you're already more than enough to be loved

They sat like that for a bit, holding hands and crying. Yoongi felt hopelessly lost, and he hated how comforting it was to feel the squeeze of Jungkook’s hand. There was a war inside of him and Jungkook was pulling him over an edge. 

He shook his head, to himself or to Jungkook, he didn’t know.

“I…” he started, not even knowing where that sentence was going.

A silence fell. Apparently the sentence went nowhere.

“Yoongi?” Jungkook asked, his voice fragile and hoarse.

“Yes?” 

“What’s your name?” 

Yoongi wanted to recoil back into the corner, but forced himself to stay. A sob escaped from his mouth unexpectedly. It felt like defeat to tell Jungkook his real name. He didn’t want Jungkook to know that part of him.

“It’s D-2,” he whispered, his heart racing uncomfortably.

“Huh,” Jungkook said, contemplating. His eyes darted around for a bit, in that way Jungkook’s eyes did when he was thinking.

“I think I like Yoongi better.” 

Yoongi snorted, caught off guard by that deadpan expression.

“Me too,” he said, and he didn’t know why. Didn’t know why he let himself be pulled into this madness again, and certainly didn’t know what inside of him dared to say what he said next.

“You can still call me Yoongi, if you like.” 

He wanted to look up at Jungkook, but didn’t have the courage. 

“I want to…call you Yoongi,” Jungkook said, the hesitation in his voice cutting through Yoongi’s soul, “But I need to know….why.” 

"Why?" 

“Why didn’t you give me your real name? Why are you…why did my dad…how did you get here?”

Yoongi traced the sand on his shoes with his eyes, shutting in on himself.

"It's…" he sighed. “It’s complicated.”

Jungkook squeezed Yoongi’s hand in a way that no longer felt comforting. “Then explain it to me.”

Yoongi pulled his hand away and wrapped it around himself. The world was spinning, and suddenly he couldn’t touch Jungkook anymore.

“It’s a long story,” he mumbled.

“Then tell it to me!” 

Jungkook was yelling again. It was going badly again. 

Yoongi squeezed his legs closer to his body and said nothing. He flinched as Jungkook stood up- oh he was walking away. He was leaving.

But no, Jungkook merely started pacing back and forth in the barn, an aura of frustration hanging around him. Yoongi wanted to shrink into himself.

“Do you have any idea how frustrating it is,” Jungkook said, “when nobody tells you anything?” 

Yoongi didn’t know what to say, but raised his eyes just a tiny bit to show that he was listening. 

“They don’t tell me anything!” Jungkook exclaimed, his hands going up in the air. “Nothing. I know nothing about the world. I know nothing except for this stupid mansion and these stupid gardens and that stupid treehouse.” 

“It’s not stupid,” Yoongi heard himself say, feeling weirdly defensive about the place that he had learned to call his home.

“Why do you think I make all those drawings?” Jungkook asked, still pacing. “I don’t want to look at the sea on the wall. I want to look at it in real life! I want to feel it! Feel the water!” He kicked up dust on the floor. “They don’t trust me. Don’t trust me with anything. But I want to know! I want to know about the world!” 

He stopped right in front of Yoongi and looked him in the eyes with a determination that was impossible to look away from. 

“I want to know about you.” 

Yoongi just stared. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“I want to know everything about you,” Jungkook said, “The whole story. I don’t care if it’s long.”

Yoongi looked down at the ground again. Soon they would be taking him away. He was going to die. Maybe…maybe this was something he could do. A last ditch effort to…he didn’t even know what. But Jungkook was staring at him, the request written in his eyes, and maybe-

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, I’ll tell you.” 

He was surprised by the sudden clarity that he felt.

Jungkook’s eyes widened even bigger than they already were. "Really?"

Yoongi let out a long breath and nodded. "Really." 

Neither of them moved, like they weren’t sure what to do now. It seemed like all the energy had evaporated from the room as Jungkook just stood there.

“You should sit down,” Yoongi said. “This might take a bit.” 

He was surprisingly relieved when Jungkook actually did. 

Yoongi’s mouth opened. The only thing that came out was a deep sigh. He gave himself a moment to prepare, but he knew he would never actually be ready to tell this story. To relive it. To say the words out loud to another person.

A door opened in his head and the past flooded into his brain. He panicked, squeezed his knees closer like he wanted to squeeze all of it back in.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Yoongi tried to zoom out, to pull himself out of the story and look at it from above, like it wasn’t about him and he hadn’t lived it with the very body that was now gonna tell it.

“I suppose…” Yoongi started. His own voice felt far away. “I suppose we should start with my parents.”

A silence. It was now or never. Jungkook stared at him with expectation dancing in his eyes.

“My parents,” Yoongi repeated, “are King Jisung and Queen Hayoon, the former rulers of this kingdom.”