Chapter Text
jungkook fiddles with his hat, glad that it’s covering most of his face from the sun. he’s already rubbed a bunch of sunscreen over his cheeks in a feeble attempt to prevent them from burning. he’s the odd one out in the lineup, with his black bucket hat and his attempt at dressing formally. the collar of his pressed gray shirt itches, and what jungkook really wants to do is pull at it. he has it buttoned all the way up to his collar.
the ladies beside him speak amiably with each other as jungkook smooths his bangs down over his forehead and presses the hair tickling his ears away. right now he’s okay - right now, it’s just a couple of sweet old ladies and their somewhat terrifying sweet attitudes. he can handle that. his grandmother was like that.
he shuffles in place until the head housekeeper, mrs. park, comes in. she’s a slightly stern-faced woman, no nonsense, with a mole to the left of her mouth. a butterfly clip decorated with black jewels keeps her hair pulled away from her face. as soon as she stops in front of them, the chatter ceases.
“thank you all for coming here today for your interest in working for the min family,” she starts, putting a hand on top of the table. “as you’ve all applied for the housekeeper position, it’s my job to prune out the weeds.” her mouth curls up. “in this household lives mr. and mrs. min, and their two sons. you’re to treat them with respect and do not talk until you are talked to.”
“excuse me,” one of the older ladies say, her brow furrowed, “but i thought this was just a cleaning and cooking position?”
“oh, my back is much too old to be cleaning,” the other twitters.
mrs. park’s mouth thins into a straight line. the lineup is as follows: jungkook, the two old ladies, a young girl with a viciously pretty face, and another girl with hair cut so short it’s almost cropped close to her head.
“you can leave, then,” the head housekeeper says promptly. “the details of this job were explicitly stated to every recruiter. does anyone else have any problems?”
jungkook minutely shakes his head no. this is all he knows how to do, after all.
the old ladies give each other huffs of shared indignance, but mrs. park barely notices. she assesses the last three contestants for the job and nods. “i’ve made my decision. miss lee, miss kim, i must ask you both to leave.”
the pretty girl’s mouth drops open of her own accord before she notices and closes it with a click. “what? you didn’t do anything but stare at us!”
the girl next to her just shrugs, but by the stiffness of her shoulders, it’s easy to tell she feels slighted.
mrs. park spares her nothing. “i can smell a gold digger a mile away, miss lee. i assure you, you won’t be getting your hands on either of the sons.” pretty girl splutters. “and miss kim, i’m sure you have wonderful credentials, but your appearance is something that we cannot allow in this household.”
“what’s wrong with how i look, old lady?” says kim, her mouth turning up in a sort of disbelieving smile. “what, is it the hair - “
“your clothes are at least a week old without being washed. not only that, it’s a tee shirt.” mrs. park says ‘tee shirt’ like some people would say ‘cow guts’. “your jeans have holes in them. while it’s not my place to judge what one wears outside of work, during such hours, there should be a certain level of decorum. this shows me that you do not have respect for any. please leave.”
the two women leave, and despite himself, jungkook feels uncomfortable.
mrs. park looks him up and down, and then, surprisingly, smiles.
“i’m sorry for doing that, but it was necessary. you were originally chosen from everyone already - those old ladies kept on calling back and would not stop even when i told them they did not get the job. miss lee tried applying four times before this meeting, and miss kim is extraordinarily well suited for the job but extremely unprofessional. her record shows she loses employment quite quickly; this should help her realize that.” mrs. park looks better when she smiles, jungkook thinks vaguely. “follow me; i will show you where the employees’ quarters are. there, you may change into your uniform and and keep your belongings until you’re done for the day.”
she leads him through the wide, spacious halls of the min mansion. mrs. park is actually less intimidating at second glance. though not exactly warm, she’s much less...cold? does that even make sense? jungkook thinks to himself.
the min mansion is modern-styled, but from mrs. park’s small conversation, he learns that they’ve got an old family house somewhere in daegu as well. “the family is originally from there,” she tells him, opening several doors the further back they go. she points out all the different rooms that jungkook makes a point to remember - the foyer, the parlor, the living room, the hosting room, the powder room and bathrooms, the kitchens, the dining room. this is only the ground floor.
jungkook can already feel his hands aching from the dusting in his future.
this pays good money, he says to himself, adjusting the brim of his hat once more. it’s one of his more milder sun hats, and when mrs. park had asked him about it, he pointed to his continuously pink cheeks and stated he was unusually sensitive to sunlight. she didn’t question it, just nodded and stated, “hats are not part of the housekeeper dress code, so inside these walls you will need to keep those off. in return, i will make sure that you have no duties outside.” that’s perfectly fine by jungkook.
they enter the kitchen, where three or four people are walking around with ease, cleaning pots and pans, mopping the floor, or wiping down cabinets. there seems to be no actual cooking that’s going on, which makes sense, because breakfast has just finished.
mrs. park leads him to a door at the end of the kitchen, leading into a neat and spacious room. there are four doors here; on top of two doors on the left there’s large lettering that reads male, and the two doors on the right have female above them.
“the farthest door is the lockers,” mrs. park says. “the door next to it are the bathrooms, if you feel uncomfortable with changing in front of others or wish to check if you look appropriate.” she hands him a small key with the number 13 on it. “this is yours. if you lose it, i will make another one, but please try not to. i’ll be waiting outside to guide you through your work for today, so please change accordingly.” mrs. park nods to the door and then turns on her heel, heels clacking as she closes the door behind him.
jungkook takes a quick look around behind him before he sighs and heads into the locker room to get his clothes. even though no one’s there, he rushes to get out his uniform and hesitantly puts his hat back, rushing to the bathrooms.
there was one long sleeved black shirt and one short sleeved black shirt in the locker - he took the long sleeved one. as he buttons up the cuffs on his wrists and fixes his belt buckle, he finds himself a little surprised at how well fit the clothes are. they had asked for his size on the application, but he didn’t think that they would actually provide the uniform for him. rich people, i guess, he thinks.
all that’s left is a simple white apron like the ones the ahjussis at the food cart wear when they sell ddeok on a stick. jungkook feels a little bit like a second hand vendor when he wears it, but he supposes it’s so he doesn’t get himself dirty in the process of getting everything else clean. jungkook winces at his bangs, which look stupidly flat against his forehead; he messes them up and smooths them down again. it won’t get better than this.
mrs. park is indeed waiting for him when he finally gets out. she doesn’t say anything about his shoes, a pair of worn out boots. instead, she motions to the kitchens. “this is the one of the places in this house you will not be required to clean; the cooks are in charge of their own working space. if they need something, you can aid them by fetching it for them, but in no way are you responsible for this area. follow me.” she leads him out, and jungkook is thankful that the others are so preoccupied by their own duties that they barely notice him.
mrs. park leads him to the supplies room, which is nothing like a typical mangy utility closet. all the cleaning supplies are on shelves and ordered alphabetically. after that, she shows him around - for now, he’ll be doing the main floor until he gets used to the work. after that, it’ll take a while before he learns all of the preferences of the people that live in the household.
she leaves him to begin with one of the parlor rooms, where there aren’t much china or breakable things, jungkook heads over to the utility room (mrs. park nodding with satisfaction at his memory) and pulls out a duster, a broom, a dustpan, and starts working.
/
his body aches when he gets home, but it’s a good kind of ache. it tells him that he’s been working a lot for the day, and that, at least, gives him a little bit of pleasure. he finished his work.
jungkook used to exercise and did a lot of athletics when he was in college and in school, mostly because he had the time for it. his grandma would be the one working mostly while he would study the day away in his room, occasionally coming out to try and help her. she would shoo him away with a knock to the head (and those hurt) and jungkook would smile but sheepishly crawl back to his room. there was no hell worse than his grandmother scorned.
jungkook yawns and takes off his hat first thing when he gets inside his house, putting it on a shelf in the living room that holds his extensive collection of them. the lights flicker at first when he turns them on, but eventually comes to a solid gleam. he settles on his couch - where he sleeps more than half the time - and groans into the familiar blanket there.
when jungkook looks up, his grandma’s picture next to the television greets him. jungkook half smiles; he can almost hear her say, “what do you think you’re doing? a young kid like you shouldn’t be lazing around! either study or go to bed!”
“gramma, i graduated,” jungkook reminds her, before remembering that she’s not there anymore.
his apartment is too quiet without her there. jungkook rubs his eyes and turns again, but he doesn’t feel comfortable anymore. his stomach grumbles a little, but he doesn’t feel like cooking. all he feels like doing is sleeping and hiding from the world. he pats his cheeks, feeling the warmth of them, and sighs.
with a lack of anything else to eat at the moment, he makes ramen in a small pot and eats it quickly on his kitchen counter, slurping as loudly as he wants. there’s no one here to tell him any different.
his mouth burns at first, but then it fades away to nothingness. jungkook clanks his chopsticks against the side of the bowl and the sound grows bigger in his empty home that he’s tried to fill over and over again. in the corner, near the kitchen window, is his grandmother’s old microgarden. how hard she tried to grow those tomato plants and little herbs - she never could, not until jungkook touched them and they seemingly blossomed. his grandmother was a little petulant at that, grumbled over how that could happen, but supposed he got his green thumb from his father (neither she nor his mother could grow much).
she used to pat his cheeks with her old work-wrinkled hands, smelling of pine and sweet and sour sauce. rubbed a thumb over his red stained cheeks when he’d want to cover his head in a paper bag and say, quietly, “the sun touched you.” turned his skin from fair to red; turned him from normal to abnormal. “that’s not a bad thing,” she’d say, patting his face in her small hands. “not a bad thing at all.” she would never make him feel bad for things he couldn’t control.
jungkook turns over in his sleep, and his face isn’t stained with red, but something wet.
/
the next day of work is like the first, except mrs. park isn’t there to, in her own odd way, coddle him. he heads in at the exact time that he’s told to, looking down at the scoffed ends of his sneakers. he stands outside of the doors for a moment, in that small place in between the locks and the kitchens, when someone else exits from the bathroom. jungkook ducks his head, even when the guy comes up to him and asks, “you’re the new hire, right?”
jungkook nods his head. he bows, in case he seems rude, but his coworker catches him halfway. “ah, no need to do that,” he says, scratching the end of his chin. they’re around the same height. “there’s a board in the corner that says everyone’s work for the day. sort of like a chore board.” he points to a vague direction behind jungkook. “by the time you’re done with those, the working day should be over.”
jungkook looks at the list of things he has to do today, which is a little bit shorter than everyone else’s. it takes a moment but he starts, “um...what if i finish beforehand?”
“trust me, you won’t,” his coworker says.
“even if you do, it’s always late by then, so you can come back to help in the kitchen.” a female voice pipes up from behind them. the female uniform is literally the same as theirs, from the buttoned up black shirt to the slacks. the girl looks older than him. she turns and clocks in for work; jungkook does the same. “try not to talk to the main family. they can be a bit of a handle to talk to.”
“oh yeah, almost forgot about that,” his coworker adds; jungkook finally pulls away to look at them both in the eye for a second before his gaze turns to somewhere beyond them. “if you see any of them - and trust me, you’ll know them when you see them - try not to talk to any of the min family. the grandfather is especially demanding.”
the girl pats him on the shoulder. “you’ll be fine, rookie.” the both of them head out to do what they need to.
his grandmother used to be a housekeeper. she used to feed them both and pay for jungkook’s school necessities by cleaning the house of some politician. sometimes, she would get sick and have to lie down - coughs racking her deceptively frail body, her ankles and joints aching. she would never complain (at least, not more than that standard amount that all old people complain to) but jungkook would work painstakingly hard to make sure she went to sleep and got enough rest and then go in her place.
she was small, unnoticeable. no one saw her come and leave, and so if jungkook took her place once in awhile, it wasn’t a big deal. his bones didn’t hurt. he didn’t have back pain. he could finish things up and quietly clock out for his grandmother and go home to see her still sleeping, silver gray hair tangled in a loose knot at the back of her head.
he finishes dusting one of the parlor rooms. there’s still vacuuming and sweeping to do, so jungkook rolls his shoulders back and focuses on what he has to do.
by the time it’s lunch, he’s gotten less than half his work done. which is pretty good timing, if he says so himself. jungkook goes for the lunch he packed in his locker, but the coworker from earlier pulls him away with a disapproving look and says, “no no, lunch is free here for us.”
“what do you mean?” jungkook mumbles, because he certainly didn’t hear anything like that before, but his coworker just smiles. they head inside and there are sharply dressed people coming in and out of the constantly moving doors, bringing platters of food to the supposed dining table. jungkook looks at it all and his coworker, who still has a grip on him, brings him to a small corner where there are no less than ten other housekeepers there as well, both male and female, eating off of simple plates.
“you see, because we do a lot of work for the cooks, they repay us in lunch,” his coworker states. “who will eat this much food anyway? it’ll all go to waste if we don’t use it, so it’s a free meal for all of us. c’mon, i’ll introduce you to the head chef, he’s a real nice guy.”
“i - “ jungkook doesn’t have any time to complain, because his coworker drags him to where a tall, broad shouldered man is working on a large pot of something.
“hyung!”
“ah, jaeho-ah,” the chef turns around, surprised, and jungkook is half-relieved to learn the other’s name finally. he was going to ask, but... “oh, is this the new hire?”
“yeah,” jaeho confirms. “give him a plate of your best, hyung.”
the chef hyung rolls his eyes. “i’m kim seokjin,” he introduces himself kindly, smiling softly. “this is im jaeho.”
“jeon jungkook,” he says in return, sort of shuffling behind jaeho for the time being.
“you look so young,” seokjin comments, categorizing jungkook’s eyes and hair and slightly round cheeks. “how old are you?”
“twenty four,” he says. he supposes that the rest of them must all be older than him.
“same,” jaeho says, smiling at him. “we’re same year friends!”
jungkook manages a slight smile back at him. he’s glad that his face isn’t flaming right now. seokjin and jaeho’s company is easy to be in. neither of them are very demanding when it comes to conversation, often skipping into quiet themselves. seokjin can be very chatty when he wants to be, though, from what jungkook can see; whenever someone comes up to him and asks for another bowl of something, he’s always willing to give some more and add a little something after, too. “you’re looking too thin nowadays!” or “how’s your brother? still in school?” it’s the kind of easy familiarity with people that jungkook is envious of.
the food is wonderfully delicious, with a homemade taste that makes him ache for something that’s not there. he completely understands why everyone else is going up and asking for more; soon he’s staring at the bottom of his bowl of stew, his rice only halfway done.
he doesn’t want to ask for more, though, so he just slowly eats his rice, not wanting to waste food. jaeho notices this and quietly pushes his bowl of stew toward jungkook before standing up and stretching. “i need to get back to work, boss lady has me on mopping duty,” he tells the room at large before smiling at jungkook and leaving, not giving the other a chance to push back the food or even thank him.
jungkook pulls at his cuffs and takes the bowl, finishing it all.
he’s in a good mood for the rest of the day, as told by his reddened ears.
/
when he gets home at around eight (work ends at 6:30 pm but he went to do grocery shopping) the sky is quickly turning dark and there’s a large moving truck right outside his apartment complex. there’s only five floors to his complex, not one of the bigger ones in seoul, and it takes up most of the driveway. jungkook has to wiggle past small spaces to get to the front door. he’s pretty sure his cabbage is somewhat squished.
as he’s checking inside his bags for product bruising, the landlord comes up to him, patting him on the shoulder. “ah, jungkook-ssi!”
jungkook startles at the touch and takes a step back out of it. living in this place for the last fifteen years or so has made the landlord absolutely used to it; in fact, he fondly smiles at jungkook and points to his hat, which is a little crooked.
their landlord is an old man with strangely well kept hair, a little bit on the thinner side. he’s got a lot of laugh lines and tanned skin that speaks of work in the sun from his adolescent days, which jungkook knows about (he’s quite the talker when drunk, and jungkook has pretty much heard all his stories about his farm in the south) and spotted hands that can be both strong and gentle.
“how are you, son,” the landlord asks him.
“i’m doing well, ahjussi,” jungkook replies. he’s glad that this is one person he doesn’t flush around, because the ahjussi has seen and been through it all with jungkook. “you haven’t visited in a long time.”
“my grandkids came over to stay while my daughter goes off who knows where,” ahjussi admits. jungkook knows his name but he’s always called him ‘ahjussi’ in his head. “that girl needs to be reigned in...but it’s been tough.”
“have you been making them your famous kimchi stew?”
the ahjussi rumbles in laughter, scratching at the space between his blue, worn collar and collar bone. “each year the recipe changes, i swear. those kids have been eating well. they would have loved some of your gramma’s soups.” he falls quiet for a moment.
jungkook always suspected that ahjussi had a bit of a crush on his grandmother. it wasn’t hard to imagine, with the way he’d always be over at their house, or how they would talk when jungkook was at school. “old people talking about the past,” his grandmother would say, but jungkook wondered if sometimes it was just more than that.
“i see you got a new job, son,” ahjussi says, bringing him back to the present. “good on you. the walls are lookin’ a little bare on the inside, though, so i was wondering if you’d like to paint ‘em in your free time.” ahjussi shrugs. “whatever you want, go for it.”
jungkook smiles, pleased. “thank you, ahjussi, i would love to. b-by the way,” he leans forward and motions to the moving truck. “did someone move out?”
“ah, that kid in 1C. you know, the college grad. he took his stuff a month ago but it just sold now.”
“oh, i forgot about that,” jungkook frowns. his neighbor, a kid from one of the universities nearby (the same one jungkook graduated from) was so quiet that jungkook didn’t even realize he was there half the time. he was some history major, had glasses, and liked makgulli. that’s all jungkook can recall of him, really.
“i got some offers but they were all real shady,” ahjussi explains. “this one is a cop, though - you know that station just down the road? said he wanted to live close by to work, and i saw his badge and everything.”
jungkook smiles. “badges can be forged, ahjussi.”
ahjussi huffs. “well, i’ve seen a good badge or two in my life, and that was the real thing, son. nothing wrong with a little extra protection.” ahjussi pats him on the shoulder. “you better get inside, alright? all the actual moving starts tomorrow morning, so no noise tonight.”
“okay, good night,” jungkook bows and heads off to his apartment, which has always been on the first floor. he looks at the empty one beside him - 1C - and marvels at all the things that can change in just a couple of months. how one person can be there one moment, and then the next, completely gone.
/
there’s a new neighbor next door. jungkook rubs his eyes and turns over in bed, groaning at how loud it is on a saturday. who moves in on a saturday? doesn’t the world know he’s trying to sleep? he was up last night trying to finish the last of his paper before he had to send it in...couldn’t anyone in this world give him a break, this cruel, thoughtless world...
“jungkook, get your butt up right now,” his gramma says, smacking his bum. it’s not a light smack either. jungkook ‘eep’s and covers his head further. “we’re going to go over and say hi to that nice boy that’s moving in next door.”
jungkook is going to miss the family that used to live next door. a husband, a wife. the husband was short but sturdy, had weathered hands and a bit of a temper that his wife could reel in. the wife was sharp tongued and didn’t complain about anything. they were a young couple that ran away from families that didn’t like them together, and jungkook’s gramma was weak for their story. she kept them well fed for the first couple of weeks they were there, until the husband got a job at a construction site and the wife got a job as a receptionist. when they left, she was three months pregnant - new child, new house.
he missed them. they didn’t make noise at bum o’clock in the morning.
“jeon jungkook!” he hears his gramma crack. “if you don’t get up right now you’ll be rubbing my feet for the next week and a half!”
jungkook throws the covers off himself. his hair is sticking up in five different places. it’s no use to pat them down, but he tries anyway. he also puts on a shirt and finds one slipper before deciding to go barefoot in the house. his gramma gives him a look that says he should never be that late again, and jungkook only scratches his shoulder sheepishly.
“cover up, jungkook-ah,” gramma says, patting his bare thigh, “can’t let no one but your future spouse see that!”
she cackles at jungkook’s splutters and he races off to put on pants.
/
the new neighbor doesn’t make noise in the morning. in fact, jungkook doesn’t even realize someone is moving in next door until he hears the low murmur of voices outside his door. (not that he’s...standing beside his door with his ear pressed against the wood or anything. pfft. no.) it’s a good thing, because that allows him to keep the television volume low while he’s trying to watch sunday morning cartoons, but it also nags at him.
his gramma would have busted his ass and told him to go out and make nice. jungkook looks to the picture of her and groans, once more falling on his couch in an almost comical way, legs splayed wide and hanging over the couch’s arm. his gramma would have made a crack at that too.
what’s good housewarming food? he thinks to himself, trying to recall all the things his gramma used to make for new tenants, whether they be on the fifth floor or the first. she was here when the building first stood up, after all. his gramma gave the college student packets of kimchi and the married couple different meals (as well as toilet paper).
breakfast should be okay, jungkook thinks, looking at his fridge. breakfast...should he go more modern?
there’s leftover chocolate chips in the cupboard that he should really get rid of, so he decides to hit two birds with one stone. it takes a good hour to make cookies, but once it’s done, he takes around five for himself (after breakfast snack) and packs up the rest for the neighbor.
he goes out with one of his milder beanies. he looks at his face in the mirror; his nose is a little too big for his liking and his lower lip is thicker than the upper one (something he also dislikes) and there’s that constant tinge of pink to his cheeks that he can never get rid of. he tugs his beanie down until it’s covering his eyebrows and his bangs are tickling his eyes. if need be, he can just cover his face with the folded brim and run away.
he takes the plate and opens his door, noticing that 1C is already open. he peers inside, the room looking just like his own - and like the other apartments on the floor. jungkook knocks on the door softly at first before rolling his eyes at himself internally and knocking a bit harder.
two people end up coming in his view; a man in a sweatshirt and jeans with dark hair and slanted eyes. next to him is the older lady from 1D with her son clutching at her ankles.
miss jung, the name of the lady, beams. “oh, hey, it’s jungkook! this is your neighbor from the other side. come in, come in.”
“right, just invite people into my house, noona,” the guy says dryly.
miss jung just rolls her eyes. “i told you about this place first, so technically the fact that you live here is because of me.”
jungkook just stands there, feeling woefully out of place. he can already sense his ears getting red, usually the first part of his face that starts to burn up. thankfully, miss jung pats her kid’s bum to make him let go of her and says, “do you want to go say hi to jungkook-hyung?”
“hyung!” her son, chunwoo, crows, before replacing his mom’s leg for jungkook’s. he winces inwardly, because it’s a clever plot from miss jung - now he can’t exactly leave that easily.
“welcome to the neighborhood,” jungkook says quietly when he gets close enough to the pair. he pushes the plate into the new neighbor’s hand. “jeon jungkook, i live in 1B. i - i have to go to work, though.”
miss jung frowns. “oh, alright then.”
“min yoongi,” the dark haired man says, fumbling a little with the plate. “ah, thanks.”
then jungkook is peeling off chunwoo from his leg and practically rushing back to his apartment; he puts on all the locks and pulls his hat over his face, feeling simultaneously stupid and anxious. he has no idea why - sometimes these feelings just bubble up in him until he can’t hold them anymore. he doesn’t really have work today, but no one has to know that.
/
seokjin is a much scarier person than he originally seemed in his first impression.
jungkook finishes his duties a bit earlier than he had planned to, so the only choice to fill up the rest of his hours is to go to the kitchens and help out like many others did after their finished chores. there’s around an hour left before dinner, and the kitchens are in complete and total chaos. a bunch of white-wearing chefs hurry this way and that, sweat beading at their temples.
jungkook quietly moves when they zoom past him, trying not to be in the way of their duties. seokjin is the one that is yelling over the dim, putting everything in their place, a wooden spoon clutched in his hand.
“uh,” jungkook starts as soon as he’s close enough, and seokjin spins around with a steely look in his eye, “do you need help?”
abruptly, the steely look disappears, and his entire mien changes; seokjin goes from a terrifyingly efficient head chef to the sweet guy that jungkook met a couple of days ago, his shoulders loosening and his mouth curving upward in a smile. “oh, jungkookie! that’s so nice of you to offer! we’re having a bit of a shortage on people, because two of the chefs called in sick, so if you can just - stir this pot for a while, i can go and check on their fill-ins!” he looks away, mumbling, “these fill-ins...it’s like mrs. park lives to make me suffer...”
“seokjin-ssi?”
seokjin whirls around and hands him the wooden spoon. “there, in the corner. just - stir, for a couple more minutes. we were requested italian food today. italian! of all things, a korean household wants authentic italian food! do i look italian to them?...” he trails away like that, mouth moving onto bossing around the harried chefs, shoulders pulled back with authority.
jungkook pulls up his cuffs and opens the pot, getting hit in the face with the sweet aroma of tomato sauce. despite not having his specialty in anything else other than korean food, this looks very good, jungkook thinks. he’s a little regretful he can’t taste it himself. jungkook stirs the red sauce continuously, breathing in the scent of it in food-related bliss.
just as he’s stirring it, someone comes in and speaks way too close to his ear. “ooh, that looks good.”
jungkook startles so bad he accidentally gets some sauce on his hand. it’s quite hot and burns, so he rushes to the sink and pours cold water on it as fast as he can.
the same voice from behind him says, “shit, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
jungkook feels embarrassed. he scratches at his ears, which already feel warm. he doesn’t say anything in response. at that moment, seokjin returns, tittering over jungkook’s red hand (great, another part of him that’s red) and shoos him away to go take care of it. vaguely, jungkook can hear him reprimand, “namjoon-ssi, what are you doing here?”
thankfully it’s not too burned. jungkook runs his fingers over the tingling skin and sighs.
/
that should have been his first warning about the bad day he’s going to have. he wrapped up the burn on his hand with bandages, knowing that he’ll have to put ointment on it to make sure that it won’t be bothering him later. as he’s waiting for the bus home, though, he has to keep one hand on his head to make sure the flimsy hat he’s wearing today won’t fly off. one slip, however, and it’s just another hat in the wind - jungkook chases after it for three blocks before it rides on a current too high for him to reach. in the end, he’s left with wind mussed hair and a face flushed from exertion. he has to cover his face with his hands the entire way back to the bus stop, practically sinking into his collar on the bus ride. it’s awful.
and then, when he’s walking home, it’s starts raining. his hair plasters to his face and his jacket starts bogging him down. he feels water in his boots.
when he finally gets to his door, he’s wet, cold, miserable, and hurt. jungkook brushes hair out of his eyes and sneezes. he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror after shedding his water logged jacket and boots; his face has turned an unappealing red, from the roots of his hair to his chin. he puts a hand to his forehead and it comes back hot. it’s the beginnings of a cold, he thinks.
but life doesn’t leave him there. after he dries off and changes into warm clothes - his favorite socks included to make himself feel better - he curls up on his sofa and brings out his fluffiest comforter. it’s the one his gramma made for him a couple years back, and it still smells like her perfume. he brings it up to his chin and hopes he stops feeling as miserable by tomorrow morning, because he still has work to go to, even if he doesn’t feel like going.
the world somehow takes that as a challenge. it’s around 1am and jungkook’s eyes are closing, fluttering in and out of sleep, when his door opens.
now, it isn’t like his door is easy to open. his gramma was a little paranoid that they would get robbed, even though jungkook was doubtful that anyone would want to rob their little apartment filled with a mismatch of things and trinkets. their door is quiet and makes no noise when one opens it unless it’s forcefully shut. jungkook feels a shiver down his spine.
he opens his eyes a crack and sees a dark figure in his house. it’s rummaging through the first drawer near the doorway.
jungkook can’t help the shallow breaths that come out of his mouth. he hears the guy swear and turn around.
jungkook sneaks out of the blankets and grabs the pot he left of the table when he was eating ramen earlier that night. silently, he sneaks up behind the man and yells out when the guy suddenly turns around, smacking him on the arm with the pot, miscalculating how hard he needs to hit. he keeps on being loud even though his hand hurts, yelling out nonsense like “who are you!” and “what are you doing here!” and “get the fuck out of my house!”
the guy swears something underneath his breath and grabs the pot with one hand before jungkook can get a hit in at his head; he tugs on it and throws it to the side. “fucking hell - “ he growls, before something glints in his hand. jungkook stumbles back as he realizes it’s a knife.
“where is it, kid?!” the guy yells, looking all around, coming closer and closer to jungkook with the knife. outside, rain pelts the ground and the glass windows. “where is the money? i know it’s here - “
“i don’t have any money!” jungkook shuffles away, trying to get to the open door of his apartment; there’s a police station right down the road. “i don’t know what you want!”
the robber, who is in a ski mask and dark clothes, gives an ugly laugh. “you can’t fool me! i know that bitch hid it in here somewhere - “ he gets cut off, abruptly, and falls to the ground yelling. the knife clatters on the floor from his hand and jungkook stares at it, wide eyed.
there’s someone standing behind him, their face obscured by the darkness. jungkook scrambles up to turn on the lamp next to the sofa and sees his new neighbor leaning over the man, who is not unconscious, but apparently not able to move.
“what the fuck did you do to me!?” he yells, mouth squished against the floor to belie his rage.
“just made it hard to move for a minute,” min yoongi says easily, producing a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. “you’re under arrest sir, for breaking and entering and the destruction of private property.” he eyes the knife on the floor. “might even stick on an attempted assault charge there too.”
jungkook’s hand starts throbbing, and he notes with a grimace that he had hurt his hand again in the fight.
“you okay, kid?” his neighbor asks, looking up at him worriedly. he jerks up the man on the floor and takes off his ski mask in one go. “recognize this guy?” it’s a tanned man with a scar on his face, but jungkook has never seen him before. he shakes his head ‘no’.
“to the police station we go,” he sighs, opening up his phone. “yeah, hoseok, we got a problem here..”
a couple of minutes later there’s a police car in front of their complex and someone is leading jungkook to the back of the car, telling him to sit there. he doesn’t manage to grab a hat before he leaves, so he’s shuffling in and out of the side door, trying to see what’s going on and simultaneously trying to keep himself hidden. ahjussi comes out a moment later, talking to min yoongi. he looks at jungkook in the car and raises a hand. jungkook doesn’t raise one back, but he’s pretty sure ahjussi understands.
the person who gets into the car first isn’t yoongi, but rather his partner, a brown haired, smiley-faced man who introduced himself as hoseok. jungkook shrinks back in the car so he won’t be seen in the mirrors.
“how ya feelin’, kid?” hoseok asks, tapping his hand against the steering wheel. “what a night, huh? we’re just taking you to the station to get your official statement, and then hopefully you can get home before the sun rises. sorry about all this. nothing was broken, right?”
jungkook doesn’t know what to say; he doesn’t remember anything important being broken, so he just stays quiet. hoseok doesn’t seem to mind through, barrelling through the quiet with ease. “then you can decide if you want to charge him with attempted assault or not. he had a knife and was coming toward you, after all - “
“jesus, hoseok, don’t you know how to keep your mouth shut?” min yoongi grumbles when he puts himself in the passenger’s side. they’re both in comfortable clothing, but to be fair, it is pretty late at night. “hey, kid, you okay?”
jungkook doesn’t respond. his nose feels stuffy.
his lack of answer sets the atmosphere for the rest of the five minute ride to the police station. he opens the door by himself and covers the side of his face with one hand so that no one can see his cheeks. when they take him inside to a warm and nice seating area, jungkook sinks back into the chairs and pulls up his sweatshirt so that it’s covering his nose.
surprisingly, there’s a fair amount of people here that are mulling about, badges on their belts. yoongi comes by a moment later, two steaming cups in his hand. there’s a badge on his belt too.
“here’s some coffee,” he offers, setting it down in front of jungkook on the table. jungkook looks away. “sorry about hoseok; he was just trying to make you feel more comfortable, i guess."
yoongi takes a sip of his own drink, a notepad on the table along with an audio recorder. jungkook grimaces, because he doesn’t want to talk. “anyways, we have to take your statement about what happened and then put it in the system. i’ll ask you a couple of questions and try not to make it too long. is that alright?”
jungkook doesn’t answer for a long time. he wants to disappear. everything from today has been awful and horrible - he just wants to go home and sleep. the memories of today filter through his head and despite himself, he starts sniffling - whether it be from the cold, the fever he’s sure he’s got, the burn on his hand or the mounting frustration, he’s not sure.
yoongi sees this with alarm and pushes aside his notepad. “shit, kid, don’t cry. i didn’t - crap.”
jungkook wants to snap back something like i’m not crying, jesus i’m just sniffly, but he doesn’t say anything. yoongi sighs and leans back in his own chair, adjacent from jungkook’s. the bustle of the room pervades their silence; there’s no room to think in between everyone’s moving, the shuffle of paper, the phones ringing. jungkook sees some people get taken to a room beyond his line of sight, and some people sitting in the waiting area, probably pissed to be awake at near 3am.
“those cookies you made were pretty good,” yoongi finally says, rubbing the back of his head. he’s grimacing at himself like he knows he sounds stupid, but he doesn’t have anything else to say. “they were homemade, right?”
like i would get store-bought preservative filled cookies, jungkook thinks to himself. his gramma's ghost would never let him live it down.
“i know you must be in shock right now, from your night, but i really want to get this done and over with so you can see a medical official. you look a little pink, might be fever shock or something.”
at the very mention of his perpetually red-faced problem, jungkook finally moves, but it’s to cover his face with both his sweatshirt covered hands. he sniffles again into the cloth, hating how humiliated he feels. why, why did he have to point that out? jungkook was working his way up toward talking, why did this guy have to tell him about his face? jungkook knows he looks like a tomato half the time. he knows it’s not attractive, just embarrassing, sort of disgusting and off putting - are humans supposed to be that color? - and he would rather just not think about it at all.
“ah...” he hears yoongi say, a little off, “did - did i say something?”
yes you did, jungkook thinks bitterly. he keeps his face covered by his bangs and reaches for the notepad and the pen.
with quick fingers, he writes out the incident from an hour earlier, from the time that it happened to all the little details. he has a good memory for these things, and he hopes that it’ll just be the last of it. at the end, he says i don’t want to do the audio recording. this should just be enough, right? words are words no matter what form they come in, right?
he puts the notepad on the desk and physically turns away from yoongi by rotating in his seat, keeping his legs up so that he can bury his face in his knees. he waits with bated breath until yoongi finishes reading what he wrote. a surprised sound comes from behind him. “this is well-detailed,” he comments. “thanks. and, no - i suppose you don’t have to.”
jungkook nods then. he moves so that his head is above his knees, enough for his eyes to see everything around him. then enough for his nose to peek through. then enough for his mouth to make an appearance. he asks, without facing yoongi, “can i go home?”
tick, tock. the clock on the left far wall is ticking. someone’s getting water out of the vending machine. everyday noise, everyday noise. he wants to go home.
“yeah, of course.” min yoongi says it like he’s not allowed to let jungkook leave, but he’d rather take the brunt of whatever is to come than to force him to stay any longer. jungkook is grateful. he nods and when he looks on the table, notices there’s a snapback - black with white letters. he points to it and says, “who’s is that?” his voice is unwillingly shaky, like trees after a thunderstorm.
“ah, it’s hoseok’s,” yoongi explains. “you can wear it if you want. noona - well, miss jung i guess - is his older sister. you can just give it back to her.”
jungkook nods. he grabs at the hat and places it over his head. it’s like a blanket of comfort around him. familiarity. hats are something he knows - the cloth of them, the weight on his head, the shadows around his face. jungkook pats it down over his head and makes sure that the bill of it covers his face when he manages to pull away from the seat, standing up and leaving without another word.
the walk to his home is nice, because no one is awake at this time. the sun’s rays start falling over, casting glows on the sidewalk, carmine red and blush pink spreading across the skyline. jungkook coughs into his hand; when he feels his forehead, it’s warm. his shoulders shake in cold. he wants to go home.
the door to his room has been closed now; he opens it the proper way, locks and everything, and closes it the proper way, locks and everything. jungkook notes the open drawers, the mussed papers, the usually clean books. his grandmother used to clean those. she was the one to beat the cleanliness in him until it bled. jungkook shuts the drawers with a click and kicks aside whatever is on the floor; he’ll clean it later, when everything has settled in. the lack of sleep feels heavy on his body, like shackles. when he walks to the bathroom, his feet drag across the wooden floor, socks snagging on wooden splits. his hands fumble with his toothbrush; same motions, same motions, jungkook presses hands across his face.
his face.
when he was a kid, he used to smile brightly for pictures, pose for every single flash camera that came his way. there are dated ones of him everywhere in old, floral printed albums. then when he grew, the cute apples in his cheeks suddenly became something more than that. they spread like a disease to every part of his face. the skin between his eyebrows, near his ears, on his forehead, near his hairline, the curve of his chin. everywhere he saw the red. blood rising underneath the surface, betraying any emotion, giving him away at every single little thing. jungkook hates it, hates how easily he blushes, hates how easily he can be embarrassed and humiliated. hates how he has to hide his face in public. hates how it’s never easy to get the words out of his mouth anymore; hates how he has buried every single part of him inside, so deep that no one - not even him - can reach for it anymore. he hates his soft heart and his veins that rest too close to the surface.
broken blood vessels that cause easy bruises, marks on his wrists and the inside of his forearms. he was always easy to hurt, always easy to show. too hard of a touch left behind fingerprints; too harsh of a hit left behind palm-shaped marks. what an awful son to have born to you. every cell of his body was evidence of crimes left behind, violence in the littlest of touches. drunken anger in the middle of the night, bills underpaid, water shut off. daddy, it hurts.
jungkook pushes away from the mirror and blinks at his reflection. the red has died down to a flush across his nose and cheeks; darker than usual, but not as bad as it was before. if he blinks again hard enough, he can feel himself in another time. standing on a sink that seemed much bigger, lights that flickered, water that didn’t always work. jungkook washes his face vigorously and rinses out his mouth.
he texts mrs. park and tells her that his house was robbed last night, so could he please have the day off? he knows it’s a trouble, but can she please let him go this once? jungkook wants to rest. his entire being aches, even though he isn’t terribly injured. sometimes this happens: this deep-set, ponderous sluggishness in his bones.
jungkook’s head hits the futon; his breathing slows, and the morning begins.