#failase

The night was cold enough that Jungkook eventually decided to run. 

Having rushed out the front door without so much as a goodbye, his forgotten coat hardly lingered in the back of his mind. Teeth chattering and toes nearly frozen, Jungkook fell into a light jog in an effort to keep warm and to get to your dorm faster. The light poles were dim and cast a long-legged shadow of himself against the sidewalk, each stride harder than the last, each one more eager. His eyes burned with the memory of what you had said, replaying each syllable over and over again. He imagined the different ways you could’ve said it, how your face could’ve looked when you sent it. He wondered if it even mattered to you, or if getting rid of him was as easy as throwing out the trash.  

Jungkook couldn’t remember you talking to anyone else. Your phone never lit up with messages from anyone other than your manager or Somi, and he never saw anyone lingering around you during classroom hours. Your focus was always him when he was by. 

His stomach hurt. He felt like he’d throw up any second now, or that his throat would tighten until he couldn’t breathe anymore. His lungs burned from the cold air he inhaled, and his eyes stung with each short blink forced by the breeze. It seemed like years until he saw the light of your dorm come into view, a sight that used to be cathartic now his only stressor. Swallowing, he jogged to the front door and let himself in, suddenly enveloped in warmth and the scent of laundry. 

Jungkook never once stopped running. When he got to your door, he paused, halting with one fist raised to the door. The image of you on the other side, maybe crying or maybe unbothered- both of them made his stomach ache. After the moment of tight lungs passed he finally ratted on the door with his knuckles, nervously licking his lips and pushing his hair behind his head. 

Footsteps pitter-pattered on the other side of the door. He listened as they walked up to him, and glanced through the peephole to see who was there. Jungkook looked down at it and ran his fingers through his hair. “_____? Can you let me in?” There was silence, and not a move was made on either side off the door. “Please?” 

Still silence. 

Jungkook forced out a breath of exasperation, his eyes squeezed shut tightly. He pressed his hand against the door and flattened his palm, tapping it with his fingertips. He imagined your hand on the other side, pressing back. 

“_____-ah? L-Look... I don’t know what I did, but... but I can make it up to you,” Jungkook dropped his forehead against the door and leaned inwards. Some part of him wished he could walk right through that god damn door and hug you, just to feel your bones against him. “______-ah, please-” 

The door handle clicked, unlocked, and turned. 

“Jeon Jungkook,” she forced a tight-lipped, bitter smile. 

Jungkook stared at her, part of him disappointed to see who answered. “Where is she?” 

Somi rolled her eyes and looked outside in the hall to see if anyone was looking. Jungkook watched her, a mixture of emotions and all of them having to do with you. Pursing her lips, Somi assessed him and his lightening skin as a result of the cold, the slight chatter of his teeth, and sighed. “Come on.” 

She reached out and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. With a hard yank, Jungkook came stumbling into the apartment, startled by the second influx of warmth that encased him. 

“What do you want?” Somi demanded, arms folded over her chest and eyes cold as glass. 

“Where did she go? Where is she?” Jungkook looked past her to see if he could catch a glimpse of you, but Somi’s death grip on his forearm kept him in place. 

“She left a while ago,” Somi declared. “I don’t know where she went. She grabbed her bag and left.” 

Jungkook jerked his arm out of Somi’s grasp and used it to pinch the bridge of his nose. He felt hot, overheating, like at any moment he might succumb to death by fire. Wiping his brow, he glanced in the direction of your bedroom, then back to Somi. “Do you have any idea where she could’ve gone?” 

“No, asshole,” Somi glared at him, “I don’t. Do you?” 

Jungkook blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“Don’t you have a girlfriend, or something?” Somi rolled her eyes again, teeth ground together. “Shouldn’t you be off with some dumb blonde bitch fucking, or something? Isn’t that all you’re good for?” 

Blonde...  bitch? The only blonde he could think of was Minjoo, but what was Somi even talking about? He’d been dodging the subject of her for fear of hurting her feelings, but you’d been acting so weird lately. He wasn’t sure what he should do. Give up Minjoo for someone who might not feel the same? Give up you for a girl who begs to fuck him every day of the week? 

“Yeah, idiot,” Somi dug through her back pocket. She searched for something while Jungkook watched, eyes wide in confusion and mouth suddenly gone dry. She turned it around and held the screen up to his face. “We know you’re dating Minjoo, so why even come here?” 

The picture was of himself, staring down into his latte. He remembered that moment, trying to figure out why the flower you painted with cream was suddenly so evil, glaring up at him. The caption read “everyone look how handsome my man is”, paired with a pink heart emoji. Being called Minjoo’s man made him sick to his stomach, but the idea of you seeing this, thinking he’d been lying to you, hurt more. 

“She... She posted that?” Jungkook blinked, delicately trying to reach for the phone. Somi locked it and shoved it back in her pocket. 

She stared at him. “You didn’t know?” 

Jungkook scoffed, pushing himself up against the wall. He raked his fingers through his damp hair, tugging on it tightly, wondering why the hell she would do that. Suddenly he was going through all his memories with her, trying to piece together when she would’ve thought the two of you were dating. He was reminded of the day at the coffee shop, your cold eyes. The time in your bed when he got texts from her. That time in the library. 

You thought he was dating her. 

“I fucked u-” 

“Yeah,” Somi sighed, closing her eyes. “You did.” 

“What can I do?” Jungkook chewed on the bottom of his lip, voice earnest and hopeful. 

Somi straightened up. She figured she could give him the benefit of the doubt, if nothing else. 

 “Explain everything to me. I’m sure she’s fine.” 

Every blow to your face was another numbing thump, a soft tap on a bruise. Your head snapped to the side, then to the other, though you’d gone cold with pain a long time ago. Leaned up against the sparring mat, you listened to the sound of a whistle signal for your partner to get off, to allow you to recoup. 

It wasn’t that you were doing this because of Jungkook. Sure, Jungkook caused it, but you weren’t some type of Bella Swan. You weren’t going to lock yourself away. You were going to do what you knew best, regress into a stage of life where the only romance issues  you had were with Fanfictions and the only thing you had to worry about was getting your ass completely handed to you on the mat. 

You blinked, staring blankly across at the man who was meant to be your opponent. He was pacing back and forth, readjusting the strap around the gloves he wore. He wasn’t watching you anymore because he didn’t see you as a threat. He must’ve picked up on the way you allowed him to hit you, with little defensive moves to stop him. You were an easy target- young, hurt, trying to forget. 

You blinked again, but suddenly it wasn’t the man pacing before you, but another. A short, stocky build jumped to a tall, lean one, stepping across the mat with long, calculated strides. You watched the way his eyes changed to that homely shade of brown, dazzling in the dim lights. Now he was watching you, through the tops of his lids with lips twitching upwards into the sleepy smile he’d always given you in the morning. 

“Oh,” you muttered to yourself as you straightened up, cracking your knuckles in your palm, “fuck you.” 

The short man was back now, but it was too late for him. 

You were already charging at Jungkook with guns blazing. 

“She’s not answering,” Somi heaved, defeated on the love sofa of her apartment’s living room. Legs crossed and a pizza slice in hand, she took another greasy bite and chewed, staring angrily down at her phone. Across the couch was Jungkook, who might’ve now been on his thirtieth phone call that evening. 

“You haven’t seen her?” He asked Minjae, a student in one of his health classes. “Are you sure?” 

On the other end, Minjae suggested that she might’ve been somewhere in Seoul, or that she could have left the city altogether. The idea that this event might’ve driven her out of her own home and comfort made him sick. With a final thanks, Jungkook locked his phone and tossed it aside his thigh in exasperation. 

He ran his hands through his hair and tugged, throwing his head back against the sofa. 

“She’ll come back,” Somi sighed. “We have finals next month anyway. Worst comes to worst, we wait a month.” 

“I’m not waiting a fucking month,” Jungkook pushed himself off the couch, angrily shoving his feet back into his shoes. Somi watched, surprised at his sudden movements as he hurried to the front door. 

“Where’re you going?” Somi demanded, rising to her feet. 

Jungkook didn’t even spare a glance at her over his shoulder. “Wherever I can look,” he tugged his hoodie down and sighed. “The forecast said it might rain tonight. If she’s not indoors, she can catch a cold, or worse.” 

“She’s strong,” Somi declared, though half of her wanted to run out with him. 

“Don’t care,” Jungkook reached for the door handle. In half a second, Somi allowed that half of her to take control, rushing towards him. 

“Fine. Then I’m coming with.”  

This time, Jungkook glanced down at her. Somi squared her chin and glared at him, snatching her jacket off the hook. 

“What?” Somi snapped. “She’s my best friend. Plus, you’re the one who sent her into this.” Huffing, she yanked open the front door and proudly marched out, leaving Jungkook to stare at his feet. It was his fault. Somi was right. He sent you running- it was his fault. 

But it was someone else’s, too. 

“Wait,” Jungkook stopped in the middle of the dorm hallway, lips curling inwards and a muscle in his jaw flexing. Somi turned around to look at him, realization dawning on her. A sinister smirk twitched at the edges of her mouth. 

“Let’s go get that bitch.” 

The hotel room seemed superbly empty. 

And alone. 

You wondered why they would paint the walls such a dull shade of orange, or why the stain on the carpet looked suspiciously like blood. Generic paintings hung by the bathroom, which was not much more supreme. The bed was all springs beneath your sore limbs, squeaking with each movement you made to rest. 

All you heard was silence. 

Maybe you were being dramatic. You could go home, you thought. Face your problems for once instead of running away to cope. Why was it that you couldn’t cope like most people? Why couldn’t you stay in your dorm, waiting for Jungkook to come running, as though he hadn’t made you his second option in the past week? Why was your method of coping a fist to your face and your knuckles in another? 

Your phone had been off for the past few hours or so, though the temptation to turn it on was almost suffocating. A part of you, the addicted part, wanted to go on Twitter and see the latest funny posts- just so you could feel the ache of a smile. The other part was reminded that it was social media that led you to feeling this way. The caption replayed in your mind and in that silence, all you could hear were the words telling you that you’d been wrong to feel that way all along. 

Why weren’t you good enough? It didn’t come as a surprise that you asked yourself this question often. You thought you were used to being let down, to being disappointed. Yet now, this ache that you felt in your chest and the tightness of your stomach- this painful feeling of heartbreak was one you hadn’t felt since adolescence. 

You were pretty enough. Symmetrical enough to pass for ordinary, though as you stared at your bruised reflection across the empty hotel room you couldn’t help but think that there was nothing spectacularly special about your features. Hair was okay, eyes were detailed enough. Well, the one eye that wasn’t coming down from swelling, at least. Though, the longer you stared the more it seemed like your face wasn’t yours, and you closed your good eye shut tight to avoid seeing the stranger in that forsaken mirror. 

You wished you hadn’t caught feelings for a boy in college. Every story you read warned you, but the hope in your heart had led you to believe that maybe, just maybe, Jungkook would feel the same. The mornings the two of you spent together warmed your core and you couldn’t help that. You couldn’t help how hopelessly you’d fallen for him, and you wished that you’d felt cold in his memories, but your lips still threatened a smile at the thought of him. 

A Morning Never Forgotten 

“Sleepy head..” 

A voice was singing above your face, yet your body knew that it was far too early to be up already. Helplessly tugging your blanket over your face, you managed to roll over, back to whoever was pestering you, and snuggled into the warmth and scent of the shirt you wore. Unexpectedly, the blanket was pushed closer onto you, tucked in around your shoulders by careful, hesitant fingers. 

“Hey,” that same voice whispered again, though this time it seemed less determined to wake you, and more as if it were speaking to the air. You felt two hands press down against your thighs, laying you flat against the mattress. A pair of sleepy eyes began to flutter open, and chapped lips yawned a nine-hour nap into the room. 

Jungkook hovered beside you, leaned up against the headboard with one shoulder and the other angled towards you. His disheveled head hung over yours, his own sleepy eyes sparkling down at you. A slow, relaxed smile spread across his face at the sight of your consciousness and he reached out to push strands of your hair back onto the pillow. 

You probably had three chins at that point in time. And granted, you liked to snore, so a dried trail of drool was definitely stuck on the side of your jaw. You couldn’t remember how much of your makeup you took off the night before, or how much melted off onto the sheets, but some part of you were certain that you had dark circles. 

For whatever reason, Jungkook didn’t mind. In fact, he admired the speckles of mascara on your cheekbones, and the rubbed side of your left eyebrow against the pillow case. Your disheveled, knotted hair wasn’t off-putting, but instead inviting, and he thought for a moment he could sit there and untangle it for hours, even if he couldn’t tangle it again. There was something about the way your tired eyes were lighter in the morning, something about the way they sparkled in the streams of sunlight barely managing to escape through the closed curtains. 

“Want some water?” Jungkook offered, trying to hide his amused smile. 

You blinked slowly and yawned again, tiredly rubbing at your eyes. “Please?” 

Chuckling lowly, Jungkook reached over to grab a half-drunk bottle off the nightstand. You watched how the muscles in his arm flexed as he leaned over your figure, and admired the tiny bruise just above his collarbone- your unintentional handiwork. 

“What?” 

Your gaze darted from his bicep to his eyes, which were squinted mischievously. 

“See something you like?” Jungkook teased, settling down beside you to hand you the water. You scoffed and took it, sitting up straight to drink from the bottle. Jungkook watched the way your jaw flexed- an action subtle, that reminded him of the way you’d looked last night, staring up at him in the dim lights with your lips perfectly wrapped around- 

“See something you like?” You swallowed your last gulp and brushed your fingers through your hair, fighting your sideways grin at the man beside you. 

Jungkook snatched the bottle from your hands and slammed it down onto the nightstand. You watched him, eyebrows raised in surprise, though they instantly lowered the moment his fingers cupped your jaw and pulled you in close. Warmth flooded your chest cavity, filling you up from head to toe and burning your cheeks a delightful shade. Something inside you changed that morning, that one blissful time the two of you were graciously allowed to spend alone. You weren’t sure what it was at the time, but you knew that this feeling, this inescapable emotion of pure home wouldn’t leave quite so easily. 

As for Jungkook, part of him already knew what this feeling was. 

“Minjoo!” 

Three hard knocks banged on Kim Minjoo’s door, resounding throughout the otherwise quiet living room. Startled, Minjoo looked up from her textbook, glanced at her phone screen, lit up with ignored messages, then to the door. 

Who could be visiting her at this hour? 

Confused, she pushed herself back from the small, round table and rose to her feet, treading hesitantly towards the front door. Rising to her tiptoes, Minjoo brushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, and looked through the peephole. 

Big brown eyes stared back at her. Jeon Jungkook looked utterly disheveled, what with his messed locks of hair and panic on his face. Beside him, Minjoo spotted someone she recognized, though she couldn’t recall a name. It was the brown-haired girl with the one who worked at the coffee shop, and for a moment she wondered what the two of them could’ve possibly needed from her. 

“...Hello?” Minjoo pulled the door back and stared at the both of them curiously. Her gaze lingered on Jungkook, the more familiar of the two, and a smile twitched at her lips. 

“Minjoo,” Jungkook sighed, running his fingers through his hair exasperatedly, “we need to talk.” 

She stepped back, glancing at the hallway to see if there were any other people watching. “Come in.” 

“Alright, look, bitch,” the brown-haired girl came barging through the door before Minjoo could even get the words out. Dragging mud underneath her boots, the girl marched right into the living room and folded her arms stubbornly. 

“Woah,” Jungkook eyed the stranger, “chill.” 

She glared back at him. 

Minjoo watched the interaction with pursed lips. “Excuse me?” 

“Look,” Jungkook paced around the living room, looking about as stressed out as he’d ever been. Minjoo’s expression filled with worry at the sight of him. She stepped towards the man to comfort him, though Jungkook flinched, taking a step back from her outstretched hand. “You posted a picture of me on Twitter. You called me... ‘your man’.” 

Minjoo blinked. “And?” 

The girl snorted. “What do you mean ‘and’? You and Jungkook aren’t dating.” 

Minjoo looked over at Jungkook, eyebrows furrowed down so far her eyes became shadows. “What’s your problem with me posting things of us, Jungkook?” 

“We’re not-” Jungkook frustratedly paced back towards Minjoo, towering over her height. His jaw clenched angrily. “We’re not dating, Minjoo. And someone I care about very, very much saw that picture.” 

The realization began to dawn on Minjoo. She remembered seeing him and the girl who works at the coffee shop together after class sometimes, but their laughter always seemed friendly. Looking back on it now, maybe Jungkook was looking at her in the way Minjoo had convinced herself he wasn’t. She remembered seeing the way Jungkook’s eyes lit up at the sound of his name being called from that girl’s lips, and the way they fell onto his coffee cup, as if it had burned right through his skin. 

“The girl,” Minjoo assumed, looking up at him, “from the coffee shop.” 

“Her name is ______,” the stranger declared suddenly, glaring at Minjoo over the coffee table. 

“Yes,” Jungkook sighed. He couldn’t meet Minjoo’s eyes. Had he led her on this whole time? Had he ever done anything to make her think he felt something close to love for her? 

“You love her?” Minjoo tilted her head. While her words were smooth, calculated, her heart felt as if it might snap, and her eyes burned more than they ever had without sleep. 

Jungkook froze, startled by the sudden question. “Excuse me?” 

Minjoo laughed bitterly. Her glare was piercing when she looked back at him, arms folded over her chest and bottom lip threatening to quiver. “I said, do. You. Love. Her?” 

The question had taken aback Jungkook. He’d never been asked so straightforward how he felt about someone, not ever. For some reason, the word “love” made his heart beat right out of his chest, in some cartoonish fashion he prayed no one could see. That single word had the ability to bring him back to memories he had with you, the ones in the morning, particularly the one after a long night of carnival games. The way your smile sparkled in the fairy lights flipped on a switch within him. 

He didn’t have a word for it then, but he supposed “love” might be able to capture the feelings he felt for you. 

“Yes.” 

Minjoo blinked, eyes falling to her feet. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. How many people had seen the photo she posted? For how long had she led herself on to believe Jeon Jungkook might actually feel something for her, too? 

“I’ll take it down,” she stepped back from him, spinning on her heel to head for her cell phone. “I got the wrong impression. I’m sorry.” 

The stranger seemed confused at Minjoo’s actions. Had she doubted her intentions? Her feelings? Had Minjoo portrayed herself as such an ass that it was a shock to that girl that she had truly felt something for the idiot boy standing in her living room? 

Jungkook chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Have you... did you see _____ earlier at all?” 

Minjoo glanced at him over her shoulder. She debated on telling him the truth- that she’d seen the girl heading downtown with a dufflebag and a black eye. Or that she knew that there was only one hotel she could be staying at that was cheap and effective- benefits of being a psychology major. 

Minjoo squared her jaw and looked at the two of them. “No idea.” 

It was beginning to rain. 

Jungkook looked up at the sky angrily, pulling his hood up over his head to keep his hair from becoming wet locks in his eyes. Beside him, Somi searched quickly on her phone, looking for any hotel in the area that was cheap. 

“Dammit, ______,” Jungkook cursed, pacing worriedly in the courtyard. Seated on the bench, Somi glanced up at him. She could see that there was genuine concern on his face. She wished that you would just answer your fucking phone, just to tell her that you were okay- she deserved more than to be ignored. 

Jungkook heart was pounding so fast he thought it might implode. He kept picturing you, somewhere out in the rain, cold and alone and teeth-chattering. The image was enough to send his body into fight or flight mode, activating all of his senses to start running, to start frantically searching for you.