Work Text:
yoongi likes to think that he’s desensitized.
how many people has he seen torn into pieces by car accidents, atrocious human behavior, and pure sadness? how many souls has he seen shaking their own bodies, overtaken by regret and panic and sadness? how many bodies has he seen more still than they have ever been in their time alive, simply because they are no longer alive at all?
but once in a while, yoongi hurts at his very limits, devastated to his core by the death of one person among the thousands he is sent to collect.
once in a while, yoongi gets to collect the soul that he loves for the rest of his existence.
—
the first time that yoongi is sent to collect jungkook to rest, it is a beautiful day, and yoongi’s heart hurts. he always hates collecting souls on nice days. he finds it rude that the sky can be so peaceful, so quietly beautiful, when someone is leaving this world.
when the soul is still in the body, yoongi gets to talk with the physical body. if they are receptive to him, he gets to hold their hands, feel their weak pulse in their fingertips.
when the soul is no longer in the body, yoongi still talks with them, but there is an unspeakable type of horror to be outside your own body, looking down at yourself as a reaper sits beside your still form, trying to accept that you will forever leave.
there are no second chances after death.
the first time that yoongi is sent to collect jungkook to rest, jungkook calls him by name.
yoongi arrives in jungkook’s room, and a sickly boy is smiling at him.
“hi, yoongi hyung,” he greets almost absentmindedly.
yoongi stares.
he has never met a soul who has known his name when he comes to collect them.
“yoongi, right?”
yoongi is silent.
the boy’s smile falls.
“yes, i’m yoongi,” he says cautiously. “and you are?”
“jungkook.”
jungkook seems confused, rubbing his eyes.
“do you know me?” yoongi asks cautiously.
“i don’t- i’m not sure,” jungkooks says, face twisting in distress.
“it’s okay,” yoongi hurries to soothe him, approaching jungkook’s bed.
there is a pause, and yoongi is caught in jungkook’s gaze.
a breath, and then-
“will it hurt?”
yoongi blinks.
“dying?”
jungkook nods nervously, fingers twisting together.
yoongi swallows.
he has a strange, inexplicable urge to hold jungkook’s hand.
“it won’t hurt,” he says instead, pushing down the instinct singing high in his throat. he forces it down, down, down to the pit of his stomach, banishing it there, locking it heavily in his soul.
he meets jungkook’s stare.
yoongi aches, and he longs.
“i’ve been so lonely,” jungkook murmurs, pressing a hand against his sternum, and
yoongi imagines it, imagines taking jungkook’s hand in his, imagines sitting with jungkook in all of those moments when he has been alone and lonely, imagines telling jungkook that he would never abandon him, imagines loving jungkook, and his throat closes.
“i’ll take care of you,” yoongi chokes out in a whisper.
jungkook’s eyes close.
as if it is second nature, something that jungkook has been destined to do his whole life, he replies,
“i trust you.”
—
yoongi thinks he must have been alive a very long time ago, because he has a vague memory of what he thinks was life.
the world is nearly unrecognizable in his memories, and yoongi remembers it in a way that is blurry black ink against old white paper, barely clear enough to read if you focus just enough, but always just slightly out of reach to pull closer to your eyes.
but one thing that yoongi knows is that if he was alive once, he was alive with someone he loved.
he thinks someone must have died in his arms, because he feels them burning when he tries to remember, feels a weight that he cannot see.
he remembers a promise.
will you still love me in death as you did in life?
i will.
he remembers a soul.
so you were the one i promised to love, yoongi thinks, staring down at jungkook’s motionless body, staring down at jungkook’s soul rested upon his palms.
so you are the one i love.
—
after the first time yoongi collects jungkook, jungkook never knows him.
yoongi finds that no matter how he dies, jungkook is always calm.
the apartment building is burning around them when yoongi finds jungkook this time, and jungkook’s soul sits quietly in the flames.
his gaze is piercing.
“are you here for me?” he asks.
“always,” yoongi replies.
jungkook glances at his body through all of the smoke, charred and beyond repair.
there is no horror in his stare. he seems almost vacant, somewhere so far away that yoongi cannot see, cannot reach, can never join him.
all of a sudden, a sharp look enters jungkook’s eyes, and he looks at yoongi.
“what’s your name?”
“yoongi.”
“i’m jungkook.”
“i know.”
jungkook looks lost for a second.
“have we met?”
yoongi smiles sadly.
he doesn’t answer.
instead, he asks jungkook, “what was it?”
“what was what?”
yoongi looks around, gesturing at the flames that surround them.
“i set it on fire,” jungkook says quietly, looking towards the corner of the room.
yoongi follows his gaze.
a piano sits in the corner of the room. it is barely burnt, but a faint flame blazes across the keys.
yoongi exhales, holds out a hand.
“are you ready?”
jungkook hesitates, looks back at his body again.
“do i get another chance?”
yoongi wants to ask for what? but he already knows, the unspoken “to live” hovers between them, sitting heavily on the smoky air.
“yes,” yoongi says.
because he would always give jungkook another chance to live if he wanted it.
—
yoongi doesn’t know how many times he has collected jungkook at this point, but very rarely does jungkook die in a hospital.
jungkook’s hospital room is too white, too bright, too sterile, too silent.
this time, jungkook is twenty years old when he dies.
jungkook’s body is not awake, but his soul is, hovering on the edge of the bed next to his body. between blinks, yoongi appears to him, but he doesn’t seem even slightly surprised.
“is it time already?”
yoongi blinks.
“no, you have another hour.”
jungkook doesn’t speak, just looks at yoongi like he sees something, like he sees humanity.
but it’s impossible. how could yoongi be anywhere near human? no human should ever do the job that he has done ever since he can remember.
yoongi sucks in a breath even though he doesn’t need to breathe, hasn’t needed to breathe for hundreds of years.
“i’d tell you to call someone to be with you, but you’re already out of your body,” he says quietly.
a pause, a suspended breath.
“there’s no one to call anyway,” jungkook replies, finally looking away from yoongi.
there’s something odd about the air in the room, yoongi thinks. or perhaps it’s this soul. there’s something odd about jungkook’s soul this time.
“no?”
jungkook shakes his head, fingers skimming across his body’s chest.
“no one alive,” jungkook reveals, lifting his gaze to yoongi’s again. “you should have come earlier, yoongi.”
yoongi stares.
jungkook remembers his name.
“i’ve been so lonely,” jungkook says quietly. “for so long.”
yoongi is still.
“well?” jungkook raises his eyebrows at yoongi.
“you remember,” yoongi says quietly, taking a step forward.
“ask me what it was this time, as you always do, hyung,” jungkook says, and yoongi doesn’t breathe, can’t breathe, because jungkook definitely shouldn’t remember this.
but yoongi has never not honored jungkook’s wishes.
“what was it this time, love?”
“you know already, hyung.”
and yoongi does know. after all, he was called to jungkook’s body in the bathtub, countless empty pill bottles scattered across the desolate bathroom. after all, he saw jungkook’s phone out of reach on the counter where it rang over and over and over with taehyung’s name.
after all, he sat in the ambulance, invisible to all, holding jungkook’s limp hand, waiting for jungkook’s soul to come out, because yoongi has always been too selfish to spare jungkook the pain of seeing him.
jungkook reaches out, empty palms waiting for yoongi’s fingers to slot against them, always open, always forgiving.
“how many times, yoongi hyung?”
yoongi’s head whips up.
jungkook is looking at him, smiling sadly, and he looks much older than twenty.
“how many times have you come to get me? how many times have i died?”
and yoongi’s head is spinning, eyes welling up with tears for the first time in centuries. instead of answering, yoongi presses his fingers against jungkook’s, watching jungkook swallow, eyes fluttering, and he thinks, maybe this time is different.
“i made you a promise, jungkook. do you remember?”
and yoongi sees it in his gaze - a shift.
jungkook’s pupils dilate, and his breath sharpens, and yoongi knows he remembers.
will you still love me in death as you did in life?
i will.
“are you keeping it?” jungkook whispers.
and without hesitation, yoongi replies, “yes.”
it’s a tragedy, he thinks, that jungkook is forced to die over and over and over, and forced to forget over and over and over.
but how could yoongi ever give up an opportunity to love jungkook?
“what happens next, hyung?”
and yoongi presses his palm against jungkook’s weak heart, feeling the pulse weaken under his hold.
yoongi allows himself to hope, just barely.
“do you want another chance, love?”
jungkook’s breath stops, high in his nose, suspended for a moment, and then it rushes out in his answer:
“for life, or love?”
“whichever,” yoongi says, because he would never deny jungkook anything.
“i want love,” jungkook breathes, tilting his face up towards yoongi. “what happens if i want that?”
“then i’ll love you, over and over and over,” he whispers against jungkook’s lips, holding jungkook’s soul against his.
he holds jungkook until he’s gone, but he’s never really gone as long as yoongi exists. and yoongi has always been the one to collect jungkook in his next life, and his next life, and his next life, and it is a job he never took lightly, filled with moments that jungkook would forget in the next cycle, save for a few seconds where jungkook hovers between life and death, and remembers that yoongi exists to love jungkook forever.
but perhaps this time is different, because jungkook remembers.
yoongi lets himself imagine and hope for a second, thinking about the world that is forgiving, loving enough to let yoongi and jungkook be in love, and he cradles jungkook’s still head in his lap.
yoongi is so tired.
what a tragedy it is to love, yoongi thinks.
yoongi breathes once, twice.
and for the first time in hundreds of years, yoongi falls asleep.
—
sometimes, yoongi gets a very odd feeling that this is not his first life.
they call yoongi a piano prodigy, but they don’t know that since he was a child, yoongi has had this distinct, vivid memory of a piano on fire. he tries to dismiss it as an odd dream, but it refuses to leave his mind. as his fingers dance across the keys, he blinks, and he can almost see them surrounded by flames.
yoongi frequents the public piano at the train station, losing himself in the music and often coming back to himself to realize that a crowd has gathered.
today, though, is different.
yoongi opens his eyes halfway through a piece to a presence beside him, an added melody above his, floating through the air, all grace and harmonious peace.
he sees long, tan fingers dancing across the keys next to his own.
yoongi turns his head slowly, and he meets large brown eyes that are so painfully familiar that he feels a sharp ache in his chest.
this is jungkook, he thinks distinctly, with conviction.
he sees the recognition in the boy’s face as well, and it feels as if hundreds of years pass in that single second, and he is overcome with a powerful, almost unnamable emotion, and yoongi thinks,
what a privilege it is to love.