#finders.doc

Love him, that is.  It’d simply happened in between all the laughter, the eye rolls, the smiles.  Threaded between each action and cemented by the thud of your heart, beat into the ground like a drum.)

Sometimes, though, you don’t like him.  Oftentimes, in fact. 

You and Jungkook are as different as can be.  

You’re in business development at a tech firm;  he’s the technically unemployed son of a real estate mogul.  You invest most of your money;  he spends his as if it’ll never run out (which it likely won’t).  You grew up with an older brother;  he’s got two younger sisters.  You drink to celebrate, to wind down;  he drinks to prove a point.  You believe in love - have to, looking at your parents and feeling how you do about him;  he knows it exists but up until recently, had zero interest in it.

You wonder still, seated at the table with your group of friends and their partners, whether that still rings true.  (Deep down, you know it doesn’t. You know he loves you, wants you in a way he’s never wanted anyone else before, but your brain is a fickle thing, playing tricks when it shouldn’t.) 

Would he be happier without you?  Better off without you? 

Your thoughts mock you - just as he does, roguish smile turning his entire expression into sunshine.  Inescapable, all-encompassing, so blinding it’s almost hard to look at.  Trained on the girl he’s chatting up at the bar.  

This is what Jungkook does.  What he’s always done.  You should be used to it, really.  The man’s charm is always turned up to eleven, always in full effect even when he doesn’t mean it to be.  It’s simply part of who he is- young and rich and devastatingly, heartbreakingly handsome. 

Still, you can’t help the emotion that swells somewhere deep in your stomach, jostles the meal you’ve just had and turns your insides into a sea of nausea.  You know when he’s just being friendly and you know when he’s flirting.  It’s a terribly thin line but one you recognise, intimately familiar with the two sides of his personality.  

Right now, he’s flirting.  Doing that thing he does, one arm folded on the counter top, unblemished hand resting somewhere along his hip, silver of his rings acting as a beacon beneath the dim restaurant lights.  His other hand slots itself into the pocket of his coated jeans, tattoos thrown into stark contrast against his skin and the black of the denim.  There’s that smile of his, more a smirk but sunny, radiant, beautiful.  It lights up his entire face, steeping his expression in something warm.  The dimple in his cheek winks with each laugh - you can only imagine the one on the other side does the same, cut deeply into his skin.

Don’t be mad, you tell yourself.  He’s your Jungkook, bad habits and all.  

You love him.  You love him.  You love him.

If he notices your stoicism, he doesn’t comment on it.  Doesn’t ask what’s wrong or if you’re okay or what’s up.  Barely even speaks to you, save to toss his arm around your shoulder and tug you close, practically tug you into his lap while his friends share stories of their week.

It’s your usual Friday night dinner.  Something you’ve done with this ragtag group for as long as you’ve known them.  An excuse to go out and drink and eat some damn good (and often free) food. 

You wish you could enjoy it like you normally do.  Instead, you’re preoccupied by the way a perfume that isn’t yours lingers on his collar - seeps beneath the fabric and marks him up like a possession.  It’s too sweet - cloying sugar apples and coconut - nothing like your usual earthy wisteria and dewy rose.  It stings your nose when you inhale too deeply, nestled into the familiar shape of Jungkook’s frame, settled between the vertebrae you know best.

You hardly notice when he does speak to you, rousing you from thought you can’t quite place any longer.

“Ready to head home?”

The rest of your friends are going about their business, slipping their coats on and exchanging ideas for plans the following morning.  (Saturday brunch is a very popular thing, though it tends to lean late lunch versus true breakfast-brunch.)

You nod and slip from beneath your lover’s arm, plucking your purse up as you rise.  You’re ready to get out of here, ready to scrub away the melancholy that lingers like a thin film across your skin.  

He must have realised sometime between your silence in the car and your lacklustre kisses in the elevator.  You think he must, as he nearly slams the front door of his penthouse shut, kicks off his Chelsea boots and lets them tumble together just off the welcome mat.  (Not the reaction you’d expected, but you’ve learnt to never expect anything from him.  As much as he might be your best friend, Jeon Jungkook plays by his own set of rules.)

He doesn’t wait for you to undo your own shoes, carefully undoing the straps of your Jimmy Choos and setting them where they belong before you follow the sound of his footsteps.

When you find him, he’s stripping off his jacket and tossing it haphazardly across the back of his desk chair, keys and wallet and phone dropped none-too-gently upon wood.  He says nothing even as he crosses to his closet, steps inside and slips off each piece of jewellery:  assorted rings and his Rolex - everything but the bracelet you’d gotten him for graduation.  

His belt goes next, set back within the confines of its velvet lined drawer.  Through the hole goes the button of his jeans, down goes the zipper, and then he’s in nothing but his vaguely sheer dress shirt, boxer-briefs, and silly printed socks (yellow bananas on black fabric, for reasons), looking every inch the adonis he is. 

You still haven’t said a word, carefully hanging your dress in the small space you’ve carved out for yourself.  You don’t really know what to say - how to approach his apparent frustration when you don’t know where it comes from.

Is he upset with you?  Had you, somewhere along the line of your own sadness, done something to upset him?

You’re running through all the scenarios, lost in thought, when his voice breaks the quiet.  Snaps forth and hits its mark - a perfect shot.  “Seriously?”  There’s a fickle quality to his tone, a pettiness that you recognise when he hasn’t gotten his way, when he’s not quite sure what to say but knows he wants to have something.  (It doesn’t come out often with you, but you’re intimately familiar with it still.  His I-want-to-fight voice.)

“Pardon?”  You’re not expecting him so close, close enough to reach you but far enough that you can tell he’s purposely put this distance between you.  It feels strange - further apart than it is.

“You’re not going to say anything?”

You blink.  Once, twice, three times.  When you speak, it’s full of confusion, paired with your brows gathering in a little knot of bewilderment.  “Anything about what?”

“What happened at dinner.”  

He sounds so utterly deadpan, you can’t help but laugh, a sound of disbelief rather than amusement.  

“You mean you flirting with that girl?”  Even saying the words feels awful, makes you want to crawl into bed and forget about it all.

Jungkook, on the other hand, looks like you’ve just handed him the answers to all of life’s questions.  His entire face rearranges, all the pieces matching back up to form a proper puzzle.  There’s a certain smugness to it now, caught in the round of his cheek and how it ticks higher with his grin.  “So you did notice!  I fucking knew it.”

“Of course I did.”  You want to be appalled.  Know you should be.  (But it’s Jungkook and you love him.)  “Kind of hard not to.”  

He’s the devil in disguise, snapping you to him with a flex of his arms, hands curled around your waist.  It’s clear he’s pleased, absolutely tickled pink that you’d fallen for his silly little trick.  “Gotta keep you on your toes,”  he croons, eyes twinkling, mouth wobbling with the strain of keeping his laughter hidden. 

He expects you to agree - maybe roll your eyes and pat his cheek, laughs along with him and give him some sort of shit about how he’s an idiot - and visibly starts when you push yourself away, two palms flat against his chest. 

“Sure.”

One word.  Nothing like he’d imagined.

“Baby?”  You’ve made it two steps - two whole steps, which is two too many to Jungkook - when he’s pulling you back, trapping you against his chest with his arms looped around your shoulders.  “Where you going?”  He’s kissing along your shoulder, trailing warmth everywhere he touches. 

He still smells like that girl’s perfume.

“Can you get off me, please?”  You’re more polite than you normally are, working hard to keep calm when he only tightens his grip.  Of course he thinks you’re kidding, thinks you’re pouting and playing just like he had when you’d returned home.

When you repeat yourself - a little harder, a little quieter - he seems to realise how wrong he’s read the situation.

“Angel—”  You’re swept around, left to stare into the neat white of his shirt as he peers down at you, waits for you to meet his eyes.  You don’t, staunchly focused on the buttons of his Oxford, how they strain over his broad chest.  “Baby.”  Now he’s the one full of reprimand, disapproval colouring the single word that’s normally so sweet.

“What?”  It’s just as bratty as he was earlier but somehow worse, touched blue.

“What’s wrong?”  Jungkook seems genuinely perplexed, concerned and maybe, just a tiny bit frustrated.  He’s not used to you lashing out like this, soft and yet unyielding, hidden behind a door he’s fumbling with the keys to.

“You.”

“—me?”

You’re not one to throw out things you don’t mean, carefully picking and choosing your words.  It’s something you’ve always done - far more responsible than your idiot best friend who’s never had to worry about a thing in his life.  

The line of his mouth dips, pulls into a frown as he studies you and tries to crack open the windows to gain some insight.  It doesn’t work well;  he’s faced with a stone wall.

“Why’re you mad?” 

You want to laugh.  Do, actually, so short and abrupt it’s more of a scoff.  “What’s wrong with me?”  You’d pull away if you could. (Realistically, you could, but you’ve always been too soft for him.)  “You spent almost all of dinner flirting with someone else.”

“Yeah— to make you jealous.”  As if that makes it better.  As if that doesn’t tear a giant hole right in the centre of your chest, launches your poor heart out of the airlock to fend for itself in the emptiness of his expression.  

You don’t know why it feels worse to hear it out loud.  You’d figured as much. 

(Jungkook had done this in the past, though always jokingly.  He’d rarely been invested enough in a girl to go to such lengths but you’d seen it once or twice.  Always the age old adage of wanting what you can’t have.)

You wish you could separate the then from the now.  Remind yourself that he does care, that this is his twisted, stupid way of showing his affection - of keeping you around.  (You know he’s just as vulnerable as you - maybe more, sometimes - but he shows it poorly.  Pushes you away when he tries to pull you in.)

Tears are welling, spilling across your lashes faster than you can yank them back.  Something about being an angry crier.  

“Good job,”  you mean to snap, to make him feel how you do.  (Small - so very, very small.)  Instead, it’s terribly quiet.  A whisper that gets lost to the cotton poplin.  “Now I’m jealous.”  And miserable and insecure.  All things you usually aren’t, that only Jeon Jungkook manages to bring out in you.

“Baby,”  he tries again, crushing you to his chest, jut of his chin resting atop your head.  His hugs had always been your favourite - swallowing you whole, making you feel safe - but it’s too much now, a prison cell rather than your familiar bed.  “I’m sorry.”  He’s kissing again, stamping his affection into the dark of your hair, brushing over and over with the soft of his lips, his rounded adorable nose,  “I thought—”

You know what he thought.  Know where he’d been coming from (a place of immaturity, a gilded golden room with Jeon Jungkook stamped across the door) but it doesn’t make it any better.

“Baby.”  It’s your last night together before you’re back to some semblance of normalcy (not that Jungkook’s life was very normal to begin with).  He thinks he’ll miss it more than you will, if your lacklustre reactions have been any indication.

You’re fresh out of the shower - you’d turned down his offer of a bath, locked the door on your way into the washroom - and wrapped in a fuzzy white robe.  “What?”  You’re focused on running a comb through your hair, unbothered by your boyfriend who sits at the edge of the bed, legs wide and hands extended toward you.

It bothers him a bit (read: a lot).  You’re better than you were, offering tiny smiles when he begs for them, accepting his kisses without complaint. It isn’t you though.  Not the snark and the sass and the decades of friendship that normally thread your relationship.  A book with its spine about to snap, held together by cobweb.

Despite the time you’ve spent together the last few days - almost every hour, sans when you were at work - you’ve been distant still.  Not mean, of course (no, never mean, because you’ve always been soft on him) but different.  Softer and harder all at once.

“Come here,”  he coaxes, fingers curling around your wrist, pulling you between his knees effortlessly.

Normally, you’d curl around his shoulders, rake your nails through his hair.  This time, you only allow yourself to be with him, palms flat upon the ridges of muscle plating his back.  You don’t pass affection into his hair, don’t form a cradle for him to rest his head.  (It doesn’t feel like home - not like it should.)

Jungkook hates it.  Absolutely fucking abhors it.  He wants his girlfriend - his best friend, his love - back.  Not this spectre that’s taken up your space. 

(He almost forgets that he’s the reason you’re the way you are.)

“What’s wrong?”  The shape of his mouth curls, bottom lip pouting into that trademark expression that usually has you relenting, melting into a puddle of goo in his arms. 

This time, you shrug, movement dislodging the soft soft terry cloth from your shoulders.  “Nothing.”  Dumb as he might be - oblivious in the way only someone like he can be - he can tell you’re lying.  Offering the untruth right between your teeth, expecting him to accept it.

That bothers him even more.  It’s one thing to put up an act, entertain him as if you were a court jester.  It’s entirely another to treat him as if he’s a child, feeding him lies without a care.

(Notwithstanding the fact that Jeon Jungkook is, for all intents and purposes, a manchild.)

“You’re a shit liar,”  he retorts, grumpy, coloured green and blue until his insides feel like mud.  It’s strange, the discomfort that sinks beneath his skin and sticks his bones together.  Like wading through quicksand or a bog, stuck to a place he doesn’t want to be.  “Talk to me.”

“About what?”  You’re deflecting, refusing to meet his stare, holding yourself within the confines of your robe as if you can’t bear to open up to him.

That hurts more than he expects.  Slips sadness in alongside the frustration.

“About what’s bothering you.”  The fact he has to do this is driving him mad.  It’s akin to pulling teeth and he hates the dentist.

You scoff then - which he doesn’t expect.  The sound kicks him right in the stomach, a sucker punch he doesn’t see coming.  “You want me to talk about you?”  It’s an uncharacteristically mean answer, brought on by whatever’s been bothering you, turning blood to battery acid.

“Excuse me?”  

“You heard me.”  

For the briefest moment, he considers lashing out in response - giving back exactly what he’s getting.  But then he spies it, just there, past the usual warmth of your stare.  It’s hiding behind crystallised amber, peeking past the edges.  So much sadness it steals his breath right from his lungs, stripping him bare of red hot fury and leaving him lily white and lovesick.   

When Jungkook speaks again, it’s feather soft, terribly light, begging and pleading in a single utterance.  “Please.”

There’s silence for a beat, then another.  It stings for each second it continues, treading misery all over the thing that beats in his chest.  He’s not used to this.  (You’re his first and only love.  A part of him is grateful for that;  another hates even this.)

He almost asks again - readies it on the tip of his tongue.

Then you’re unloading, giving him everything he’d asked for and more.   

“I love you,”  you tell him in a reedy voice, uneven like the foundation you’ve built together.  Haphazardly thrown into place and hoped for the best on.  “But you’re an idiot.”   

(He deserves that, he supposes.)

Your voice is static, stretched thin and gossamer thin.  Cheek pressed to his curls, you find comfort in your hiding place, as if shielded by the dark.  “I’ve loved you for years and that’ll never stop.  But when you do stupid shit, it’s so hard.”  Your words are honeyed, thick and heavy as they lay into each strand, seep quietly into his ears.  Where they’d normally fill him with ecstasy, delight, send him on a sugar high - these ache, sink right to the pit of his stomach.  “I would give you anything.  Anything.”

“I know.”  Really, he does.  He’s known that since you were kids.  It’s why he’d fallen in love with you, even before he’d realised he had.

“Then why do you test me?”  

It’s not rhetorical.  You want an answer - something real you can hold between your hands.  Something to act as the salve for all the hurt, to bandage the wounds left behind by your uncertainty.  (He’s the same as you - needs to know he means as much to you as you do him.  But you show it in different ways and that’s what’s brought the two of you to this point.)

“I’m sorry,”  he answers, sliding his arms more securely around your waist, face buried into the soft fabric of the robe, into the warmth that lies beneath, into the heart that beats a rhythm identical to his.

“I don’t want sorry.”  After all, you’d already gotten one.  Weeks ago, when he’d pulled the stupid sophomoric stunt, he’d apologised.  Had been apologising every day since then, but in all the wrong ways.  “I want better.” 

It’s as if all of his bones have been cracked open, the weight of your words settling like sand, discomfort and grit snapping his head to attention.  “You want better?”  There’s nothing but alarm in Jungkook’s expression, eyes wide, throat knotted in worry.  “I—”

As always, you read him like an open book.  Hands smooth down the sides of his cheeks, palms searing over his reddened cheeks.  “Not like that.”  You’re reassuring him even as it should be the other way around.  (How ironic.)

He exhales a deep breath.  Doesn’t tear his stare from yours.  

“I just need you to be better.”  You’d never ask this of him if it weren’t important, if you didn’t feel his ignorance and immaturity splintering your insides into glass shards.  You’ve always accepted him exactly as he was, all the good and bad and ridiculous.  

This is different though.  You love him.  You’re taking a chance with him just as he is with you.  Laying your heart in his hands and trusting him to keep it safe, handing out the key in the hopes of building a home.  

So you ask - for both your sakes. 

He promises he will be and you believe him.  Have to.

For both of your sakes.