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“So are you going to continue your father’s legacy?” they ask him, shoving cameras in his face, pens, paper, microphones, asking for answers Jungkook won’t give them.
“No,” he tells them. “I don’t like writing. I’m not a writer.”
Jungkook’s not a writer, but his father was. A great one, a New York Times bestseller ten years in a row. He had words that could tear hearts out and they’d flowed out from him to paper to acclaimed book lists.
Jungkook has none of that. Jungkook hates language, the way he stumbles over it in daily conversation and the way they leave him feeling cold inside. The only word Jungkook doesn’t hate is the word “no".
Jungkook, don’t you want to be an amazing writer like your father?
No.
Jungkook, shouldn’t you be doing something more fulfilling in life than just...dancing?
No.
Jungkook, don’t you --
No.
Jungkook pushes past the reporters and heads for the streets. His shoelaces are coming untied but he doesn’t stop to tie them because he just wants to get away.
Jungkook doesn’t like words. He likes movement, likes music, likes rhythm. And words have none of that. They’re static on the page, unmoving, boring, and Jungkook doesn’t want to be a writer.
Jungkook hates writers.
--
“Hey, are you Jeon Jungkook?” Jungkook hears and he turns around. It’s a boy, smiling brightly at him, that he vaguely remembers from dance class. “I’m Park Jimin. I’m a big fan of your dad’s.”
Jungkook swallows back the bile and smiles. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Jimin grins. He gestures at the seat next to Jungkook. “You mind?”
“No,” Jungkook says, scooting a bit over even though there’s room.
“Thanks,” Jimin grins before his face falls. “Although you must be pretty sad about your dad passing and all.”
Jungkook stays silent and Jimin smiles sadly, completely misunderstanding. “Anyways, the new routine is killer, huh?”
Jungkook latches onto the change of subject with relief.
It isn’t long before Jimin’s got Jungkook giggling and laughing with his jokes and funny faces and all thoughts about his father vanish.
--
It’s three months later that Jimin pokes the subject again. They’re lying on the couch together, Friday movie night, and Jungkook’s half asleep in Jimin’s lap. It’s warm and comfortable there but everything about Jimin is warm and comfortable.
“Do you miss your dad?” Jimin asks, looking curiously down at Jungkook.
“No,” Jungkook says and he usually wouldn’t say that but it’s Jimin and Jungkook is only half-awake. “I’m glad he’s gone.”
Jimin frowns. “He’s your dad.”
“He didn’t like me,” Jungkook says, thinking of dark brown hair and rectangular smiles. He rolls over and lifts Jimin’s shirt, kissing his stomach. Jimin giggles a little at the sensation and Jungkook smiles at the sound, the way it flutters and dances like a spring melody and leaves Jungkook feeling like he could fly. “He wouldn’t have liked you either.”
--
“What is that you’re reading?” Jungkook asks and Jimin shoves the book behind his back. Jungkook narrows his eyes. “What?”
He stares Jimin down until he relents, pulling the book from behind him with a sheepish smile. “It’s one of your dad’s.” Jimin strokes at the cover. “It’s one of my favorites.”
Jungkook scoffs. “You read that kind of trash?”
“It’s...meaningful,” Jimin says quietly. “Your father had beautiful words in him.” Jungkook snorts and Jimin looks at him with sad eyes. “You don’t think so.”
Jungkook doesn’t think, he knows. Because whatever beautiful words his dad may have had for his books, he’d never had them for Jungkook.
--
“You’re a what?”
Jungkook had trembled, clutching Taehyung’s hand in his own like a lifeline. Taehyung had clutched back, hand shaking.
“Dad -- “
“Get out.”
--
“These are all pictures of me and my family and you,” JImin says and Jungkook hums, locking his fingers with Jimin’s. “You don’t have any pictures of family you want to put up?”
“I don’t have any,” Jungkook admits. “Mother died when I was a baby. I haven’t seen my dad in a long, long time.”
He’d left because Taehyung had left, because he’d felt too stifled, because Jungkook likes movement and rhythm and not words, not oppressive silences that leave him feeling paralyzed and trapped, unable to move or breathe.
“I can’t believe we’re moving in together,” Jimin says and he smiles at Jungkook who grins back. He’ll wrap himself up in Jimin’s smile and Jimin’s arms and know for sure that his father will never get to take this away from him.
--
“Jungkook, would you like to go see your father’s grave?”
“No.”
--
Jungkook stumbles home in a daze.
It’s been a year since his father passed and his fame hasn’t decreased in the slightest. Jungkook’s sick of reporters, sick of his father’s fans, sick of everyone who keeps asking and asking and asking if he’s okay, if he’s gone to see his father, if he misses his father.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
He just wants to see Jimin and collapse into his lap and just rest.
But when he gets home, Jimin’s on the couch and in his hands is that book. His favorite. Written by the one person Jungkook doesn’t ever want to see again.
He doesn’t know what comes over him except in the next minute, he’s grabbed the book from Jimin and starts pulling it apart, relishing in the sounds of ripping paper and the shreds of words, of oppressive, static words, his father’s words that fall like snow to the ground. It isn’t until he flings it to the ground that he comes back to his senses, the heady sensation disappearing to be left with hollowness and guilt.
He looks at Jimin who’s staring at him with concern. “Jungkook....?”
He feels trapped. The sinking feeling in his chest as he realizes that that was Jimin’s favorite book, weighing him down. And so Jungkook moves, flees, runs away, and ignores Jimin’s calls as he disappears out the door and into the night.
--
“You broke up with him, right?” his father asks and Jungkook clenches his fingers in his pants.
“Yes.”
“And quit that dance class?”
His fingers are white knuckled against the black of his pants.
“Yes.”
His father nods and says no more. The air is ripe with tense silence and Jungkook bends his head back over his food.
He runs away at fifteen and never looks back.
There’s a reason Jungkook’s favorite word is “no”.
--
“Whatever this is, you’re not going to fix it by staying here,” Seokjin tells him and Jungkook flinches. “He’s not angry,” Seokjin says, voice softer. “Just go back.”
And so Jungkook slinks back to their apartment, feet dragging.
When he knocks tentatively on the door, Jimin is the one who opens it and when he sees Jungkook, he hugs him. “Thank god, I was so worried.”
Jungkook licks his lips guiltily. “I’m sorry...about the book.”
Jimin pulls back and smiles. “It’s okay.”
It’s probably not. Jimin had toted that thing around like his treasure and Jungkook had respected that even as he hadn’t respected his father. Until a week ago that is.
“I got another copy,” Jimin says, pulling Jungkook further into the living room.
“I’ll try not to rip it apart this time,” Jungkook tries to joke and though it should have fallen flat and unamusing, Jimin laughs.
“I hope so. I want you to read it.”
Jungkook’s eyes widen and he almost rips himself out of Jimin’s hold. “No.”
“Just one try,” Jimin says. “Please?”
The book is lying on the coffee table and Jimin picks it up, walking slowly towards Jungkook, and pushing it gently into Jungkook’s frozen hands. “Just one try.” He looks at Jungkook. “This book saved my life,” he says quietly and Jungkook takes a shuddering breath. “One try? Please? For me? You can do this for me right?”
God, how Jungkook detests this word.
“...Yes.”
--
It’s 12 am when Jungkook settles into the couch, holding the book, and begins to read.
--
Jimin comes into the room somewhere around 3 but Jungkook doesn’t notice and Jimin smiles, sitting on the other couch and watching as Jungkook flips page after page after page.
He won’t put it down until he’s finished, Jimin knows. Because Jungkook has always liked movement and music and rhythm and so Jungkook will like this.
These words that spin and dance and entrap even as they give him the power to fly.
--
Jimin leaves for a quick bathroom break and when he comes back, Jungkook’s finished, staring vacantly down at the book.
“I like to read it when I’m feeling trapped,” Jimin says, sitting on the couch and leaning his head on Jungkook’s shoulder. “It makes me feel so free.”
Jungkook doesn’t reply.
“I knew I was gay in middle school,” Jimin continues and Jungkook stiffens. “People didn’t like that.” There’s an implication in that that both of them know all too well. Jimin smooths a hand over the cover. “I found this in high school when it became too much.”
Jungkook exhales. “It saved your life,” he parrots.
“I stopped dancing in freshman year,” Jimin says. “I couldn’t find the passion for it. I didn’t feel like getting out of bed let alone dancing. I started dancing again after I read this.”
Jungkook clutches his fingers around the book because he gets it. And he wishes he didn’t.
“My father didn’t like gays,” he says. “Or dancers.” He didn’t like me. He wouldn’t have liked you either.
Jimin shrugs. “Sometimes that happens,” he says. “That doesn’t change what his words did for me.”
Jungkook nods numbly.
“Did you look at the author’s dedication?”
Jungkook shakes his head and flips open the cover.
What he sees makes his heart stop in his chest.
Dedicated to someone I hurt and for that, I am truly sorry. Please come home. I miss you.
The words are static and unmoving on the page but their echoes travel down through Jungkook and back up and leave tingles and numbness and something unexplainably melancholy and aching in every part of his body.
His father may not have loved dance but maybe he had also loved movement and music and rhythm just like Jungkook.
Maybe he had loved Jungkook.
--
“Do you want to go see your father’s grave?”
“...Yeah.”