tears.

He laughs, eyes red, face wet, but Hoseok laughs and he’s alive , kissing him over and over until Jungkook can’t breathe, even through the worst cries.

“I hate you!” Jungkook slaps at his chest without any real strength, his body feeling too numb. “You-you weren’t there! I waited for t-two days! I—” Hoseok kisses him again, Jungkook tugs at his hair. “I thought you were dead!”

“So little faith in me,” Hoseok laughs, and yet he looks like the tears won’t stop anytime soon. “Told you that if I die it’s ‘cause you put the bullet in my head, didn’t I?” His smile falters for a second, hands impossibly gentle as they hold Jungkook’s face. “Hi, love. Hi .”

Jungkook hears his own laughter first, feels it later, how it stretches his mouth and makes his face warm up. He wants to kiss Hoseok again, to do just that until the world decays around them, but Yoongi breaks them out of it, lightly clearing his voice.

“I hate interrupting miracles,” he mutters with a smile. “But we should keep going.”

It’s night when they approach the safe house.

There are lights between the trees, like candles lit behind glass, and Yoongi turns to them. “Follow my steps. Traps everywhere.”

Jungkook nods and pays attention to where Yoongi puts his feet, in the spaces between barbed wire and rusty bear traps, thin threads connected to small silver bells. When they finally reach the house, Jungkook is taken aback with how large it is—it must have been a small hotel once.

Suddenly, Yoongi’s steps quicken, feet uncaring of where they land, so Jungkook guesses it must be the end of the traps and he hurries too, his hand tightly clasped with Hoseok’s.

They reach the door and Yoongi knocks once, pauses, knocks two more times, then three. Jungkook turns to him and there’s this expression on Yoongi’s face that chokes him up, features tight with expectation, eyes wide as they stare at the closed door, his chest rising and falling fast, lips pressed together—the door opens.

“Oh my God!” A young man, tall and wide-shouldered, exclaims before throwing his arms around Yoongi’s neck. “Jesus, hyung, what took you so long! Come in, quick.”

Yoongi gestures at Jungkook and Hoseok before he steps inside and Hoseok closes the door behind him. Inside, the space and design confirm Jungkook’s idea of this place being once a hotel. There are two dusty couches pressed close to an empty chimney and at the end of the room the desk of a lobby, two different staircases that bring to a second floor on each side of it. 

Sitting on those couches are two more men and they immediately rush over once they spot Yoongi, both hugging him tightly, towering over him with how built they are.

“Who’s this?” The man who opened the door asks then, frowning at Jungkook. 

“Friends,” Yoongi replies quickly, his eyes scanning over the room. “They’ll stay with—where’s Jimin?”

The room falls silent. Jungkook holds his breath just as one of the men releases a long, deep sigh, eyes fluttering closed, handsome face paling up.

“Taehyung,” Yoongi murmurs, “Where’s Jimin?”

The one who opened the door, Taehyung, stares at Yoongi. “He’s not with you?”

Slowly, Yoongi shakes his head. “We got separated. We—I thought he was here. That he had gotten back. He’s not—” He frowns, blinks. “Jimin isn’t here?”

No one speaks. 

Yoongi looks around the room again, as if he were thinking this must be a joke, that his Jimin will suddenly come down those stairs, laugh at him. But no one moves, and no one speaks.

Then, Yoongi takes a step back. “He’s not here.”

The man standing behind Taehyung steps forward “Yoongi—”   

But Yoongi only holds up a hand, fingers trembling, eyes lost. He shakes his head and then walks away, climbing up the stairs, almost like he’s looking for a place to hide upstairs. 

“Fuck,” Taehyung grits out, eyes reddening. “ Fuck.”

“We don’t know if he’s dead,” the other man says, arms crossed over his chest. “He could be hiding somewhere. Could be on his way—shit.” He turns to Jungkook and Hoseok and then forces a smile. “Sorry.”

“No, please.” Hoseok waves a dismissive hand at them. “I don’t know much but—if you’re missing a companion then, please, don’t apologize.”

“We should introduce ourselves first.” He walks closer to them. “I’m Seokjin, the one behind me is Namjoon. Then, Taehyung.” Seokjin pauses. “Yoongi found you?”

“He saved me from a zombie,” Jungkook replies. “I was looking for Hoseok and he was looking for Jimin so we stuck together. Told me about the community, that—”

“Of course,” Namjoon sighs then, his voice deeper than Jungkook was expecting. “You’re welcome to it, of course you are. We’re sorry we can’t celebrate properly, it’s just—” he leaves the rest of the sentence hanging.

Seokjin straightens his shoulders. “You two must be tired. I’ll walk you to your room, can’t promise you warm water but the water-system works, so you can get washed up. And there’s food in the kitchen, I’ll show it to you later.” Seokjin breathes in deeply. “Welcome to Arabella.”

Jungkook forgot the last time he could smell soap on his skin. 

The rooms in the safe-house are small, all similar, with two single beds on either side, a large window on one wall, desk and chair pressed next to the door, and each one has its own private bathroom. When Jungkook walks out of the shower, skin prickled with goosebumps because the water was cold, the two single beds are pressed close together, Hoseok laying down in the middle.

Jungkook climbs on top of the mattress, feels it creak and dip under his weight and, even in the dark, the single candle lit up on top of the desk barely enough to see shapes, he finds Hoseok’s mouth. 

Jungkook can’t recall a time he’s ever kissed Hoseok like this. Their first kiss had been a thing so vague he could barely feel it. The others, as heated or as desperate as they’ve been, were never this. He never pried Hoseok’s mouth open so harshly, never gripped his hair so tight. And Hoseok never grabbed him so fast , never pressed him down on a bed with a strength that barely belongs to him, lick into his mouth as if Jungkook tastes like water in a wasteland. 

Hoseok’s hands move over Jungkook’s chest, his shoulders, grab at his thighs to pry them open, to have them around his hips, and Jungkook wonders how he ever thought anyone’s kiss could feel like Hoseok’s—

That’s when he stops.

Hoseok lets Jungkook push him back gently, eyes dark and patient despite the heat in them.

“What’s wrong?” Hoseok traces the line of Jungkook’s cheekbone with his thumb. 

“I—” Jungkook swallows. “I tried kissing him.”

Hoseok’s eyes widen, but that’s it. The way he looks at Jungkook doesn’t change.

“We didn’t. He stopped me. Because he knew I didn’t want him but—I tried anyway. I tried.”

Hoseok nods. “Okay.”

“Because I thought—” Jungkook sighs, cradles Hoseok’s face in hands. “I thought you were dead and it hurt so fucking bad and it didn’t make sense but I wanted to know if kissing him would have felt like kissing you, and it wouldn’t have, nothing would, but I thought you—”

Hoseok cards his fingers through his hair. “I know.”

“It hurt so bad. It hurt.”

Maybe it’s not heartbreak that twists Hoseok’s face, but it’s something fucking close to it. “It’s alright. It’s—fuck, I’m sorry.”

Jungkook shakes his head, cheeks warm. “‘s not your fault.”

“I’m so sorry, love.” He leans in, lips so close to Jungkook’s that it might drive him to insanity. “I’m here, yeah? Here.” Hoseok kisses him on the cheek, at the corner of his mouth. “‘m here.”

Jungkook releases a breath he’s held onto too long, eyes closing and body twitching at every soft press of Hoseok’s lips on his face, always too close to his lips but not close enough, beneath his jaw, on his neck, fingertips skimming over his waist, making Jungkook’s hip buck up. “Hyung—”

“Should I stop?”

Jungkook shakes his head, grabs at Hoseok’s shirt, and wishes he could just rip it off of him. “No.”

“What do you want?” Hoseok’s teeth pinch at the juncture of his shoulder. “Tell hyung what you want.”

“You,” Jungkook replies with no hesitation, keeps palming at Hoseok’s chest. “Wanna feel you, wanna—”

“We don’t have anything.”

“ I don’t care.”

Something in Hoseok’s jaw ticks, eyes getting darker, chest rising faster. He’s slow as he lowers his hand, his knuckles brushing over Jungkook’s nipple, abdomen, down to his navel where the large towel is tied, hesitates there despite how hard his fingers are trembling, how he looks at Jungkook.

A hot thing kicks in Jungkook’s chest when Hoseok unties the towel and stares at him, sees his body, his skin, alive and warm and his, fuck—Jungkook knows that all of him is Hoseok’s, only Hoseok’s, to do whatever he wants in whatever way. But still, Hoseok always asks, What do you want? I’ll do anything you want, so what is it?

Hoseok pulls off his shirt, throws it behind him and when his mouth swallows Jungkook down, Jungkook presses a hand over his lips, legs pressing at either side of Hoseok’s shoulders. He muffles a moan behind his hand, Hoseok taking him deeper, then pulling back, lips tight, a hand pressing down on his stomach, the other squeezing the softer part of his thigh. 

Jungkook sighs at the sight of Hoseok kneeled between his legs, his lips stretched around his cock, tongue obscene. He wants to thread his fingers through Hoseok’s hair, tug at it, but he knows that if he moves he’ll make noise, he’ll be loud. So he lays there, eyes closed and brows furrowed, his back arching lightly to have more of the heat of Hoseok’s mouth. He could cum like this, isn’t sure if he’d be able to hold himself back when he’s feeling so greedy and desperate.

Hoseok pulls away suddenly, his breath short, grabbing Jungkook’s by the hips, and rolls him around, startling a gasp out of his lungs. Hoseok then pulls him up by the waist until Jungkook’s pressed against the bed, thighs trembling, exposed, and eager. He presses himself over Jungkook’s back, chest warm, hand sliding down around his stomach, low between his legs so he can rub at the head of his cock, mouth just beneath Jungkook’s ear.

“‘s good,” Jungkook keens, spreads his legs wider, pushes his ass higher. “Missed you, I—”

“Thought I lost you.” Hoseok’s fingers are tight around him, fast. “I knew you were alive, but I thought I lost you. That I wasn’t going to find you.” His tongue laps at Jungkook’s neck. “Was going insane.”

Jungkook bites off a whine, teeth digging in his lower lip, and he reaches behind himself, finds Hoseok’s waist, and drags blunt fingernails over the curve of it. 

Hoseok works him too much, Jungkook thinks, because there’s a moment when he feels like all he is is the feeling in his own body. The hard flex of his abdomen, the soreness in his thighs, burning knees and too sensitive everywhere, hard and leaking and so wet he should be embarrassed. He gets so lost into it, so dizzy, that he doesn’t even realize Hoseok lets go of him, that he keeps muffling moans simply because he’s been aching for too long, but he grabs the pillow tighter when he feels Hoseok’s wet fingers over his hole, wet with him, smearing precum all over and then pushing in a careful finger, crooking it just right too soon. 

“ Fuck!” Jungkook buries his face in the pillow, moans in it. “Please, please —”

Hoseok hums, licks at the shell of his ear and Jungkook feels like he’s going to melt, collapse and explode, one finger becoming two, Hoseok’s tongue too familiar with all his sensitive spots, his lobe, that space just under his jaw, knows that if he tugs at Jungkook’s hair he will tighten and push back in his hand. 

“There you are,” Hoseok breathes, thrusts his fingers in faster, the slide becoming smoother and Jungkook’s body greedier. “Things I’d do to you—”

It’s left hanging, but Jungkook whines all the same, hips twitching with every perfect push inside of him, cock heavy between his legs. Jungkook knows all of what Hoseok would do to him, has had them all and more, wants them even now but won’t let himself be loud, not here.

Hoseok opens him up, adds a third finger, presses and probes, and strokes until Jungkook’s eyes are wet, until he’s shaking with how hard he wants, aching with need. He wants everything at once, Hoseok inside of him and in his mouth, on his knees, Hoseok spread for him, long legs over Jungkook’s shoulders as he fucks into him, wants the moans and the sweat, the feel of a body giving in for someone else and tensing all the same, he wants , pleads spilling out of his mouth, muffled into the pillow.

When Hoseok finally has mercy on him, Jungkook holds his breath anyway, knows what comes next, quivers with knowing.

Hoseok slides into him slow, hard and so hot Jungkook wants to burn, the stretch punching the air out of him, the drag of Hoseok’s cock turning him into a pliant thing, boneless, pulsing.

Hoseok isn’t stronger than him, isn’t bigger, but Jungkook likes to believe he is, arches his back more so that Hoseok can cage him down, hips pressed against Jungkook’s ass, knees over Jungkook’s calves, and he’s so full and warm and sensitive he could cry. 

Hoseok fucks him hard every time he gets to fuck Jungkook. It’s the fear, Jungkook thinks. That they don’t know if they’ll be alive the next day, or the one after, in a month, in a year. But tonight it’s particularly vicious and Jungkook can’t get enough, pushes his ass back with each thrust because this is real, them, how they have sex, how they love, it’s real and he spent days thinking it wouldn’t be real anymore. So he cries and moans in that pillow, keens, and whimpers when Hoseok tugs at his hair, rubs at his nipples, kisses the corner of his mouth, the shell of his ear, whispers, “ You’re so good, so good”, and, “ More?”, and, “ I love you, I love you, I love—”

Jungkook comes without a sound, all of his body shuddering through it, all of it made of heat and the pleasure of it, hands fisting at the old bed-sheets, Hoseok’s cock deep inside him, fucks him through it until it’s too much.

“ Hyung-ah ,” Jungkook moans when Hoseok slides out of him, leaves him empty and fluttering, weightless, his knees spreading until he’s laying down on his stomach, unable to move. “ Hoseok .”   

Hoseok flips him over again, slow, careful, grabs him behind the knees and raises his legs, rests Jungkook’s calves over his shoulders as he holds Jungkook’s thighs close together, slides his cock between them, a winded sound ripped out of him, lips parted, skin flushed. Jungkook thinks he might get hard again just from this, just from the sight of Hoseok’s cockhead appearing and disappearing between the skin of his legs, almost wants to, sighing when Hoseok presses a kiss to the side of his knee, sloppy and clumsy.

He comes soon after, spills all over Jungkook’s stomach, groans, and then clenches his jaw, lips shut, breathing harshly, swallowing down his noises whilst Jungkook’s eyes flutter closed, a hand rubbing over his belly, where he’s filthy and warm.

His legs slide off Hoseok’s shoulders, chest sinking and rising unsteady, and Hoseok leans down to kiss him, as desperate as before, almost nasty with it, teeth tugging at his lip, tongue licking over his cupid bow. Jungkook manages to find enough strength to wrap his arms around him, kiss him back, more, until Hoseok’s body loosens, until his lips turn into a gentle warmth, his kisses lazy. 

“Hyung-ah.” Jungkook pulls Hoseok in, makes him lay on top of him, presses his nose in the crook of his neck, breathes him in. “Love you.”

Hoseok sighs this slow, relieved thing that breaks over Jungkook’s collarbones. “I mean it.”

“What?”

“If I die, it’s because you’re the one who pulls the trigger on me.”

Jungkook’s chest tugs and twists, eyes burning. “I know.”

It goes both ways. 

Then, Hoseok groans. “Kook-ah.”

“Mh?”

“I don’t want to go back under that cold water,” he murmurs, “But we might not have a choice.”

Jungkook snorts and then laughs, feels Hoseok’s lips thinning into a smile over his skin.

Jungkook wakes up with a startle when something knocks at the door, a hand immediately reaching for the gun on the nightstand, Hoseok waking up without a word beside him, already on his feet. It takes them a few moments to remember that they’re not out, hiding in a church or a convenience store. 

Jungkook relaxes, breathes out tension into a sigh, then puts the gun away and walks to the door. It’s still dark out, maybe it’s very early in the morning. 

“Hyung,” Jungkook murmurs once he opens the door.

Yoongi clears his voice. “I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m leaving.”

Jungkook frowns. “Huh?”

“I’ll go back.” Yoongi’s eyes are swollen, bruised red. “To where Jimin and I split up.”

“Oh.”

“Because maybe—” Yoongi swallows, harsh and fast. “Maybe I can find something. Something of his. I’ll take the car, so it won’t take much. It’s not even one in the morning, so—I just wanted to tell you. But I’ll be back.”

Hoseok walks to Jungkook’s side. “We’ll go with you.”

Immediately, Yoongi shakes his head. “No, you two went through enough shit as it is. You don’t need mine too.”

“Hyung,” Jungkook murmurs, hands itching to reach out to him. “We’re coming with you.”

“You kept him safe,” Hoseok adds. “I think we both owe this to you.”

Yoongi looks like he wants to protest some more but, in the end, he gives up. He’s too tired to put up a fight, Jungkook thinks.

“Then get ready,” Yoongi says as he turns around. “I’ll start the car.”

They ride in an old, battered Jeep Wrangler. The blue paint is rusty and scratched, bumpers stained red, but it drives well, engine silent, and Jungkook wonders if maybe someone from Yoongi’s community got their hands on it, fixed it up. They drive around the safe house until they get onto a dirt-paved path that goes through the woods and then onto a main, cracked road. Yoongi keeps one hand on the steering wheel, his elbow by the car window, fingers pressing mindlessly over his mouth. 

Hoseok’s in the back, cleaning up his gun, counting bullets, sending short glances at Jungkook from the rearview mirror. 

They drive in silence for maybe a couple of hours before Yoongi takes a deep breath. “I don’t expect a miracle.”

Jungkook looks at him. “You’re the one who said your Jimin would spit at Death's face.”

“Yeah.” Yoongi sighs. “But we already got one miracle in the last twenty-four hours.”

“He could be stuck in there.”

“Mh.”

“Maybe in the storage room. You said most of the zombies came out of the storage room, so it emptied out. He could have hidden in there, maybe he can’t come out.”

“Jungkook-ah.” Yoongi’s jaw works through words that don’t make it out. In the end, he only says, “I’m only going for two reasons. The first one is to find something of his. The second one is to put a bullet in his head if he got infected.”

Jungkook stays silent for the rest of the ride.

The sun has just begun rising when Yoongi stops the car and turns off the engine. He rolls his shoulders before he gets out of the car, walking to the trunk to grab his knives and holsters. Hoseok and Jungkook get ready wordlessly.

“It’s ten minutes from here,” Yoongi says as he sheaths the saw-toothed knife in his thigh holster. “Car noises could have roused the fuckers.”

Hoseok secures his bow over his back, the quiver with arrows around his left shoulder, gun tucked in his belt. Yoongi sends a look over to Jungkook, then reaches inside the trunk again and holds up to him another leg holster. “For your machete.”

Jungkook takes it and straps it to his leg, sheaths the machete there. He grabs one of the rifles they stole from the Red Triad’s men and then Yoongi closes the trunk. He hesitates for a moment, stares at the washed-out blue paint of the car, then he takes a deep breath and starts walking.

The supermarket used to be a huge place, with a gas station and café.

The sign hangs precariously, swinging faintly whenever the wind gets a bit stronger, asphalt cracked and forced upwards by roots and weeds.  

“Warehouses are in the back,” Yoongi explains as they approach. “They’re probably all there. Let’s be quiet, eyes open if some are still inside.”

The sliding doors to the entrance are stuck open, glass yellowed with time and dirt. They walk slowly as they go deeper inside, feet careful of any glass shards or objects that might have fallen on the dusty ground. Yoongi was right when he said that the supermarket was almost untouched. Some shelves are still full of canned food, bags of moldy bread, cereal boxes. Jungkook walks slowly, hand closed around the handle of the machete strapped to his leg, and grimaces at the toppled over shelf Yoongi had mentioned to him, lying on the ground before him. 

Hoseok has moved to the next aisle, a few steps away from him, and suddenly he stiffens, snaps his fingers twice before he points to his left. Jungkook unsheathes his machete and holds his breath, steps soft. He peaks over the shelf, a zombie is standing by the wall, mouth open, rotten skin peeling off its cheekbones. For a moment, Jungkook wonders if this could be Jimin, but then thinks the clothes the zombie’s wearing are too old, too dirty and ragged, his skin so rotten there’s barely any left on its face. So he quickens his steps, lifts the machete up, and then swings it down in one fast motion. The blade goes through the zombie’s skull as if it was butter, dead bones giving out easily. The thing stops moving all at once, knees buckling, and Jungkook grabs its arm before it can fall, lays it on the ground without making a sound.

Yoongi appears from behind another shelf, on the other side of the aisle, and he motions with two fingers at Jungkook and Hoseok to move further. The more they walk, the more Jungkook hears movement. There are windows at the very back of the supermarket and Jungkook ducks once he notices the hoard of zombies walking by. Yoongi wasn’t lying when he said there might have been sixty, if not more. They’re almost pressed together, some staying still, others walking into each other’s way, hut the door is closed, so they stay outside, don’t hear or see the three of them.

Hoseok inhales sharply and walks faster to where the door to the storage room is. He knocks on it lightly, presses his ear to it. After a few seconds, he opens it carefully, mindful of not making any noise. It’s empty. Only more canned food, bags of rice.

Jungkook sighs, disappointment warming up his cheeks. He wets his lips and turns towards Yoongi, then freezes and almost drops his machete.

Yoongi is standing eerily still, expression blank as he stares down on the ground. There’s a rifle on the floor, and blood around it. The stain looks dry, but it hasn’t darkened yet. Maybe a few days old. It drags over the ground for a few inches as if someone tried to escape.

No one needs to say it out loud: it’s Jimin’s blood.

Slowly, Yoongi kneels down, grazes the rifle with his fingertips, lips parting soundlessly. Jungkook approaches him carefully, throat closed. He rests a hand over Yoongi’s shoulder, squeezes it. 

“Hyung,” he whispers. “Let’s go.”

Yoongi blinks at the sound of his voice and doesn’t stir for a few more seconds. Then, he grabs the rifle that must have belonged to Jimin once, and he fixes the holding strap over his chest before he stands up. Hoseok walks to them, gives Yoongi’s wrist a squeeze, then they turn towards the exit.

Yoongi doesn’t.

He grabs the saw-toothed knife and walks with fast steps towards the back door that divides them from the hoard. 

Hoseok blinks. “What the—?”

Yoongi pushes the door open and walks into the hoard. Soon after, groans and clattering teeth reach their ears.

“Fuck!” Jungkook hisses and Hoseok dashes towards the door, Jungkook following after him.

Opening the door it’s like walking into a nightmare: at Jungkook’s feet there are already three zombies, their skulls cut open, but the rest are not even two feet away. There are so many of them that they can’t even move to get to Yoongi, keep trampling over each other as their arms swing frantically to try and grab at him. Yoongi’s knife glints under the sunlight, blood crimson on the blade, and he doesn’t even look human, resembles something out of a horror story, eyes too wide, jaw clenched too tight as he puts down one, two, three of those monsters, one after the other. 

“He’s gonna get himself fucking killed.” Hoseok looks around himself, then up. “On the roof, get me—”

Jungkook looks up too, the roof isn’t that tall, so he goes down on one knee, hands cupped over it and Hoseok puts his foot there, grabs onto Jungkook’s shoulders and then onto the roof’s edge once Jungkook pushes him up, and he climbs on top. He’s fast to reach for his bow, faster still as he grabs one of the arrows, nocks it, draws the string and releases. The arrow flies through the air soundless, hits at one of the zombies closer to Yoongi. 

Jungkook puts the machete away for now, grabs his rifle and steadies his aim, starts putting them down. His bullets pierce through skulls, eyes, Jungkook’s arms aching with the rifle’s recoil, eyes glancing from his targets to Yoongi over and over again. Yoongi doesn’t even seem to have noticed them. He keeps slashing his knife down, unsheathes one of the smaller ones to stab the zombie that had crept up on him from behind, face stained red, rotten meat and pieces of bone stuck to the rigged blade of his knife. 

Jungkook goes out of bullets when there are still maybe thirty of them. Hoseok must be getting close to the end of his quiver. He unsheathes his machete, walks into the carnage. 

Because that’s all this is, a slaughter, and Yoongi’s grief is a slaughterhouse that paints the ground red and stinks up the air around them.

So Jungkook decides to shoulder some of his pain and keeps going.

Jungkook’s arms are so sore they’re numb by the time the last zombie goes down.

He puts the machete away with damp, red fingers, rubs at the sweat on his neck with his forearm, looking around himself, taking him what they’ve just done.

The bodies are scattered all over the ground, taking up most of the space, some thrown over the other. There’s an entire mound of them pressed against one of the blue warehouses’ closed doors, arrows sticking from their heads. Hoseok took care of most of them, saw how many were huddled close there, and took action. 

Yoongi’s standing still, arms shaking, his chest rising and falling frantically, eyes blown wide, skin ashen and red at the same time, his clothes drenched with sweat and blood. That they even got out of this alive is something out of a miracle.

And Jungkook almost wants to yell at Yoongi, to scold him for how reckless he’s been, how he could have gotten all of them killed, but he doesn’t. Can’t bring himself to.

Up until now, Yoongi had been so sure that Jimin was alive, he was made of that hope, it was what kept him going. And now that strength has been ripped out of him, his heart along with it.

Suddenly, something bangs against the warehouse door. It comes from the inside, unsteady and weak. There’s more inside, Yoongi had told him so. Still, the doors are closed and the pile of bodies huddled against it won’t make it easy for the zombies inside to come out.

Yoongi’s face twists, lips curling up like a feral animal, the grip on his saw-toothed knife tightening. He starts walking towards the warehouse.

“Enough!” Jungkook yells and steps in front of him, grabs him by the shoulders when Yoongi tries to walk past him. “Hyung, enough! It’s done, you’re done! Yoongi-hyun— he’s dead! ”

Yoongi freezes. The anger on his face is wiped away, taken over by something far quieter, far more heartbreaking. Jungkook sighs, eases the hold he has on Yoongi. “He’s gone, hyung. And this won’t bring him back.”

Maybe it’s in that moment that Yoongi realizes the magnitude of what he’s done. He looks at the corpses around him, the blood on his shaking hands, grimaces once he breathes and smells the stench of it all. 

He sheaths his knife back in its holster, then turns around, goes back inside the supermarket, and walks away. 

Hoseok jumps off the roof, landing steady. His fingers are quivering, the pads of them bruised and cut from how harshly he drew his bow. He sighs and grabs Jungkook’s nape, leans in to kiss his forehead. “Lemme see if I can take some arrows back and then let’s get out of here, yeah?”

They start walking back to the car, but Yoongi suddenly turns right, heads towards the end of the road, where trees stand tall.

“Hyung?” 

“There’s a flower field,” Yoongi replies. “I have to bury him.”

There’s no body to bury, though. The zombies must have taken care of it, who knows how starved they were when Jimin got stuck there.

Still, Hoseok and Jungkook say nothing and follow him.

It takes them ten minutes or so of walking amidst sparse trees to reach the field. It’s a stretch of open land, grass lush and green, wild daisies dotting it white. 

Yoongi walks to the center of it and kneels down, starts digging into the ground with his hands. Jungkook and Hoseok go by his side, crouch down as well. Jungkook carefully pries Yoongi’s hands away, then starts digging in the dirt with his machete, the stiff earth giving in more easily like this. Yoongi lets him work without a word, staring at the grass with this exhausted expression, eyes almost unfocused. Jungkook guesses it doesn’t have to be large. Only deep. So he works as fast as he can until Yoongi stops him with a light tap of his hand.

Yoongi grabs Jimin’s rifle, holds it in his hands for a few moments before he leans down to press his lips to the stock, lingers there for a moment, eyes fluttering closed. Then, he lifts it up and lowers it in a sharp movement, sticks the muzzle into the open soil. Hoseok quickly pushes the dirt back into the hole, pressing down on it, and the rifle stays up, steady.

They stay there in silence for a few moments before Hoseok glances at Jungkook and nods at him. The two of them stand up and walk away to the edges of the flower field, to give Yoongi some space as he kneels by the rifle. 

“He was ready to dig a grave for him with his bare hands,” Hoseok murmurs once they’re far enough. 

Jungkook sits down on the soft grass, sighs as he stretches out his stiff arms, limbs sore. “The whole time we were together, he never doubted Jimin was alive. Not once.”

Hoseok sits down with him, he rolls his shoulders, massages at his neck. “Can’t exactly blame him.”

“Mh.”

Hoseok sighs and he looks up at the stretch of open sky above their heads. “It’s beautiful here.”

“Yeah.” Jungkook looks at Yoongi, kneeled in front of a rifle with white daisies brushing against his fingers. “A good place to die.”

Jungkook doesn’t know how many hours go by, but it’s enough for the sky to start turning pink before Yoongi stands up and simply starts walking away without looking back.

They make their way out of the woods, walk on the open road until they reach the car. Yoongi gets the keys from his pocket and hands them to Hoseok. “I don’t think I can drive.”

“I got it.” Hoseok opens the car and gets on the driver’s seat. “Just give me directions.”

Yoongi hums. He drags his steps, walks around the car as if there’s no more energy in him. His eyes are dry and Jungkook thinks Yoongi is the type of person who cries when he’s alone, cradles pain in the palms of his hands.

Jungkook starts walking towards the back of the car but stops. He turns around with a frown, in the direction of the supermarket, swears he heard something. He squints his eyes, steps away from the car. There’s something coming. A silhouette, dark against the sun behind them. 

“Jungkook?” Hoseok calls.

Jungkook holds up a hand, tries to focus his eyes more on that figure. It’s getting closer and there’s a moment when Jungkook thinks it must be another zombie, maybe one that got out of the warehouse container, or just another one who caught the scent of blood and followed after it.

He almost turns back to the car, but then catches something: the closer the figure is, the more a limp in the steps is noticeable.

“ Hyung, ” Jungkook gasps, heart heavy all of a sudden. “Yoongi-hyung!”

Yoongi hesitates just before he gets in the car and frowns at Jungkook, who points in front of him. Yoongi’s eyes flicker there, almost look away. Then, they widen, lips parting. He walks away from the car, takes unsteady steps.

“It’s—” Yoongi shakes his head. “Must be one of them. Must be—” But he stops talking. Starts walking again. Stops. “Jimin?”

Suddenly, the figure in the distance starts running. The closer he gets, the more it’s obvious he’s a human, that he’s limping, and then his voice starts carrying through the distance, clearer and clearer as he approaches.

Yoongi makes this wrenched, winded noise, and then he’s running too, feet barely touching the ground.

“— u didn’t hear me?! ” Jimin shouts from the distance. “ I was fucking banging against that door, you fucker!” 

Jungkook remembers the noises coming from the warehouse container, how they assumed it must have been more zombies, and he can’t help but laugh, eyes stinging. 

Even from the distance, Jimin’s face is all pretty features and an almost exasperated expression, black hair and skin dirty with dried blood and sweat.

Jimin is yelling something about how he’s going to hold it over Yoongi’s head for the rest of his life that he didn’t think about checking the warehouses, but the rest of his sentence dies when he’s close enough to throw himself at Yoongi, arms tight around his neck, legs wrapping around Yoongi’s waist. They almost fall, Yoongi regaining balance at the last second, his shoulders shaking, sobs and an endless string of Jimin’s name that gets carried away by the wind. 

Jungkook laughs when he hears Jimin’s own cries joining in, and then Hoseok’s hand is clasping his.

“Shit,” Hoseok chuckles, eyes a bit red. “Did we look like that when I found you?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“That’s terrible.”

Jimin’s legs stretch down and he’s on his feet again, slaps at Yoongi’s chest. “ You didn’t check? What, you just casually slaughter a hoard of fuckers and then decide to not check the noise? Just because?” Then he grabs Yoongi’s shirt, pulls him in to kiss him, Yoongi cradling his face like he’s touching something sacred. “By the way, thanks for the pile of bodies against the door, only took me three hours to push it open!”

Yoongi just kisses him again, fingers buried in Jimin’s hair.

Hoseok hums. “He’s a delight.”

“I like him.”

“Ah,” he sighs, smile wide on his face. “Two miracles in the span of twenty-four hours. That doesn’t bode well for the rest of the apocalypse.”

It doesn’t.

But the world is already dead, and they’re still alive. That must count for something.