Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hey, you piece of shit! Get back here!”

Jungkook doesn’t have any plans to follow that particular command- instead, he keeps running despite the fact that his lungs feel like they’re on fire and he’s by now long passed by all of his normal hiding places for times like this. They’re in a railyard, he thinks, but it’s hard to tell in the rapidly fading evening light. All he knows is that if he stops, the two men currently on his tail will make whatever pain he’s feeling at the moment seem like nothing in comparison to their assault. 

Still, though, Jungkook’s getting tired- it’s been too long since his last good meal, and he doesn’t exactly go to the gym in his spare time. He needs an out, and fast. 

The mens’ shouts echo across the railyard, but they sounder fainter than they have in a while. That’s good enough for Jungkook. He glances around wildly, looking around for anywhere he can hide himself until they leave, eyes landing on nothing useful until- there. 

In one lane of the railway, there’s a string of train cars that looks like they haven’t been touched in a long, long time. Graffiti paints the once-blue surface of each car in a rainbow of airbrushed designs and patterns, and there’s a garden of weeds sprouting up in the surrounding gravel. Jungkook eyes the latch on the frontmost car’s door, hopes it won't be locked or rusted over with age. 

Practically slamming into the car when he reaches it, he fumbles with the latch for a few seconds before yanking the heavy door open. He hauls himself up into the car -the interior of which is glowing like he imagines the gates of heaven might- and shuts it just as the sound of the mens’ shouts becomes audible again. Jungkook slumps against the cool metal of the door and catches his breath for a moment, eyes slipping shut in fatigue. 

They snap open a moment later when he realizes that, wait a second, the average abandoned train doesn’t come with both working lights and the sound of pleasant, bass-heavy music playing from somewhere deeper within. Jungkook glances around warily, taking in the fairy lights strung across the ceiling and the oddly homey feel of the place. 

“Taetae? Is that you?” a high voice floats from somewhere in the train. 

“Um,” he replies intelligently. 

The music stops abruptly, and the sound of hurried footsteps starts and grows rapidly louder. Jungkook winces, pressing closer to the door like it’ll protect him somehow, and hopes whoever’s coming isn’t going to stab him for trespassing. 

When the source of the voice finally rounds the corner, his jaw drops, because he wasn’t aware that actual angels spent their time in apparently-not-abandoned trains. He’s got orange hair that glows like fire, eyes that sparkle even in the low light, and holds himself in a way that suggests messing with him would be the last mistake one would ever make. 

Currently those bright eyes are watching him, narrowed sharply in suspicion, and Jungkook belatedly realizes he’s been staring. “Uh,” he begins again, as eloquently as before, “I-”

“Are you police?” the redhead spits, sounding far less friendly than earlier. 

Jungkook lets out a mildly hysterical laugh. “Hell no, they’d never-”

“-Gangs, then,” the boy interrupts again, showing zero pity for Jungkook’s obvious terror. “I swear to god, if you’re in with the Shadows-” he breaks off and takes a threatening step forward. Jungkook flinches, presses his back even deeper into the door. He’s about two seconds away from throwing himself out of the train car and taking his chances with the two men from earlier because at least, as awful as being beaten up may be, they’re a known evil. The boy in front of him could just as easily let him go as he could kill him, and Jungkook really doesn't like his odds. 

“The silent act isn’t cute, you know,” The redhead cuts in again, folding his -noticeably buff, which is both very intimidating and very attractive and dammit Jungkook this is not the time- arms across his chest. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Jungkook squeaks out, hand edging towards the door latch. “I was being chased and I thought no one was in here and I’ll just go-”

He gets halfway through turning the latch before there’s a hand on his wrist. The boy’s gaze is still filled with mistrust when he meets it, but he’s relaxed his posture slightly. “Chased? By who?” 

Jungkook opens his mouth to answer only to realize he doesn’t know. “Guys in black jackets,” he finally says, looking away in embarrassment. “They didn’t exactly introduce themselves.” 

“Black jackets? Ugly, pushy, probably tried to fight you over something stupid?” he prods, keeping his grip on Jungkook’s wrist. His expression betrays no emotion other than that ever-present cool hostility. 

“All I did was bump into them, so- yeah, I guess.” Jungkook’s not really sure where all of this is going. At the moment, the most he’s hoping for is a lack of broken bones when everything's said and done. 

The boy finally releases his grip on Jungkook, and, as Jungkook watches, he transforms into what might as well be another person. His stance relaxes and his arms fall to his sides, his eyes soften, and he breaks out in the sweetest grin and accompanying eye-smile Jungkook has ever seen. No longer cowed by the intimidation factor, Jungkook is now free to notice that he is, in fact, taller than the redhead. His head is spinning from the abruptness of the boy’s transformation. Maybe there’s actually two of them and this is all just an elaborate prank. 

“I’m Jimin,” the boy says, sticking a hand out. Jungkook reciprocates with the weakest handshake he’s ever given in his life, still trying to reconcile Jimin with the person that seemed a second away from killing him just before. “Born in 96, by the way.” 

“I’m Jungkook, ‘97, and, uh, what exactly is going on,” he hears himself ask faintly, and Jimin lets out a giggle that sounds positively magical. 

“You’d know better than me,” he says. “From what I can tell, you pissed off the Shadows, they wanted to kick your ass, you ran, you ended up here. Sound about right?” 

Jungkook nods, by now a little more mentally together. “You’re not gonna kill me, right?” he checks, and is rewarded by Jimin throwing his head back and laughing, the sound like church bells ringing. “Of course not,” he replies. “I was thinking the opposite, actually- if you want to hang out for a while until those guys get bored and leave, I have food in there.” he points deeper into the train. 

“Sure,” Jungkook decides, albeit uncertainly. “Is that okay?” 

Jimin’s already walking deeper into the train car. “I wouldn’t have offered if it wasn’t,” he points out. “I trust you enough, anyways.” 

“Didn’t seem like it a few minutes ago,” he mutters, thinking back to how scary the other boy had looked initially. He slips through the threshold after Jimin only to immediately bump into him. He flinches, then blushes as the realization hits that there was no way Jimin hadn’t heard his comment. 

“I’m not sure why I was so worried in the first place, honestly,” Jimin tells him, perfectly nonchalant. “You’re too young to be a cop and way too cute to be a gang member.” 

Jungkook is fairly sure his blush has now painted his face a shade of red that would put firetrucks to shame. Jimin laughs in clear delight at his reaction, which certainly doesn’t help matters. 

Moving over to the corner of the room and still giggling to himself, Jimin pops open the lid of a metal lockbox resting there, grabbing a bag of chips from its depths and tossing it Jungkook’s way. He catches it without thinking and sends up a brief thank you to the powers that be that he didn’t do something dumb like flinch or drop it. 

After taking a bag for himself, Jimin flops down on a old-looking brown leather couch, spreading his arms wide like wings across the back. “Welcome to our place,” he says, genuine pride in his voice. “Don’t break anything or kill anyone and I’m sure you’ll fit in fine.” 

It is a nice place, really- especially as far as refurbished trains go. The room Jungkook is in is lit by a variety of lamps and fairy lights that give it a warm glow, and a small but relatively new TV is hung against one wall. A few beanbag chairs and even a mattress are scattered haphazardly around it. Across the room, there’s a curtain made of what looks like bed sheets over a doorway that leads deeper into the train, and he catches a glimpse of a table and mismatched chairs through the sheer fabric. 

“Are there more of you?” Jungkook asks as he glances around, having yet to move any deeper into the room. Warily, he glances at the bedsheet door as if someone could jump out of it at any second. He remembers Jimin mentioning a “Taetae” earlier, but the idea of more people than even that spending time here on the regular is equally intriguing and intimidating. 

Jimin nods. “There’s six of us, actually.” He has to hide a grin at Jungkook’s look of shock. “I’m the only one here right now, but if you stay long enough everyone else should show up.” 

Jungkook isn't sure what to expect from these mysterious people- are they all as pretty and intimidating as Jimin, or are they more like the hardened street thugs he’s used to? He’s not sure he wants to stick around and find out. “I wouldn’t want to impose-” he begins politely, and Jimin waves a hand. 

“Please. No one’s gonna mind if you hang around for just a night. We don’t bite.” He pauses, considering. “Well, Yoongi does sometimes, but I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Jungkooks shifts nervously towards the exit, grateful he hadn’t yet sat down. “No, really, I’m sure those guys are gone by now-” 

There’s a loud, metallic, clang from the entrance of the train. Jungkook whirls around to face it and shifts deeper into the room, every inch of him instantly prepared to fight or run. He’s torn between going to hide deeper in the train, which would keep him safe for longer, and staying to help Jimin defend himself. He likely doesn’t need it, being as generally badass as he is, but it would be a dick move to run regardless- 

He starts as Jimin brushes past him, looking nowhere near as tense. Right as he reaches the threshold of the room, Jungkook snatches the sleeve of his jacket and yanks him back. Jimin shoots him a look that’s a complicated mix of surprise, annoyance, and amusement. “Yes?” 

“Don’t go out there if those guys got in!” Jungkook hisses. “We should run, or hide, or, or- something that isn't that, at least.”

Jimin snickers at him, and Jungkook blushes without knowing why. “What?” he manages, dropping the other boy’s sleeve like it burnt him. 

Jimin starts to leave again, pausing right before he disappears completely. “First of all, I’m offended you think I can’t take a couple of dumbasses on my own territory. And secondly, they didn’t get in. The knock means it’s one of us.”

Shit. So Jungkook’s too late to leave, it seems. Despite his well-developed instincts from years on the streets screaming for him to stay back until he’s sure the newcomer isn’t a threat, Jungkook follows Jimin out to the entrance. The heavy door of the train car is sliding open when he gets there, and he makes sure to stay well behind Jimin despite the shorter boy having no chance of hiding him. 

“I’m hoooome!” sings a boy, voice a pleasant low baritone, as he leaps into the car. Although his jump is clean, he overshoots it just a bit; he ends up almost running into the opposite wall, laughing to himself a little as he recovers. 

“Taehyung-ah!” Jimin exclaims, rushing forward to wrap him in a tight hug that’s instantly returned with equal force.”How’d it go?” 

The boy -Taehyung- takes half a step back to look Jimin in the eyes, and the smile he gives the shorter boy is nothing short of radiant. It’s uniquely rectangular, but it only serves to make him and his joy all the more charming. “Perfectly,” he practically gushes. “We got half of their haunts on Main tagged before the sun even set, and no one even came close to catching us. Those assholes won’t know what hit ‘em.” 

Jimin gifts Taehyung with a bright eye-smile in response, grabbing one of his hands. “That’s awesome!” 

Jungkook stares. He feels vaguely like he’s watching something he shouldn’t. If the door wasn’t directly past the two of them, he’d probably slip out just to give them their privacy. 

“Namjoon-hyung is picking up snacks at the store, but he’ll be home soon too-” Taehyung continues, before catching sight of Jungkook for the first time and stopping dead. “Who’s this?” he asks with an air of thinly veiled suspicion. While there’s none of that open hostility Jimin initially had towards him present, his gaze is filled with an intense scrutiny that’s almost scarier. 

Jimin opens his mouth to answer, but Jungkook beats him to it. “I’m Jungkook. I’m sorry for intruding,” he rushes out. “But I was being chased and this was the first place I saw to go. I was just leaving, really-” he even takes a step towards the door to prove his point. 

“He was not ‘just leaving’,” Jimin interrupts, looking amused. “He’s probably going to stay here at least overnight.”

“He is?” Taehyung asks. 

“I am?” Jungkook repeats, voice embarrassingly high. 

Taehyung stares at him for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then he’s smiling again. “Okay,” he decides, and Jungkook lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Are we out of honey butter chips?” 

And just like that, it’s been decided- nevermind that Jungkook still isn’t fully sure what “it” is. He dutifully follows the other two boys back into the main room, standing at the entrance of the door awkwardly as Jimin fishes out a bag of honey butter chips from the same box as earlier. 

“So, Jungkook-ssi,” Taehyung begins, and Jungkook braces himself for some kind of an interrogation. “Favorite anime?”

Despite that being the exact opposite of whatever he’d been expecting to come out of the other boy’s mouth, Jungkook’s answer comes readily. “Naruto, obviously,” he scoffs. It’s been too long since he’s been able to watch much of anything, really, but Naruto will always have a special place in Jungkook’s heart.

Taehyung looks at him again with that intense gaze of his that Jungkook can’t help but shrink back from. Being subject to the entirety of his attention at once is almost overwhelming. Taehyung seems to hold the entirety of the cosmos in his eyes, beautiful and breathtaking and vast, and in the face of it he feels comparatively infinitesimal. 

But then Taehyung smiles at him again, expression bright and relaxed, and Jungkook kind of feels like he’s just been yanked forcibly out of another dimension. “That’s cool,” he says brightly. “My favorite’s One Piece, but Naruto’s awesome too.” 

“One Piece is cool,” he agrees a bit awkwardly, wondering if he’s passed some kind of test. 

“I have it, if you want to watch?” Taehyung offers, suddenly a little tentative, and Jungkook grins wide despite himself. 

“I’d love to!” 

The three of them collapse onto the old couch, which creaks dangerously under their weight despite Jimin’s assurances that it frequently holds all six of the train’s inhabitants, and Taehyung sets up the TV. They -Jimin and Taehyung, really, Jungkook’s still too shy to interrupt their comfortable dynamic- make easy conversation about things Jungkook’s never heard of and people he doesn’t know. Strangely enough, he doesn’t feel particularly left out- rather, he feels an odd sense of something like belonging as he watches them. 

The sensation is weird, and he has no place experiencing it in an abandoned train car with two people he didn’t know an hour ago, but it’s persistent no matter how much he tries to tamp it down. It’s nice, really nice. He’s desperately missed that feeling of home, no matter borrowed it may be. 

By the time one episode turns to two and his first bag of chips turns to three, Jungkook is feeling relaxed in a way he hasn’t in a long time. He’s slumped against one arm of the couch, attention split between the TV and the two boys curled into each other on the other end of the seat. Taehyung’s head is resting on Jimin’s shoulder, and the redhead is absently carding a hand through the other boy’s hair. 

It’s cute, adorable really, and Jungkook catches himself staring at them much more often than what he’s supposed to be watching. 

He’s half asleep on the couch, gaze still vaguely focused on the other end of the couch and eyes hooded with exhaustion, when another knock rings out through the train. Jungkook starts a little, still unused to the sound, and Taehyung and Jimin shoot matching smiles at each other before standing up, stretching. 

“Bet’s on Joon-hyung,” Taehyung says with a grin. 

Jimin, with an air of competition that suggests he plays this strange game with Taehyung on the regular, shoots back with a “Nah, it’s definitely Hobi-hyung,” 

“You always bet on Hobi-hyung,” Taehyung teases. “Because you looove him.”

Jimin laughs and says something Jungkook can’t catch as the pair heads to the door. Unsure if he should follow them or not, Jungkook eventually decides to settle in and wait. He should at least let them have their reunion before his presence makes the atmosphere awkward yet again. 

A moment later, there comes a banshee screech from the hallway of “Jin-hyung!” and a hum of rapid-fire conversation starts up almost instantly. 

The growing wave of noise moves closer, not at all faltering in enthusiasm, and Jungkook catches bits and pieces about a flower shop and takeout. He’s suddenly nervous, like they’re going to walk back into the room and suddenly judge him unworthy of continuing to stay. He adjusts his hoodie and brushes nonexistent crumbs off of his lap like it’ll magically make him more presentable and waits anxiously. 

Jimin enters first, glancing at Jungkook like he’d almost forgotten he was there. “Oh, right!” He grins at whoever’s on the other side of the threshold. “We have a guest.” 

“His name’s Jungkook,” Taehyung adds as he slips in behind him, rectangle smile present in full-force. 

The mystery person finally walks in, and Jungkook forgets to move, or breathe, or do anything, really, because wow, are they all this attractive? Jungkook might need to leave and never come back after this just to preserve his sanity. 

He’s tall and his shoulders are broad in a way that would be intimidating if not for his face, which has a delicate, picturesque sort of beauty to it; he looks like he could easily be some kind of model or idol. The boy looks Jungkook over curiously and he snaps back into reality under his gaze, practically falling over himself to greet him. 

Though the boy introduces himself politely enough as Jin, there’s an unspoken mistrust in the way he chooses to sit on one of the beanbags instead of the couch. 

“So, where are you from?” Jin asks carefully, expression neutral but gaze sharp. Taehyung and Jimin wait curiously to hear the answer. 

Jungkook’s not really sure how to reply- he’s not homeless, not technically, but he doesn’t really live anywhere. He has a variety of haunts and hangouts spread across the city that, together, make a patchwork of safe spots that could almost be considered a home, but nowhere concrete. 

“I float around,” he settles on. “Don’t really have a home.” 

“Like us,” Taehyung pipes up, shooting Jungkook a comforting smile that he nervously returns. 

“Plus, he’s adorable,” Jimin adds, and Taehyung nods in vigorous agreement next to him. “We’re keeping him.” 

“Really, you don’t have to do that,” Jungkook says awkwardly, glancing at Jin uneasily. 

Jin, surprisingly enough, is watching the three of them with amusement and something akin to fondness in his eyes, lips upturned ever so slightly. “We’ll vote on it when everyone else gets home,” he says, and Jimin and Taehyung actually high five. 

“Hobi-hyung’s going to love you, Jungkook-ah,” Jimin says brightly, and while the shift in honorifics throws Jungkook for a second, he finds that he by no means dislikes the change. He’s not quite sure how exactly he went from having no friends or even acquaintances for a solid three years to gaining two (and a half? Three? What does Jin count as?) kind-of-sort-of-friends in the span of an hour, but he’s definitely not complaining. 

No matter how fleeting all of this may be, no matter if he gets kicked out in an hour, Jungkook decides right then he’s going to take what he can get before he has to go back to his lonely life on the streets. 

After a couple of minutes of small talk that Jungkook doesn't participate in, the atmosphere finally relaxes again. Taehyung turns back on the TV and the One Piece episode they were on, and Jin disappears into one of the rooms deeper in the train, instructing Taehyung and Jimin to let him know when anyone else comes home. Between the fifth and sixth episodes, Jungkook somehow ends up resting his head on Taehyung’s shoulder without ever consciously moving towards him. Between the seventh and the eighth, he starts to fall asleep, the exhaustion from his earlier pursuit finally hitting Jungkook like a load of bricks.  

He’s not sure how many episodes he ends up sleeping through, but Jungkook comes to a groggy alertness when a bright flash goes off directly in front of his closed eyelids. 

“Way to be discreet,” a low voice deadpans from somewhere in front of him, and Jungkook’s eyes snap open when he doesn’t recognize the speaker. Instinctively, he shifts so his body covers as much of Taehyung’s as he can, already in fight-or-flight mode and ready to protect his new friend. 

There’s three people watching them, all unfamiliar and wildly different, and it’s a little too soon after waking up for Jungkook to be able to effectively handle this. He gapes at them blankly from where he’s sprawled over a still-sleeping Taehyung, trying to get over the mental juxtaposition of being mentally half-asleep but physically racing with adrenaline.

The one on the left has mint green hair -he pulls it off scarily well, too, which even Jungkook’s barely functioning brain registers as impressive- and holds himself like he’s ready to fight the entire world if need be. He watches Jungkook with more suspicion than even Jimin had initially, but he’s currently so out of it, he can’t find it in himself to be intimidated. 

The one on the right is very tall and wearing a beanie, and he’s eyeing Jungkook with a gaze so clearly intelligent and observant that he’s fairly sure the boy has already figured out his name, age, and favorite food despite him having yet to open his mouth. He’s also carrying several bags from a convenience store Jungkook frequents, and Jungkook dimly registers that this is probably the Namjoon that Taehyung mentioned earlier. 

The one in the middle has dark hair and is clutching a cracked phone in one hand, the camera pointing at Jungkook and Taehyung. Upon meeting Jungkook’s gaze, he offers him an ear-to-ear smile that’s both adorably heart-shaped and feels sort of like being punched in the face with pure sunshine. 

“Sorry!” he says sheepishly, putting his phone away. “You two were just so cute.” 

He’s the only person he’s met so far who’s immediately accepted him without suspicion- Jungkook both loves him immediately and is vaguely concerned for his self-preservation instincts. 

Jungkook catches mint-hair’s eye again by total accident as he glances around, and that glare is far scarier now that he’s feeling a little more coherent. Maybe there’s a reason the brunette can be so outwardly friendly without getting burned. 

“That’s okay,” Jungkook says, reflexively offering up a soft smile back at the brunette- who, upon seeing it, looks like he’s just won some kind of a prize. “I shouldn't be sleeping anyway.” Sleeping is a waste when his time left here is surely limited. 

“So, since no one’s asking the obvious question,” the blonde cuts in, “who exactly are you?” He eyes the position Jungkook is in, still half-covering Taehyung, with something approaching suspicion. Jungkook gets the hint and sits up, careful to separate himself completely from Taehyung. 

“My name’s Jungkook,” he replies carefully, sinking into the couch in an effort to seem at unthreatening as possible. “I came here by accident and Jimin,” - a momentary pause as he decides on the honorific- “-ssi said I could stay the night.” 

“Jimin let a stranger stay? You must be something special, Jungkook-ssi,” the brunette says in amazement. Another energetic grin is sent Jungkook’s way, and it’s a little easier for him to return it this time. 

“I’m really not,” he replies a little bashfully. “I’ll be gone in the morning either way, so I promise won’t bother you for too long.” 

The brunette immediately adopts an expression that’s alarmingly distraught, especially over someone he’s known for about five minutes. “No way- if Jimin let you stay, we’re keeping you.” 

“He only let me stay out of pity, it really doesn’t mean that much-” 

“-If the kid wants to leave in the morning, let him. Besides, since when was Jimin in charge here?” Mint hair finally speaks up, and although his words are blunt his tone is bordering on amused.

As if summoned by hearing his name, the commotion finally wakes up Jimin, who stirs sleepily for a moment before snapping awake when he realizes who’s arrived. “Hyungs!” Jimin’s off of the couch so fast he might as well have teleported, yanking the middle boy into what might be the tightest hug Jungkook’s ever witnessed. 

“Jiminie!” the brunette cheers, hugging back with equal aggression. In a true feat of dexterity, Jimin shifts and manages to yank the boy in the beanie into a one-armed hug while still clinging to the brunette. All three of them shoot dazzling smiles at each other, and Jungkook catches a murmured “Missed you,” although he can’t be sure who it comes from. 

After a moment, Jimin untangles himself from the two other boys and enfolds mint hair in a delicate hug. He doesn't reciprocate, but practically melts into Jimin’s embrace. 

The whole scene is stupidly heartwarming, cute enough to be from a book or a movie, and Jungkook quietly wonders how something so pure and wonderful can come out of an abandoned train and the general misery of the world around him. 

Introductions come next, as soon as Jimin decides his hyungs have been thoroughly hugged. Reintroducing himself is a little awkward, but the three boys greet him with politeness or, in the case of the brunette, and excited smile and a handshake that lasts just a little too long to be strictly polite. (Jungkook doesn't mind). 

He learns that the mint-haired boy’s name is Yoongi, and that the intimidating expression he wears is essentially permanent but by no means a conveyor of his actual emotions. He seems the type to be standoffish and unfriendly, but he lets the brunette -who eagerly introduced himself as Hoseok- drag him over to the mattress on the floor with no compliant, even going so far as to end up half sitting on his lap. 

The one in the beanie’s name is, in fact, Namjoon, and any intimidation factor he might have had is immediately lost on Jungkook when he smiles and Jungkook catches sight of his dimples. He’s a little awkward but nice enough, and the scrutinizing way he looks Jungkook up and down before giving him said smile makes it clear that he’s far smarter than even his first impression of the boy would suggest. 

Somewhere between all the introductions Taehyung finally wakes up. He subjects the three other boys to his own set of excited hugs and collapses on a beanbag chair, for some reason choosing to pull Jungkook down with him. Jimin, right in the middle of a hushed conversation with Namjoon, exclaims, “Oh shit, Jin-hyung!” and immediately darts off to go inform him that everyone else is home. 

The two return after a minute, holding hands for reasons unknown to Jungkook, only splitting when Jin falls onto the couch and Jimin takes the beanbag chair next to Jungkook. There are no hugs this time -everyone’s too lazy to move, it seems- but there is a loud chorus of “Hi Jin-hyung!” 

It takes a few minutes for everyone to fully settle down, but they eventually congregate in a loose circle, draped over various bits of furniture or each other. The TV is left forgotten in favor of conversation that Jungkook can barely follow and, when he is able to understand it, it’s always about things he’s never heard of and doesn't understand. He doesn’t mind, honestly- it’s indescribably nice to be in a room so full of life, in a place where he feels welcomed. 

The energy in the room is palpable and the conversation loud, but Jungkook still finds himself quickly drifting back towards unconsciousness. The presence of people he likes so much already, even if they barely know each other, and the feeling of safety that the train provides him with is intoxicatingly relaxing. Being here just feels inexplicably right. Jimin having one hand on his knee and rubbing gentle circles there while he talks animatedly isn't exactly helping him stay awake either. 

He’s vindicated, at least, by the fact that everyone else seems to be slowly slipping too. It’s late, definitely past midnight, and even their collective excitement can’t quite compensate for the lateness of the hour. People start to shift into laying positions but continue talking -he’s not sure they’ll stop even when they’re asleep- and Jungkook lets himself drift off to the melodic sound of their voices. 

~0~0~0~

Waking up is a briefly disorienting experience until Jungkook remembers exactly where he is. He stares at the ceiling for a minute and listens to six other people breathe, wondering why he feels more rested than he has in literal years. 

Jungkook has been alone for a long, long time. Half of it’s choice- he doesn’t want to join a gang, refuses to sink that low- and the other half is circumstance. Other people like him are competition on the streets, not friends. Most of his social interaction consists of wary eye contact in alleyways and the occasional fistfight over something stupid. 

These six boys, however, are the mirror opposite of all that. They’re affectionate and friendly and genuinely kind in a way that feels almost impossible, like there has to be some kind of catch. Jungkook can scarcely believe they’re real at all. And they’d chosen to let him of all people in, however briefly it may have been for. 

This isn’t really his, he knows. Everything he’s found here- Kindness, friendship, safety, love, it’s all borrowed. The six of them are all wonderful people, and they’d let him feel a happiness he hasn’t felt in a long, long time, but he can’t stay in the train indefinitely and not expect their charity to run out. The world doesn’t work like that. 

Rolling over with the full intent to get up and leave, he flinches as he finds Hoseok’s face less than a foot from his own. His already soft features are even gentler in sleep, and his face looks strange without the smile it so often wears. He’s still beautiful, though, profiled in the morning sunshine like some heavensent being. 

Jungkook has no idea how he got so lucky, but he knows that even if he’s never going to see these people again, he’ll remember the time he spent with them forever. 

Since he somehow ended up sleeping as far away from the door as he could, he has to carefully step over everyone else in his quest to leave. It’s kind of tortuous, seeing everyone’s faces all relaxed and beautiful even as they sleep, and it takes both a lot longer and much more willpower than Jungkook would like to admit for him to make it out of the room. 

Finally making it to the main door of the train, he stares at it for a moment. Jungkook can’t help but imagine how it’ll go when they wake up and he isn’t there. Two scenarios are possible: relief that he’s finally gone, or disappointment that he’s vanished without a trace. Logically, he knows it’s the former -there’s no reason for it to be anything else- but the traitorous part of him that hopes it’s the latter points out that, if they will miss him upon waking up, he looks like a major asshole. 

Leaving a note seems like a good idea, but Jungkook doesn’t have paper or a pen and, most importantly, he has no idea what to write. Is it even necessary to be courteous to people he’s never going to see again? Should he leave them a thank you gift basket or something?

...He’s stalling, isn’t he? 

There’s a shuffling sound from the main car and Jungkook whips his head around to stare at the entryway like a deer in headlights. If he’s going to leave, he has to do it now. He picks up a hand and puts it on the door latch. Turning it feels like a momentous task, despite the handle not weighing much at all. 

It’s hard to open a giant metal door with any semblance of discretion, but Jungkook manages by doing it so slowly it feels like he spends an hour moving the door bit by painstaking bit. Terror at the idea of being caught leaves him checking behind himself every minute or so and listening anxiously for sounds of movement from the adjacent train car, but no one ends up waking up. He opens the door almost too narrowly to slip out, and nearly trips on his way out of the car, but manages in the end. 

The summer sunshine is blinding, at first, and Jungkook throws up his hood to block out some of the brightness. He misses the low light of the train already. 

(He misses them already.) 

He’ll get over it, though- the impromptu paradise of the train is no longer open to him, and once he goes back to life as usual he’ll stop wanting to come back. 

Pausing briefly to listen, in case of the very off chance the men from Shadows had for some reason decided to wait for him, Jungkook picks a random direction and starts jogging. He’ll find his way back to the city and his hideouts eventually, and he’ll make sure to stay far away from the railyard. 

He’s not coming back. 

Chapter Text

Let it never be said that Jeon Jungkook is not a liar, and a horrible one at that.

It’s early afternoon and a week later, and Jungkook is staring at the front door of the train like it’ll open on its own if he thinks about it hard enough. 

He’s not sure why he’s here. They hadn’t kicked him out last time- quite the opposite, actually- but Jungkook isn’t so dense that he doesn’t realize he was very much intruding. Under any other circumstances, he would jump at the chance for a home, protection, and maybe even something like friendship, but something about the dynamic the six of them have seems far deeper and more complex than that. Just like he doesn't quite fit anywhere in the city streets, neither gang material nor an upstanding citizen, Jungkook doesn't fit in with them and their friendship.

And that’s fine, of course. He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t see bags of honey butter chips in convenience stores and feel sudden pangs of loneliness or anything. 

No, that would be pathetic, and Jeon Jungkook is not pathetic. 

Gravel crunches in the distance from somewhere on his left, and Jungkook whips around. One of them is home, he realizes fearfully, and he’s got nowhere to hide. If they find him, he looks at best like an idiot and at worst like a stalker, and neither of those are particularly favorable outcomes. 

With nowhere to go, Jungkook glances around in panic for a few moments before making the snap decision to dive under the train car. 

It’s a mistake. 

(Obviously.) 

It’s not a terribly tight fit, but Jungkook knows for a fact that he made a shit ton of noise in his haste. There’s about a zero percent chance whoever’s coming didn't hear him. So now, rather than looking just like an idiot or a stalker, he’s an idiot stalker who thought it was a bright idea to climb under a train. And all of it was just to escape what would’ve most likely been, at absolute worst, a moderately awkward social interaction.

Great job, Jungkook. 

He mentally sighs and resigns himself to being stuck under a train for the foreseeable future. A piece of gravel is digging into his ribs like it has a personal vendetta against him, and honestly, he understands how it feels. 

He’s considering how he can save himself from gravel-induced agony without making even more noise when a pair of converse enter his field of vision. Jungkook holds his breath. 

The owner of the converse knocks on the door of the train, and the reverberation echoes through the base of the car. It’s earsplitting, and Jungkook winces, barely able to stop himself from reaching up and covering his ears. 

There’s another -thankfully softer- clang of metal above him, and the sound of the train door creaking open. The converse disappear and there's a loud thunk uncomfortably close to his head as the person jumps into the car that has Jungkook flinching and pressing deeper into the gravel. They say something indecipherable, and all of a sudden one of the person’s legs is hanging down below the car, the tip of their shoe about a centimeter away from Jungkook’s face. 

He stops dead, scared to even blink. The only thought that bubbles up in his terrified mind is I probably deserve this , followed by a panicked little oh god please don’t break my nose . 

“Oh, Hobi, I think there’s a cat under the train again,” the person -Namjoon- calls. 

“I’ll tell Jimin-ah to grab the cat treats,” Hoseok shouts back, voice barely audible from underneath the train. 

Jungkook kind of wants to cry. Any second now, not one, not two, but three of the very nice, very pretty boys he wants nothing more than to impress will get to see him trapped underneath the train they live in. He’s not religious, but Jungkook sends a brief prayer to any higher power that will listen begging to die before they can find him. 

Both converse are back on the ground now, and a set of denim-clad legs and the bottom of a hoodie comes into view as Namjoon leans down. “Hey there, kitty,” he coos, having yet to actually look under the train. 

Jungkook is concerned that he’s going to spontaneously combust from embarrassment. Not a bad way to go, really, but it would leave a lot of inconsiderate cleanup for Namjoon and the others. That would be rather impolite of him. 

Namjoon finally decides to actually look for the “cat,” and Jungkook keeps stock still like it’ll somehow make him invisible. “What are you doing-” Namjoon begins, still in that same high voice, and then he sees Jungkook. 

“-What the fuck,” he continues, eloquently. 

“I’m not a cat,” Jungkook informs him, and then seriously considers bashing his head into the underside of the train so he can never say anything that stupid again. 

“I- I can see that,” Namjoon says, very slowly. 

Two successive bangs ring out before either of them can say anything else- one directly above Jungkook, and one in front of him. He can’t help but wince. 

“I brought the cat treats!” Jimin sings, clearly delighted at the opportunity to get to see and potentially pet a cat. 

“That’s great, but we’re not gonna need them,” Namjoon says, voice a little unsteady. 

“Oh,” Jimin says, like he understands everything. “Mice again, then?” 

Namjoon’s answer is blunt. “It’s Jungkook-ah.” 

“Sorry, what? ” Jimin squawks, dropping immediately to see for himself. 

Upon seeing Jungkook’s surely mortified face, his jaw drops in a way that would be comical were it directed at anything other than him. 

“Hi,” Jungkook says weakly. It’s still a stupid thing to say, but it’s much better than “I’m not a cat,” so he counts it as an improvement. 

“What the actual hell,” Jimin breathes, rightfully stunned.

Namjoon cuts in again, sounding thankfully more bemused than upset. “What exactly are you doing down there?” 

Jungkook doesn’t answer immediately, mostly because he can’t think of a good excuse. The truth would be a viable option, except the truth is that he hid under a train to avoid basic social interaction, which isn’t really something he wants them knowing. 

“Uhm,” he says blankly, hoping desperately that some fantastically bullshit excuse will appear to him out of thin air. If any of those deities were listening before, now is the time for supernatural aid. 

And, lo and behold, he gets an idea. 

“A cat!” he blurts, and that seems promising enough for him to keep going. “I saw a cat go under the train car, and I didn’t want it to get stuck down there, obviously-” 

“So you decided it was a good idea to climb under there after it,” Namjoon fills in, on the verge of laughter. 

“That’s adorable,” Jimin declares through giggles.  

Jungkook shifts forward slightly, frees himself from that one horrible bit of gravel -thank god, he can breathe again- and watches them for a moment, half in and half out. Namjoon and Jimin both positively glow in the midday sun, with Namjoon’s charming dimples on full display as he laughs and Jimin’s bright smile as ethereal as always. How could he have ever even considered staying away from them? 

Jungkook fully pulls himself from out of the car and gets to his feet in front of them. Leaning on the side of the train, which has the pleasant side effect of haloing his profile with graffiti, he waits. He’s not quite sure what’s supposed to happen here. Hopefully whatever it is will end with him back in the train, eating copious amounts of honey better chips and pretending he actually has friends. 

But, rather than any other interaction following, Jimin vaults back into the train car with enviable grace and without a word, Namjoon following right on his heels. 

Jungkook isn’t stupid. He gets the message immediately- he's not wanted. He bites his lip and tries his best not to look as dejected as he feels when he starts to walk away. 

“You coming?” 

Jungkook snaps his head around to look at them, traitorous hope taking root in his heart. Namjoon seems almost hurt watching him leave, and Jimin’s expression carries an earnestness to it he’s never seen directed at him before. There’s something in both of their eyes that, were they not looking at him, he might label as affection. 

“Am I allowed?” he checks, a little nervous to hear their answer. He’s half expecting this is all a very weird, very unrealistic dream that he’s about to wake up from. Sometimes the fumes from the gas station right next to his current favorite sleeping spot mess with him a little. 

They shoot him matching smiles. “Of course,” Jimin says. 

“We wouldn’t have offered otherwise,” Namjoon adds, and that’s all Jungkook needs to hear before he’s leaping into the car himself, unable to keep a smile of his own from bubbling up.

“Kookie’s here!” Jimin announces as they head deeper into the train. There’s instantly a loud thud from somewhere within, and in a split second Taehyung skids into the room. He looks around rapidly and, upon catching sight of Jungkook, his eyes light up brighter than the full moon. “Kook-ah!” he exclaims, sweeping him up in a hug before Jungkook can even breathe a hello. “Where’d you go this week?” he asks upon releasing him. “We missed you.” 

It’s such a genuinely sweet thing to say that Jungkook isn’t sure how to respond. “I’m sorry,” he says, trying to sound as regretful as he feels. However much they’d missed him, he’d surely felt their absence far more. He still can barely comprehend the idea of them missing him at all.

Taehyung smiles at him, seems to recognize his apology is genuine. “It’s okay.” 

“Just don’t do it again, yeah? I don’t like having to worry about more idiots than necessary,” Jin cuts in dryly. He’s wearing an apron -it’s novelty and mario themed- and holding a Tupperware container that smells absolutely heavenly. 

Everyone perks up instantly. “Lunch?” Namjoon asks hesitantly. 

Jin scoffs. “I didn’t see you in the kitchen helping.” 

Jungkook lets out a surprised snort that quickly turns to full-on laughter upon seeing Namjoon’s look of utter disappointment. 

“Aw, come on, hyung, please,” Taehyung begs , and the look Jin gives him is entirely unsympathetic. 

“There’s food in the mini-fridge if you want to eat,” he replies easily, and Taehyung huffs. 

Jungkook, made brave by the sheer giddiness of being back in the train again, makes the decision to do something dumb and sidles up to Jin. “Hyung,” he begins, voice tentative and puppy dog eyes as wide and pleading as he can make them, “I haven’t eaten today.” It’s a true statement, but Jungkook regularly goes longer without, so it doesn't really bother him. 

Jin looks at him for a moment, unimpressed by his begging, and Jungkook braces himself for defeat. Everyone else watches with bated breath. 

Jin glances at the others and their eager expressions for a second, then his eyes fall back on Jungkook. “Okay,” he chirps, tone bright in a way Jungkook’s never heard it before. As he stares at Jin in surprise and confusion, the other boy winks at him. 

Wait a second-

“Wait, what ?” Jimin bursts out, and it sets off an explosion of complaints from everyone else. “Why does he get food?”

“I haven’t eaten all day either, what does that get me -”

“You’ve known me for three years, and after everything we’ve been through together you can't even make me lunch-”

Jin starts cackling so loudly it practically shakes the walls, filling the room with a squeaky, silly laugh that Jungkook loves instantly. It’s incredibly infectious, and Jungkook can't help but burst into peals of laughter along with him. The other boys stare at them in outrage and begrudging amusement. 

“I made food for all of you,” Jin admits, still laughing a little, and it’s comical to see how quickly their faces light up. 

The five of them end up trooping into the kitchen, sitting in mismatched chairs around a creaky old card table, and digging in. The “kitchen” itself doesn’t consist of much; it’s a mini-fridge, a coffee maker, and a microwave all hooked up to a small generator. Jungkook doesn’t know all that much about cooking, but he’s sure that no one can make tteokbokki that tastes as good as Jin’s from such a mediocre setup. 

“How did you make this?” He asks Jin through a bite of his tteokbokki. “It’s amazing.”

Jin smiles widely and, charmingly, his ears even turn a little red at the compliment. “I work at a restaurant,” he explains. “Not as a chef, but when I close up at night no one cares if I make a little something for myself before I leave.” 

“You should be a professional,” Jungkook tells him, and Jin laughs, going even redder. 

“That’s what we’ve been telling him,” Jimin says while stealing a bite of Namjoon’s food. 

“I’m eating the same thing you are, why would you even-” Namjoon begins, then cuts himself off with a sigh. Jimin smirks at him and then pops his stolen food right into Namjoon’s mouth, who accepts his fate with a long-suffering expression that suggests this happens frequently. Smiling like he’s just won a prize, Jimin returns to his own lunch. 

The conversation lapses after that as everyone eats. The silence isn’t uncomfortable- rather, it’s peaceful, and Jungkook takes a moment to appreciate that the only noise in the room is the clink of chopsticks and the hum of the mini-fridge in the corner. Finding something as tranquil as this in the city is rare. 

Then there’s a bang from the entrance of the train, and the room descends into chaos as everyone tries to stand up and go greet the newcomer at once. Jungkook follows, still clutching his tteokbokki -it’s been ages since he’s eaten anything this good, sue him- and manages to catch a glimpse of mint hair before Yoongi is swallowed in hugs from Jimin and Taehyung. 

It’s cute how every time someone comes home they all act as if they’ve returned from some war instead of grocery shopping. Jungkook’s never seen anything quite like it, and he finds it stupidly endearing how much they all seem to genuinely like each other. It’s a true rarity in this world. 

After a few minutes they end up in the main room talking, just like before, and this time Jungkook participates. He’s a little shy at first, a bit uncertain, but every time they easily accept him into their conversation, laughing at a joke of his or playfully teasing him, he grows a little bolder. It’s the most fun he’s had in years, and the joy of it all fills him up until he’s practically drunk on the feeling of his own happiness. 

He might actually have friends . Real, live, genuine friends! People who aren’t out to manipulate or steal from him the moment his back is turned! This might actually be the happiest he’s ever felt. 

When Jungkook leaves that night, still smiling as he steps out of the train, the last streaks of evening sunlight paint the darkening sky with a reddish glow, it’s only after he’s promised six times over that he’ll come back soon. It’s one fully he intends to keep.

And thus, visiting the train becomes a part of Jungkook’s routine. It’s once every few days, at first- he stays away for as long as he’s able, yet somehow always ends up back in the train, collapsed on someone and watching some dumb TV show or talking about nothing. 

He busies himself by marathoning daytime dramas with Jin and Jimin or chatting and playing cards with whoever’s around that day; at night, he stumbles out of the train with bleary-eyed clumsiness and heads to whichever hangout of his is nearest and safest. Despite being more than allowed to -he’s been informed that there’s even been a room cleaned out for him- he hasn’t spent the night in the train since the first time he’d come there. 

The six of them like him a lot, and he likes them just as much, but he knows that even if they’ll never ask for it, they need some time without him occasionally. Jungkook being there changes the dynamic of their group. And, regardless, he doesn’t want to impose more than he already has. There’s quite a gap between “friends,” and “roommates,” one Jungkook isn’t sure he wants to try bridging just yet. 

But still, as time passes, once every few days turns to every other day, every other day turns to almost every day, and within a handful of weeks Jungkook is spending just about every second from sunrise to sunset with his newfound friends. 

They accept him so easily it’s a little unbelievable sometimes, greeting him with smiles and hugs every time he shows up, like he’s been gone a week instead of just overnight. It never fails to make him smile so wide his cheeks hurt. 

There’s still a voice in his head that tells him this is all going to come crashing down, one that’s seen far too many disappointments and betrayals to ever really go away, but he’s gotten a lot better at telling it to shut up. He’s been wrong before, of course, too many times to count, but this time it really feels like he might have found something good for once.

Take today, for instance. Jungkook leaps into the train early in the morning after fighting with the door for a few moments- it always seems to stick the day after a rainstorm, and although there have been discussions about replacing it no one’s actually gotten around to it yet- to find Jimin waiting for him, casually leaning against the wall of the train and face buried in a book. 

“Morning,” he greets, tone nonchalant, but there’s a grin on his lips that makes Jungkook’s face light up in an equally bright smile. "There’s coffee in the kitchen for you.”

Jungkook grins wider. “Thank you!” 

Their thoughtfulness never ceases to amaze him. On nights when he leaves early, they save him leftovers from whatever dinner they put together for him to eat the next morning. If it starts raining, they lend him umbrellas and hoodies so he won’t have to get wet on his way home. He’s got one of Namjoon’s jackets tied around his waist right now, even. Jungkook had been given it last night so he could walk in the rain without getting soaked, but he’d felt so bad about getting it wet he had ended up shoving the jacket under his thin t-shirt and just bolting through the downpour anyway. 

Still, though, the fact that they’d even considered doing something like that for him gives him butterflies. He’s never felt so liked, so genuinely cared for in his life. He still doesn’t understand it, but at this point he’s entirely given up on refusing it. 

(And now, sometimes, their smiles give him butterflies, their laughs sound like music he could listen to for the rest of his life. He finds himself blushing every time Jimin winks at him and Namjoon shoots him dimpled grins. 

Jungkook isn’t entirely sure what all of that means, but he takes it in stride nonetheless. Friendship is a strange thing, isn’t it?)

Chapter Text

The day begins ordinarily enough- Jungkook is lounging on the brown leather couch that’s become more of a home to him than most of his hideouts, half-asleep but trying to focus on the actually quite compelling drama on TV. 

It’s a muggy, lazy sort of summer day, one that normally would have had him spending all day loitering in the coldest convenience store he could find until the sun went down. The train, however, has since made that unnecessary. Jungkook isn’t sure how something that’s the equivalent of a giant metal box can stay so cool under the face of the relentless sun, but he’s not exactly complaining. 

His eyes are half-shut and he’s just about to fall into unconsciousness, drama be damned, when a figure enters his field of vision. “Kookie?” Taehyung asks, the musical baritone of his voice immediately giving him away. 

Jungkook is tempted to ignore him, to just fall asleep and hope he’ll come back later, but there’s a note of something akin to nervousness in the other boy’s voice that has him rubbing his eyes and sitting up. “Yeah?” 

“Joon-hyung’s busy this week, and it’s always better to have two people for this kind of thing-“ he begins slowly, fiddling with the hem of his shirt as he picks and chooses his words carefully. He’s never seen Taehyung this nervous before. Jungkook kind of wants to hug him. 

“-So I was wondering if you wanted to go tagging with me,” Taehyung rushes out at last, looking like he’s already preparing himself for a rejection. 

Jungkook’s eyes widen. He feels a little like he’s just been proposed to. 

Tagging makes Taehyung and Namjoon come home with mussed up hair and indescribably euphoric grins and entire universes caught up in their eyes, more resplendent than all of the stars in the sky put together. They always look like they’ve fed from the energy of the very city itself- all neon lights, traffic jams, and thrilling opportunity addictingly blended with heart-stopping danger and adrenaline. Jungkook could never have even dreamed he’d be asked to be a part of something so extraordinary.  

Taehyung, however, seems to have taken his stunned silence to be a rejection- he frowns a little and his shoulders slump. “It’s okay if you don't want to,” he adds, though his tone says just the opposite. 

Jungkook shakes his head rapidly. “God no, I-” Taehyung’s expression turns even sadder, misunderstanding him, and the look in his eyes is so positively heartbroken that it’s painful to see. “Hyung, I- I’d absolutely love to,” he blurts, and although it’s not the most eloquent way to say it, Taehyung still breaks out in a boxy smile that’s like the stars coming out. “Really?” he asks, and Jungkook nods vigorously. 

“Tagging with you sounds-” he pauses, not sure how to explain how seeing the way Taehyung comes home from his hits makes him feel. There aren’t words strong enough to describe it. “Amazing.” Amazing doesn't even come close to it.

Taehyung seems to get what he’s trying to say, and his smile somehow gets even wider. “You’re gonna love it, Kook-ah.” He grabs one of Jungkook’s hands from the couch and grips it tightly in both of his own. “There’s nothing else like it in the world .” 

Jungkook bites back a reflexive “there’s nothing else like you in the world,” because that’s sappy and romantic and most certainly not appropriate, but he covers their joined hands with his other one and hopes Taehyung gets the message. 

After some discussion, it’s decided that they’ll do it in two days. Their target is a run-down movie rental store that’s only still in business in this day and age because it’s a front for the Shadows. All Jungkook has to do is show up on time and he’ll be taught everything he needs to know. 

Those two days pass so slowly that to Jungkook they might as well have been two years. The likelihood that he’s trapped in a time loop increases exponentially every time he looks at a clock and finds only a handful of minutes have passed.

But, as bad as Jungkook is, Taehyung is much, much worse. He’s not an especially reserved person already, and his excitement about getting to go tagging with Jungkook infinitely multiplies his sociability. In the past, whenever Jungkook would walk into a room with Taehyung in it, he’d be greeted with a smile and maybe a hello, which was normal enough. Now it’s sort of like walking up to a tornado- Jungkook is almost immediately swept up in both literal hugs and Taehyung’s excited discussion of just how fantastic tagging will be. It’s cute beyond words, and every smile Taehyung offers him makes Jungkook’s heart do something funny in his chest. 

And yes, maybe Jungkook surreptitiously follows Taehyung around just to watch his eyes light up whenever he catches sight of him. Sue him. At least he tries to be subtle about it. 

Or so he’d thought, until Jimin had watched him walk into the main car of the train after a particularly enthusiastic chat and immediately started laughing. 

“What?” he asks, because Jimin normally at least waits to tease him until after something’s come out of his mouth. Jimin sits up on the beanbag chair he’s commandeered, crosses his legs elegantly, and shoots Jungkook a smile that makes it obvious the redhead knows something he doesn't. “Nooothing,” he sings. “You’re just -how do I put this delicately?- really fucking obvious.” 

“Obvi- about what?” Jungkook tilts his head in confusion. “I’m excited for the tagging, that’s all.”

Jimin nods slowly, almost pityingly. “The tagging. Definitely. Got it. Nothing else.” 

“ Yes ,” Jungkook snaps, flopping down next to him and kicking his legs up so they rest across Jimin’s. “What else would it be?” He’s already getting tired of playing this game, especially when he doesn't know the rules. Or what they’re playing for. Or even what the game is. 

He receives a stare so intense it feels like Jimin is trying to communicate with him telepathically. “You really don’t get it?” 

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, no.” 

“Okay,” Jimin shrugs. “Hey, next time you’re out, can you pick me up a bottle of that new kind of pineapple juice? It’s supposed to be really good.” 

Jungkook gapes at him in utter confusion. 

“What? Jimin asks, perfectly nonchalant. 

“How did we-” he pauses, considers whether he really wants to know what’s going on in Jimin’s head. “Never mind.” 

Jimin takes the opportunity to shift so he's pillowing his head on Jungkook’s thighs. His hair halos his delicate features like a crown of fire, and Jungkook quitely revels in his beauty. 

“Okay then,” Jimin hums. Like magic, he pulls a book out of nowhere and starts to read, entirely inconsiderate of Jungkook’s potential need to move anywhere in the near future. 

There’s a few moments of slow, languid silence, only broken by the faint hum of cicadas outside and the occasional page flip. Jungkook lets his head fall against the wall of the train with a soft thunk . “I’ll get your dumb juice for you,” he says quietly. He can feel Jimin’s smile from how his face shifts against his leg. It’s an odd sensation, but Jungkook finds himself smiling to match it. 

“Thanks,” Jimin replies, not taking his eyes off of his book. “Have fun tagging, by the way. You’ll love it.” 

(Jungkook’s starting to consider the idea that he might love a few things that are decidedly not tagging, but he buries that particular thought as soon as it surfaces.)

When the evening of the tagging arrives, Jungkook jumps into the train wearing his favorite black jacket, a cheap black facemask, and holding a bag full of pineapple juice to drop off, the latter two of which had been acquired by him at a convenience store less than an hour earlier. The facemask is a little loose on his face and already itches, but Jungkook is too busy practically vibrating with excitement to care. 

Jungkook throws the bag of drinks to Jimin when he first sees him and watches the redhead open it. “I got the right kind, right?” he asks. There had been six brands of juice in the store he’d went to; he’d randomly guessed which one Jimin wanted. He’s fully expecting to have to return it tomorrow. 

But Jimin’s eyes light up upon seeing it, and he pulls the bottles out with a smile. “Yep! Thanks, Jungkook-ah!” he chirps, then does something odd. He leans in close to Jungkook’s face with clear intent, still smiling, before seeming to come out of some trance and flinching away. The whole ordeal takes only a handful of seconds, and Jimin immediately vanishes to go put the juice bottles in the train’s mini-fridge, something suspiciously like a blush dusting his cheeks. 

Jungkook watches him leave, mouth agape and eyes wide, because what just happened ? Did Jimin just-

No. That’d be ridiculous. He shakes it off as best as he can and leaves the train quickly to go find Taehyung.

It takes him a little longer than he’d wanted to find the video store, because Taehyung’s directions relied a lot on landmarks and turn counting that didn't really make sense to him (turn left at the statue that looks like a squid isn't a bad direction in and of itself, but when you can't find the statue in the first place it’s not particularly helpful) but Jungkook manages to get there eventually. 

There’s a hooded figure leaning against the side of the video store when he finally arrives, and Jungkook feels a brief curl of fear in his gut until the person removes their hood, revealing themselves to be Taehyung, and smiles. He’s wearing a dark hoodie underneath a blue faux leather jacket, and it looks unfairly good on him. He’s also not wearing a facemask, so Jungkook decides to remove his, letting it drop to hang just below his chin. 

“You find the place alright?” Taehyung asks when Jungkook draws nearer. Jungkook most certainly had not- he’d started looking before the sun had set, and now the moon was high in the sky- but he nods anyway. Honestly, he’s just glad Taehyung hasn’t called him out for being late. 

“Okay,” Taehyung begins, taking out a yellow spray paint can from a backpack slung over one shoulder. “Tagging is pretty easy. You just spray in the right direction and try not to get anything on your clothes or in your eyes.” Pulling out another spray can, a generic black, Taehyung tosses it Jungkook’s way and without further fanfare turns to start his own work. 

Upon catching it, Jungkook stares at the can like it like it might bite him. He’d hoped for a little more instruction than “point and shoot.” Taehyung, who’s digging around in his bag for other colors and setting them against the metal shutter door of the video store, finally seems to realize after a minute of awkward silence that Jungkook is totally lost. Mercifully, he stops what he’s doing and turns to him. 

“It’s your first time, so just make whatever you want,” Taehyung tells him gently. “It doesn’t have to be any good- whoever finds it in the morning will be pissed either way.” 

The words are oddly encouraging, and Jungkook steps up to the metal door beside Taehyung with a little more confidence than before. He uncaps the spray can, sticks the top in the pocket of his jacket, and- 

Jungkook has no idea what to paint. It would’ve been smart to make a decision about it beforehand, but Jungkook was too busy following Taehyung around like a lost puppy for the past two days to even think about what he was going to tag. 

He eventually decides to start simple, signing random small designs on the door, and then quickly realizes he can't focus properly. The fear of being caught leaves his grip unsteady and constantly checking over his shoulder instead of thinking about painting. Frustrated, Jungkook stops for a moment, lowers his arms, and tries his best to just breathe. 

Taehyung won’t let them get caught. Jungkook trusts him, and he knows the other boy would never put them in danger. A quick glance at him, already hard at work and humming slightly, finally sets Jungkook’s heart a little more at ease. 

When Jungkook relaxes enough that his hands stop shaking, the tagging actually becomes fun. He ends up putting his mask back on in an attempt to block the acrid smell of the spray paint, and his newfound anonymity helps calm him further.

 Unsure of what to paint, he eventually sprays the rough design of a little bunny onto the door. It ends up being more cute than anything, which isn't really his goal, but Jungkook likes it regardless. 

At one point he glances at Taehyung’s work and stops dead, his own art forgotten. It’s beautiful- an elaborate English “V” colored in with a variety of shades of yellow and white. There’s an ornate halo being sprayed into existence just above it by Taehyung, who’s so deep in concentration his face is less than a foot from the wall and he doesn't seem to notice. Jungkook is worried for the state of his lungs -being so close to paint fumes can’t be healthy- but interrupting his painting would be criminal. 

He turns back to his own tagging, which now looks rather sad in comparison to Taehyung’s masterpiece, and decides on a whim to color it in pink. He’s just about finished when Taehyung lets out a little whoop of “Done!” and Jungkook pauses his spraying to look. 

The halo is finished, now, and besides just the coloring, Taehyung had chosen to engrave delicate little flowers into it with what had to have been some kind of knife or other sharp object. It’s beautiful, and, more importantly, it’ll probably never come out of the metal door fully. 

“That’s cute,” Taehyung says, snapping Jungkook out of his staring. He’s smiling at Jungkook’s bunny, but not in a condescending way- he genuinely seems to like it. Grinning a little bashfully, Jungkook thanks him. 

“You want to sign it?” Taehyung asks, and Jungkook shakes his head. 

“Maybe- you could do it? Your tagging is really amazing,” he says, and Taehyung looks delighted. 

“Of course! You want it the same color as the bunny or something different? A red would go well with the pink-” Without even waiting for a response, Taehyung is already reaching into his bag and pulling out several spray cans. Jungkook steps back to let him work, leaning against the wall and smiling at Taehyung’s excitement. 

A pretty English “JK” quickly starts to take shape next to the bunny, this time in a blocky, cartoonish font instead of the cursive Taehyung had used earlier. It’s smaller than the V, so the work goes quicker, and soon Taehyung is carefully shading the letters so they shift from hot pink to red to a hint of fuchsia within their outlines.  

“So, why the V?” Jungkook asks, hoping that talking won’t interrupt Taehyung’s work too badly. 

Taehyung shrugs noncommittally. “I needed a calling card for my tags, I liked the letter, and that was that, really.” 

There’s something in his tone that implies there’s more to the story than what he’s telling, but Jungkook gets the hint and doesn’t ask further. “That’s cool,” he says in lieu of further questioning, and Taehyung offers him a ghost of a smile. 

Taehyung is just about to put the finishing touches on the lettering when Jungkook first picks up on an odd sound in the distance, too far away for him to place. Suddenly on edge without knowing why, he glances towards the direction it came from, focusing on blocking out the rest of the sounds of the city so he can figure it out. 

When Jungkook does, his eyes widen and hisses an “oh shit” to himself before tapping Taehyung rapidly on the shoulder, panic making his movements harsh and graceless. “Hyung, hyung-”

“What’s up?” Taehyung asks, the lack of concern in his voice making it clear he hadn’t heard what Jungkook had.

Jungkook opens his mouth to answer, and that’s when the police car turns the corner and its sirens properly become audible for the first time. “Cops,” Taehyung breathes. “Fuck.” 

The car is rapidly getting closer, and Jungkook doesn’t think. Snatching Taehyung’s wrist up, he bolts away from the storefront with the taller boy in tow. There’s the clatter of a spray can behind him, and Taehyung lets out a yelp as he’s unceremoniously yanked along, but Jungkook doesn't care. He will not let Taehyung get caught by the cops. 

The whole world is painted in flashing red blue and light as the police car continues to draw closer and closer. Jungkook is running faster than he’s ever run in his life. Despite the fact that Taehyung has caught up to and nearly surpassed him, likely far more used to these sprints than he is, he keeps his grip on the other boy’s hand like he’ll die if he has to let go. 

Jungkook hears a sound so out of place it takes a few seconds for him to process it, and then realizes Taehyung is laughing . He’s half turned around to face the police car and aggressively flipping it off with the hand that isn't holding Jungkook’s, and there’s a look in his eyes of sheer adrenaline-fueled joy, impossibly vibrant and alive. 

He’s ethereal. Jungkook almost forgets to keep running as he gapes at him. 

He has to focus back on his surroundings when he nearly trips over the concrete, but that just makes him start cackling along with Taehyung while they run. His out-of-breath laughter is wheezy and sounds a little like he’s choking, but when Taehyung meets his eyes and gives him what might be the brightest grin he’s ever seen, Jungkook can't find it in himself to care.  

“There’s an alley,” Taehyung gasps out upon turning back around, by now totally leading Jungkook -and thank god, honestly, because Jungkook really shouldn't be in charge here- and dragging him down a deserted street. “Over this way, they won't find us.” 

And, sure enough, a few turns later Taehyung yanks him into an alleyway that’s only dimly lit by a nearby streetlamp and a half-busted neon sign for a sushi restaurant. The siren keeps growing closer, and for a terrifying minute all Jungkook can do press flat against the wall and hope, but they after a while it fades away again and eventually cuts out altogether. 

Then the world is quiet again, or as quiet as it can be in a city that never really rests, and the only noise in the alley is the buzzing of the sign and the sounds of Jungkook and Taehyung trying to catch their breath. 

“See?” Taehyung wheezes after a minute of relative silence. “It’s definitely better with two people.” 

Jungkook wants to kiss and punch him in equal measure, and the choice is far too much for his adrenaline-wracked brain to handle, so he breaks out in hysterical laughter that bounces off the walls of the alleyway. “I hate you,” he chokes out, slumping against the brick wall behind him. Something wet -some gross stain on the wall, probably- seeps through his jacket and sends shivers down his spine from the chill. It’s too much effort to move away from it, so he doesn't bother. 

“Love you too,” Taehyung hums, leaning on the wall beside Jungkook and examining the sushi place sign like it’s a piece of fine art. Jungkook chokes a little. 

They stay in the alley for a while, late enough that the moon has set behind the buildings when they finally glance back out into the street. Jungkook has upgraded from gripping Taehyung’s wrist to holding it properly, their fingers intertwined and probably getting paint all over each other’s hands. 

Taehyung goes first, carefully peeking around the corner of the alley to look for the police car. He puts his finger to his lips and shoots Jungkook a look of clear warning when he creeps up behind the other boy to look with him. Jungkook rolls his eyes -earning him a light slap on the arm from Taehyung- but obliges. 

When Taehyung finally decides that it’s safe to leave, he pulls Jungkook by their linked hands out into the street and starts jogging with clear intent. “Isn’t the train the other way?” Jungkook asks as Taehyung guides him up a flight of concrete stairs and out into a street he doesn’t recognize. 

Glancing up and down the street, Taehyung distractedly replies with a “yep,” that’s about as helpful and informative as him not replying at all. Upon finally choosing a direction, he breaks into a light jog, sticking as close to the shadowy edges of buildings as he can. 

They make several turns and end up in a variety of streets and alleys Jungkook doesn’t recognize, at least not within the context of their tagging, but he follows along without question. Taehyung won’t get them lost. Hopefully. 

The adrenaline of being actively chased by the cops is finally starting to wear off, and Jungkook’s legs feel noodly and weak. He’s keeping up with Taehyung fine for now, but he’s pretty sure the next time they stop he’ll collapse to the ground and not be able to get back up for a while. “Are we there yet?” he whines, purposefully obnoxious to mask his genuine exhaustion. 

Taehyung snorts. “We’ll be back in about ten minutes.” There’s a pause, and he slows, turns and glances at Jungkook. “I can carry you if you want,” he offers with a grin. 

Jungkook can’t help but laugh. “Can you even pick me up?” 

Taehyung puts his hand that isn't holding Jungkook’s over his heart in a dramatic gesture of hurt. “Are you calling me weak?” he teases. 

“I dunno,” Jungkook raises an eyebrow at him, “Am I?” 

“I dunno,” Taehyung parrots, “ are you?” 

“Maybe I’m just calling myself buff,” Jungkook points out as he readjusts his grip on the other boy’s hand so he can hold it tighter. There’s a strange kind of peace in their banter, the calm after a hurricane, and Jungkook finds he likes it almost as much as he did the rush of tagging. 

“Hard to tell under that jacket you like to wear all the time,” Taehyung replies, tone strangely unreadable. 

Jungkook shoots him a surprised glance and raises an eyebrow. “Are you-?”

Taehyung looks right back with that intense gaze he wears so well, city lights reflecting in his eyes to form a glossy rainbow, and Jungkook totally forgets what he was going to say. 

“-Never mind,” he finishes after a moment of starstruck staring, the words leaving a funny taste in his mouth that’s a lot like defeat. Taehyung doesn’t press him. 

Jungkook doesn't get it- how can he go and commit actual crimes with Taehyung, spend hours laughing and joking with him, and then magically become totally useless when the other gives him so much as a look? It’s nothing short of frustrating, honestly, and he wishes he knew what was wrong with him. 

He’s so wrapped up in thought he hardly notices that they’ve reached the railway until his shoes crunch on gravel. “Home sweet home,” Taehyung says, grinning at Jungkook, and he smiles widely back. 

“So,” Taehyung continues, spreading his arms out wide and dramatic, “How’d you like it?” 

He looks a little nervous, and Jungkook’s quietly heart breaks for him. He decides to swallow the sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue and instead tells Taehyung the truth. “I loved it, hyung. Most fun I’ve had in years, probably.” He’s actually not exaggerating here- though, to be fair, his day-to-day life isn't exactly what most people, himself included, would consider enjoyable. 

Taehyung looks so pleased by his answer that Jungkook just wants to hug him; he’d wax poetic about the tagging for the rest of life if it would keep that smile on Taehyung’s face. “I’m so glad you liked it,” he replies, and the sheer affection in his expression makes Jungkook’s brain briefly short-circuit. 

“Me too,” he blurts, which isn’t exactly going to win him any awards for eloquence, but Taehyung sweeps him up in a hug with they finally reach the train anyway. 

They end up bidding each other goodbye at the door of the train at Jungkook’s insistence. The idea of staying overnight still feels intrusive to Jungkook no matter how much time he’s spent with them; it’d change their dynamic in a way he can’t quite put words to. They’ve done so much for him already- he can’t quote shake the guilt he feels at the thought of imposing on them overnight. 

So he’s left to walk “home” with nothing but the dregs of adrenaline and euphoria in his system and the buzz of the city at night for company. It’s not so bad, though he’d much prefer the companionship of a certain six other people. 

In boredom, Jungkook glances down at his hand when it’s illuminated in the light of a streetlamp, sees the blend of colors he and Taehyung’s hand-holding had created. It’s messy and graceless, as to be expected, but Jungkook likes it. It’s very them , and that makes it beautiful. He smiles and decides to let his hand swing free as he walks instead of stuffing it in his jacket pocket like usual. 

When he’s at the place he’s been sleeping at this week- a poorly secured for-lease space in a commercial district- Jungkook takes his jacket off and lays it out delicately on the concrete. Opening a water bottle with his clean hand, he drizzles it over his painted one, then rubs the newly wet paint all over the left arm of his jacket. 

It doesn't really work- where the paint does end up sticking, it ends up being a pale imitation of the actual color it once was- but with a lot of effort his hand is clean of paint, which is convenient, and the whole left side of his jacket looks like it was used to wipe off wet paint brushes. 

Jungkook loves it. He’ll probably never wear it to the train again, now, because he’s fully aware of how ridiculous it is to have done such a thing to a perfectly good jacket, but every time he glances at it while he’s getting ready to sleep, he can’t help but grin.

Even when Jungkook is half asleep and catches sight of the jacket in his peripherals, he’s flooded with memories of spray paint and adrenaline and Taehyung’s warm hand in his. Jungkook falls asleep that night with a smile on his face. 

~0~0~0~

It takes two days for him to crack; the jacket is nice and has a really soft inside, and he misses wearing it. Jungkook is nervous climbing into the train with it on, but when Taehyung sees it, his eyes quietly light up. “Did I spray your jacket by accident?” he asks, sounding apologetic but still staring at the jacket with an appreciative eye. “I’m really sorry, I know you liked it.” 

“Still do,” Jungkook says, trying to sound casual. “I think it looks good like this.”

Taehyung’s smile positively glows. “Me too!” He pauses, then ohs and claps his hands together excitedly. “Every time we go tagging, we should add more color to it!”

“I’m allowed to go again?” Jungkook hadn’t even considered that tagging with Taehyung would be more than a one-time thing. Hope instantly bursts to life in his chest and brings a wide smile to his face that he couldn’t tamp down if he tried. 

“I talked to Namjoon-hyung, and he’d love to have you too,” Taehyung informs him gleefully. “We’ll have to teach you our more complicated escape techniques, though, so what happened last time won't happen again.” 

Considering the amount of time Jungkook got to spend holding Taehyung’s hand last time, he’s not sure he’d mind if it were to happen again, but nods in understanding regardless. Taehyung shoots him another grin, the kind that makes his whole face light up with joy, and tells him he’s going to go find Namjoon so they can plan their next excursion. 

So Jungkook settles in and waits, watches the light play off of the messy rainbow on his jacket, and wonders if this is what it feels like to have a family. 

Chapter Text

It’s raining today. Clouds hang low in the sky, so much so that they practically obscure the tops of some of the taller buildings from view, and the air is grossly thick with humidity. The rain isn’t quite a downpour, not yet, but it’s getting there. 

Jungkook walks quickly, fully intent on getting to the train before the rain soaks him completely. More than anything else, he wants to keep his tagging jacket, which is now more spray paint than black fabric, safe from the water. 

He’d just added to it last night- or rather, Taehyung had, by spraying his right arm with crimson paint while he’d been focusing on painting. Jungkook had yelped and dropped his spray can, and Namjoon and Taehyung had laughed so loudly they’d almost gotten caught by the Shadows. Later on, Namjoon had offered to add to it a little -Jungkook had said yes, because Namjoon could ask to shoot Jungkook in the leg and he’d have a hard time saying no- and there’s now a blotchy red rose snaking down the right arm of his jacket. 

He tries not to think too hard about the fact that red roses symbolize love when he looks at it. 

The rain is starting to pick up, and Jungkook breaks into a jog as he nears the entrance of the railyard. He hugs his right arm close to his chest like that’ll somehow protect it from the rain as he moves, left hand spread wide over the petals of the rose to protect it. 

Knocking is a courtesy Jungkook doesn't bother with today- he wants to get out of the rain as quick as he can. Undoing the latch on the train is harder than usual, as it’s slick with water, and Jungkook lets out a few choice words while he struggles, shoulders hunched in a poor defense against the raindrops snaking down the back of his neck. 

Upon finally succeeding in tearing open the latch, Jungkook practically throws himself through the door and into the train. He shrugs off his jacket, folds it over his forearm, and heads into the main car. 

The only person there today is Jimin, who’s sprawled on a beanbag chair, messing around with something on his phone with an air of utmost boredom. When he looks up and sees Jungkook, he offers a wide smile that Jungkook easily returns. “My savior,” Jimin says dramatically, shifting over on the beanbag chair to give Jungkook enough space to sit down. He does, and Jimin immediately cuddles up to him in that way of his that makes Jungkook’s heart stutter. “You’re all wet,” Jimin observes with mock disgust, but doesn’t make any effort to move. 

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you go out in the rain,” Jungkook deadpans, and Jimin pouts. 

“You should respect your elders.” 

“I’ll respect you the day you grow taller than me.” 

Jimin slaps his arm, huffs, and pointedly turns back to his phone. 

“No one else here today?” Jungkook asks after a minute, watching as Jimin plays some game involving copious amounts of brightly-colored shapes. 

“Nope,” the redhead replies absently. 

“So we have the place to ourselves,” Jungkook continues. 

Jimin pauses his game to look at him, eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I guess so, why?” There’s an odd look in his eyes, almost of anticipation, that Jungkook doesn’t quite understand. 

Jungkook opens his mouth to answer, and then realizes even he doesn’t know where he was going with that particular train of thought. Weird. 

“You wanna go do something, then?” he asks in lieu of a proper answer. 

For a second, Jimin looks almost disappointed by the direction their conversation has taken, but then he blinks and the expression is gone. “The whole problem is that there’s nothing to-” he pauses, then shoots Jungkook a highly concerning smirk. 

“I’m scared,” Jungkook says, and Jimin smiles even wider, like he’s just been given a present. 

“Do you mind going out in the rain again?” Jimin asks sweetly. “I have an umbrella we can share.” 

“Depends on where we’re going.” Jungkook has no idea what’s going on at this point, but he can feel his willpower collapsing like wet cardboard already. Curse him and how pathetically weak he is for Jimin. 

“Out,” Jimin says coyly, and then subjects Jungkook to the most effective puppy eyes he’s ever seen. “It’ll be fun, I promise.” 

Jungkook doesn't stand a chance. “Fine,” he sighs, and Jimin gives a cheer that’s so cute it makes Jungkook kind of angry. “If I don’t have fun, you’re paying for whatever this is.” 

Jimin waves a hand. “I was going to pay anyway, it’s not expensive.” 

“Encouraging how you’re not even going to bother to tell me I’ll have fun.” 

“I said it’ll be fun,” Jimin stands up and offers a deceptively sweet smile. “I never said it’d be fun for you .” 

...Jungkook is very much regretting saying yes to this already. 

The feeling is only slightly assuaged by Jimin holding his hand the whole way to their destination, the two of them huddling under a Starry Night themed umbrella of Taehyung’s and looking like something out of a romance movie. 

When they end up in front of a roller rink after about twenty minutes of walking, somehow Jungkook isn’t even surprised. It’s the exact kind of thing Jimin would enjoy- a little like dancing, a little like flying, and deceptively difficult. Jungkook has never been skating in his life, and his knees already ache in anticipation of the dozens of times he knows he’s going to fall. 

Jimin catches his eye as they head towards the door and offers a grin that, rather than seeming malicious, is actually full of genuine excitement in the same way Taehyung gets whenever he talks to Jungkook about tagging. 

Despite his impending doom at the hands of roller skating, he smiles back and holds the door for Jimin. 

The roller rink is deserted today, the rain chasing away most potential customers, and the place is dead silent apart from some too-bassy pop song playing through the rink’s speakers. 

They head over to the skate rental counter, populated only by an older woman so invested in a book Jungkook feels a little bad bothering her. When she looks up and sees Jimin, her face lights up. “Jimin-ssi!” 

“Ajumma! How are you?” Jimin’s smile is soft and beautiful. 

“Business is slow, but that’s probably for the best when you’re my age,” she says dryly, turning around and pulling out from below the counter a pair of roller skates that look suspiciously nice for rentals. Jimin tries to hand her money when she passes the skates this way, but she waves it off. “You know you don’t pay here, Jimin-ssi.” 

Jungkook assumes he’ll fight her on the issue, but Jimin just sighs and pockets the money. “Someday I’ll pay you back,” he says with conviction. 

“Your presence is payment enough, dear,” she tells him, and Jimin giggles and actually blushes a little. Jungkook nudges his side with an elbow, laughing, and Jimin just rolls his eyes in response.

The ajumma glances at Jungkook for the first time, who waves awkwardly, and turns to Jimin with a knowing grin. “And who’s this, hmm?” 

“This is Jungkook,” Jimin says, almost proud. 

“It’s nice to meet you, ajumma,” Jungkook says politely, bowing. 

“Where’d you find him? He’s cute.” she stage-whispers. 

“Isn’t he?” Jimin replies, ridiculously fond, and now it’s Jungkook’s turn to blush. “Oh, and Kook-ah, do you want to start on rollerblades or skates?” 

“What's the difference?” He’ll be picking the easier one for sure. 

“Rollerblades are easier for most people, so you’ll probably fall less on them. You can do more complicated things on skates, though,” Jimin explains. 

If there’s one thing Jungkook won’t be doing today, it’s complicated skating tricks, so he picks the rollerblades immediately. The ajumma hands them over with a smile, and Jimin leads him over to a bench where they can put on their skates. 

Upon finally lacing up his rollerblades, Jungkook stands up and tries to take a step, only to immediately slip as his feet shift beneath him. Jimin has no such issues, already standing with perfect balance and half on the waxed floor of the rink itself. “You okay over there?” he asks, voice only half-teasing. 

“I’m fine,” he replies, and takes another careful step, determined to get it right this time. It’s a different method of movement than walking, and it requires balancing his weight differently than how he’s used to. Standing with his legs spread and keeping his steps small helps, he learns, and eventually he makes it to the actual rink. 

Jimin smiles brightly at him when he finally gets there. “Great job!” 

He then glides out onto the rink, movements so smooth he might as well be floating, and loops around it at a speed Jungkook can only envy. He even throws in a few spins while he’s at it, a picture of grace and poise. 

Jungkook gapes at him. “Show off!” he yells with no heat behind the words, and Jimin laughs, elegantly sliding to a stop in front of him. 

“I’m glad you like my skating,” he says. “You should try, too, since we’re not here just for me.” 

Jungkook is feeling more than a little out of his depth here, especially since Jimin is apparently some kind of skating god, but he complies anyway, clutching the wall in a death grip as he steps out onto the rink. He slowly starts to move, stumbling every few steps as he tries in vain to fix his balance. 

Jimin, on the other hand, continues to loop the rink easily, taking advantage of the deserted space to do unfairly impressive tricks like skating backwards and pirouettes. By the time Jungkook has lapped half of the rink, he’s finally feeling brave enough to not hold the wall like a lifeline. He gently pushes off from the wall and takes a few steps, and smiles when he doesn't immediately trip. Gliding across the rink is nice, even as slow as he’s moving, and Jungkook suddenly understands why Jimin enjoys this so much. It’s almost like flying. 

Jimin chooses that moment to skate by, jumping and executing a midair spin that’s so impressive Jungkook forgets what he’s doing, tries to move like he’s walking, and immediately trips. He’d find the contrast between the two of them funny if his knees didn’t hurt so badly. 

“Jungkook-ah, are you okay?” Jimin’s by his side in an instant, eyes wide with concern and hand held out to help him up. 

Jungkook doesn’t take it, partly out of pride and partly because he doesn’t want to knock Jimin over by accident, and manages to get up much faster than he would've expected. Improvement, maybe?

“You’re good at this,” Jimin observes with a grin, and Jungkook shoots him a surprised glance. 

“I’ve barely left the wall the whole time, how does that qualify as good?” he asks.

“Better than my first time,” Jimin says with a laugh. “I kept falling even though I was holding the wall. Skating’s hard .” 

“How long have you been doing this for?”

Jimin thinks for a moment. “Since I was thirteen or so? It’s been a long time, and I try to go skating whenever I can.”

“No wonder you’re so good,” Jungkook mutters, and Jimin looks delighted by the compliment. 

Grabbing Jungkook’s hand, he shoots him a devilish grin and runs a hand through his hair. “This is what it’s like when you get better,” he says, and takes off with Jungkook trailing behind him.

“Wait, shit, hyung, no-” Jungkook yelps, tripping along behind him. They take a turn so fast Jungkook swears they actually leave skid marks on the floor, and Jimin laughs like he’s having the most fun he’s ever had in his life. 

Jungkook, on the other hand, takes a solid two laps to start enjoying himself. Jimin shows no signs of slowing down, so Jungkook watches his movements and tries his best to copy them. Balance is important, as he knows, and the trick to keeping at least some of his momentum seems to be taking wide steps whenever he starts to slow down. 

He can’t keep up with Jimin by any means, not yet, but Jungkook eventually succeeds in feeling much less like dead weight as they circle the rink. 

At some point, Jimin lets go of his hand and Jungkook panics a little, leaving his arm dangling in empty air out of some futile hope that Jimin might realize his mistake and swoop in to save him. Jimin doesn’t, of course, instead choosing to skate backward -show-off- to keep an eye on Jungkook as he attempts to not trip while skating at what feels like a million kilometers an hour. 

Suddenly the wall of the rink is much too close, and Jungkook didn’t turn nearly soon enough to round the corner in time, and oh god, he’s going to smack right into it, isn’t he?

“Shit, watch out for the wall-” Jimin yells, like Jungkook somehow isn’t more than aware that he’s about to slam directly into a cinderblock wall that will probably break his nose on impact. 

Squeezing his eyes shut, Jungkook tries desperately to do something, anything, to save himself. He can’t deal with a broken nose. Acting on pure instinct, he leans back so far he nearly falls over and tries desperately to turn, doing some complicated motion with his skates that he neither understands nor will ever be able to repeat. 

Then he’s spinning so fast he barely even realizes until the motion sickness hits, and Jungkook opens his eyes to find himself careening back towards the middle of the rink with a whole lot less momentum than he’d had a second ago. Somehow, he skids to a clean stop right in front of Jimin, his arms managing to find their way back to his sides from the way they’d been splayed wide just a few seconds prior. 

“Wow,” Jimin says, clearly startled, before he smiles impossibly wide. “That was awesome!”

“Can we go home, please?” Jungkook asks, suddenly drained. Adrenaline and panic is coursing through his system, but all he really feels like doing is taking a nap. 

“Aw, are you sure you want to-” Jimin begins. “Hey, you called it home.”

Oh. Shit. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-” Jungkook begins nervously. Is he overstepping some boundary? He’s been calling the train “home” in his head for weeks, should he stop doing that? 

“You’re so cute ,” Jimin practically coos, face lighting up in a smile so bright that Jungkook immediately forgets his worry. “We can go back if you want. Namjoon-hyung is probably home by now anyway.”

He takes Jungkook’s hand again to pull him out of the rink, intertwining their fingers and squeezing gently, and Jungkook’s heart does something funny in his chest. They only let go of each other to take their skates off, and the ajumma waves them a cheery goodbye and tells them to come back soon. 

It stopped raining while they were inside, thankfully, so they don’t have to huddle under the umbrella while they walk home again. That doesn’t stop Jimin from walking so close to Jungkook they’re almost touching from shoulders to hips, though, and Jungkook certainly isn’t going to complain. He feels light, giddy almost, and he can’t tell if it’s leftover adrenaline from the skating or something a little sweeter. 

“Aren’t there rules against public indecency?” someone shouts when they’re about halfway to the railyard. 

It’s a man, likely a few years older than them, loitering against the wall of a supermarket. He’s wearing a black jacket with the hood obscuring his face, and Jungkook’s heart seizes for a second, but it seems to just be a coincidence, because he doesn’t move towards them, instead content to stay leaning against the wall, leering.

Jimin takes a threatening step forward, head held high. “Problem?” he asks, voice low and dangerous, and suddenly the boy Jungkook had been so terrified of his first night in the train is back. 

He’d be afraid, but Jimin is still holding his hand, and although the grip is a little too tight for comfort it eases Jungkook’s mind nonetheless. 

The man’s face stretches into a cruel smirk. “You wanna try me, fairy boy?”

“Gladly,” Jimin snaps, starting to take a step forward, but before he can get very far Jungkook yanks on their intertwined hands and forces him to turn around. 

Jimin frowns at him. “Kook-ah, let me-”

“He’s not worth it,” Jungkook tells him forcefully. “Fighting him will be more trouble than it’s worth.”

Jimin stares at him for a long moment, opens his mouth, then closes it. “Fine,” he sighs. They turn away from the man and start to cross the street. 

“That’s what I thought,” he calls after them, and Jungkook feels Jimin’s hand tighten around his.

Jungkook’s not particularly upset by any of this -the insults from this guy are tame compared to some of the other things he’s heard- but he is starting to get a little angry for Jimin and how pissed he is. They were having a perfectly nice outing until this asshole decided to show up and ruin it, and Jungkook thinks he has every right to be upset about that. 

Without turning around, he raises one arm above his head and flips the guy off. Jimin takes one look at him, gives him a grin that’s sharp and soft in equal measure, and does the same. 

The walk home is a lot more enjoyable after that.

When they make it back to the train, Jungkook decides he’s not going to stay for the afternoon. The clouds are still hanging low and threatening in the sky, and he’d rather not get caught in the rain again if he were to leave in the evening. Jimin doesn’t seem particularly impressed by his reasoning. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Jimin asks, arms folded and clearly uncertain. “We’d be happy to have you. You don’t have to leave every night, you know.”

Two forces have a very brief struggle in Jungkook’s mind- his desire for safety and love, and his intense need not to feel like he’s imposing. It’s a fierce battle, but not a difficult decision in the end. 

“I’ll be okay,” he reassures Jimin. “I can take care of myself.”

The other boy sighs. “If you don’t show up tomorrow, I’m going to find and kill you.”

“You do that,” Jungkook replies, laughing despite himself as he turns to leave.

“Take care of yourself, babe,” Jimin calls after him, his smirk audible in his voice, and Jungkook promptly trips on the gravel. 

Chapter Text

It’s late. Close to two in the morning, Jungkook thinks, but he’d stopped checking after even Namjoon had turned in for the night. He should leave soon -should’ve left hours ago, really- but something's been bothering him. Or someone, more accurately- Yoongi hasn’t been to the train all day. 

No one else seems concerned, so Jungkook probably shouldn't be, but he can’t help worrying for his friend. Fully stretched out on the couch, hands clasped together behind his head and lying flat on his back, he stares at the ceiling of the train intently like it’ll give him the answers he seeks if he stares long enough and keeps waiting. 

The room is lit with a dull glow of yellow, the lowest setting possible on the fairy lights ringing the space, and the color brings to mind evening light minutes before sunset. Jungkook’s tiredness gives every thought a pleasantly magical haze, and he entertains himself by pretending he’s in another world. If he were to step outside, what would he see? 

He’s drifting in and out of sleep now, he can tell- his thoughts aren’t particularly coherent or linear anymore. Fragments of half-remembered dreams mix themselves with gilded reality, leaving him dizzy and disoriented in his own head. 

It gets so bad that when Yoongi walks in, he doesn’t immediately process him as real. The lights paint his hair an odd shade of lime, and since that’s not his normal hair color, Jungkook decides to casually accept that this Yoongi is just a figment of his very tired imagination. 

Fake-Yoongi is carrying a black plastic bag with a logo on it that Jungkook has never seen before. “I thought in dreams you can’t make up new things,” he mumbles, more to himself than anything. 

Yoongi starts so badly he drops his bag. He gapes at Jungkook with wide eyes, clearly not having registered his presence before that moment. The scene vaguely reminds Jungkook of a video he saw once involving a cat and a cucumber, and he can’t help but giggle. 

“What the hell are you still doing here?” Yoongi asks as he stoops to pick up his bag.

Yawning, Jungkook sits up. “Was worried about you,” he admits. “You hadn't shown up all day.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes, and for a moment Jungkook is afraid that his confession somehow upset the other boy. “Those idiots didn't tell you not to worry about me?” he sighs, mostly to himself, then offers Jungkook a quiet smile that takes his breath away. “Thanks for staying up for me.” 

Jungkook offers Yoongi a dazzling smile in return, and the latter looks away quickly. “Of course, hyung,” he hums. “Anything for you.” 

There’s a long pause where Yoongi opens his mouth and closes it several times. “If you’ll do anything for me, go and get some sleep.” 

Jungkook mock-salutes, already standing up on tired legs to go, and Yoongi moves in front of him. “That’s not me telling you to leave ,” he says, exasperation clear in his tone. “Sleep in here.” 

Despite dimly registering that Yoongi probably wants him to pick a bed to share with someone for the night, he instead collapses back onto the couch and arranges his tagging jacket over his body like a blanket. “G’night, hyung,” he murmurs, already half-asleep.

Yoongi shakes his head. “You’re weird.”

“I’m not the one out at two in the morning doing god-knows-what.”

This elicits a startled laugh from Yoongi, and Jungkook smiles. 

“Sleep well,” he hears as he drifts into proper sleep, and the last thing he feels before he falls into unconsciousness is a hand gently carding through his hair.

~0~0~0~

Jungkook wakes up to Taehyung’s face a little closer to his than he can handle first thing in the morning, and he may or may not punch him on instinct. 

“ Fuck ,” Taehyung hisses, one hand moving up to clutch at his face, and suddenly Jungkook is wide awake. 

“Oh my god,” he breathes, panic ripping through his veins, and he practically falls off of the couch in his haste to check on Taehyung. “I’m so sorry! It was on instinct, I promise-” 

Taehyung slowly removes his hand from his face, squinting his injured eye, and glances at Jungkook critically. “You punch harder than I expected,” he says nonchalantly, despite the fact that there’s a rapidly-forming bruise beginning to paint the area around his eye purple and tears are leaking down his face in a small river. 

Jungkook’s hand has subconsciously moved up to cover his mouth, and he’s sure his eyes are impossibly wide as he gapes at the mess he’s caused. “Are you okay?” he asks helplessly, though it’s fairly obvious Taehyung is not, in fact, okay. “Do you have a first-aid kit around here? Do you want me to go get someone?”

With his free hand, Taehyung drags a finger across the stream of tears dripping down his face, wiping away the liquid casually. Almost immediately, more tears flow and undo the minimal progress he’d made. “I’ll be fine,” Taehyung reassures him, somehow managing a grin. “This isn’t the worst hit I’ve ever taken.”

That certainly doesn’t make Jungkook feel any better. “Do you want painkillers, at least?” By the way his face is already starting to swell, Taehyung has to be in a lot of pain. “If you tell me where they are, I can get them.”

Taehyung waves him off, but as Jungkook watches, blood begins to trickle out of his nose, and Jungkook makes the executive decision to go and find the train’s first-aid kit. 

“Hold still,” Jungkook says awkwardly, hands tentatively reaching for Taehyung’s face only to pull back at the last second, instead finding a nervous place by his sides as he stands up. “I’ll be right back. I’m really, really sorry-”

Taehyung smiles at him, nothing but fondness in his eyes, and Jungkook’s heart can’t help but skip a beat. “It’s okay, really.”

All Jungkook does in response is turn away and head towards the kitchen, unsure of how to deal with such easy kindness. He doesn’t make it far, though, before Yoongi appears, running a hand through his sleep-mussed green hair as he steps into the main car. 

It must be quite a sight- Jungkook, likely looking pale and terrified, guilt written all over his face, and Taehyung, casually stemming both a rivulet of blood and a stream of tears with one hand, looking generally unbothered by the current situation. 

Yoongi takes it all in, eyes widening slightly when he sees Taehyung, but when he meets Jungkook’s panicked gaze there’s no blame or judgement in his expression, just confusion. 

“What- happened?” Yoongi asks. 

“I swear it was an accident,” Jungkook says immediately, ready to start rambling through every apology he can think of all over again. Guilt is churning in his gut like ocean waves in a hurricane, and he’s likely just a step away from hyperventilating at this point. 

“I scared him when he was asleep,” Taehyung explains, voice slightly nasally from the way he’s covering his nose. "And he punched me."

“Oh,” Yoongi says, and suddenly he’s laughing. “I’ve done that a few times.”

Jungkook stares. 

“Hyung hits hard ,” Taehyung adds from the floor. 

“You’d think you’d have learned your lesson after the first couple of times,” Yoongi teases. “Give people some personal space in the mornings.”

“It’s not my fault Jungkook-ah is so cute when he’s sleeping,” Taehyung replies, and Jungkook can feel his face heating up even through his panic. 

Yoongi just scoffs at him. “Go clean your face up,” he says, and Taehyung pouts but heaves himself up from the floor and leaves regardless. 

Jungkook, too concerned to leave before he makes sure Taehyung is really going to be alright, ends up collapsed at the train's kitchen table with Yoongi, who casually brews himself a cup of coffee and takes a seat next to him. 

“I hope hyung is okay,” Jungkook says miserably, face half-slumped into the table. 

Yoongi pats his shoulder sympathetically. “He’ll be fine.”

“That doesn’t make it any better,” he replies listlessly. Jungkook knows he punches hard, an invaluable skill on the streets, and even if Taehyung is pretending to be okay he’ll still be stuck with the torture of dealing with black eye for the next couple of weeks. 

There’s a moment of silence from Yoongi, and when he speaks next, there’s a soft, tentative edge to his words. “Why are you so upset about this? No one’s mad at you- we know it was an accident.”

Jungkook opens his mouth to reply and realizes he doesn’t know how to explain it. How despite all of the time he’s spent here, it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet that they’re not going to kick him out one morning when they get bored of him. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Voicing it would feel ungrateful, somehow. The six of them care for him so much already- he shouldn’t need any more validation than that, yet here he is, uncertain and caring for them far too much for anyone’s good. 

Unable to come up with a satisfactory response, Jungkook sighs instead of answering. Yoongi doesn’t push, seeming to understand that his silence is an inability to speak rather than a refusal, and a moment later a hand is running through his hair, gently toying with the longer strands falling over his forehead. 

He practically melts into the table at the sensation. Yoongi has never been unforthcoming with his physical affection, but Jungkook delights in it every time regardless. He can feel his anxiety ebbing already. 

“By the way, where were you yesterday?” Jungkook asks, having finally calmed down enough to remember why he’d stayed overnight in the first place. Yoongi’s schedule is still a mystery to him, having no rhyme or reason Jungkook can parse out. He has some kind of job, Jungkook knows, but he’s also prone to disappearing at all hours of day and night for reasons unknown. 

“Out,” Yoongi answers, in his typical cryptic fashion. 

“Yeah, I’ve got that,” Jungkook deadpans, and Yoongi huffs a laugh. “But where ?”

“A music store,” Yoongi answers, which really isn’t all that much better of an answer.

“Do you work there?” 

Yoongi shakes his head, and now Jungkook is even more confused. “Not exactly.”

“Then why were you out so late?” It’s not his business to pry, but the mystery of it all is too tempting for Jungkook to ignore. 

There’s a pause wherein Yoongi seems to deliberate with himself for a second. “I play piano there,” he says at last. “At night, after the store is closed.”

That’s not at all what he was expecting to hear, but just the idea of it sounds incredibly cool to Jungkook. He voices this thought to Yoongi, who just laughs.

“You can come with me tonight, if you want,” he offers, and Jungkook’s heart leaps. “I can teach you how to play.”

That’s a feat he doubts Yoongi will be able to accomplish, seeing as how Jungkook doesn’t have a musical bone in his body, but he’s certainly not going to pass up on a chance to spend time with him. “That sounds amazing.”

“It’s a date, then,” Yoongi says with a grin, and starts to rattle off the store’s address. 

~0~0~0~

They arrive at the music store just before midnight, and everything Jungkook sees is bathed in the fluorescent, red sunset glow of streetlights. It feels as though he’s stepped into another dimension, one where time moves slow and languid around him, shifting lazily like honey in some non-linear pattern he can’t see. He kind of wishes he had a camera, but something tells him he couldn’t capture this if he tried. 

The glow of the lamps paints Yoongi’s hair a silvery brown that isn’t altogether unappealing. It gives him an ethereal quality that makes it hard for Jungkook to keep his eyes off of him. 

Yoongi picks the lock quickly enough, and when he pushes open the door to the music store a weak alarm starts to beep from somewhere within. Jungkook stiffens, already thinking of escape strategies, but Yoongi just brushes past him to move deeper into the store. “Alarm’s not hooked up to anything,” he explains, and Jungkook lets himself relax. When he catches up to Yoongi, the other boy is staring at an array of sheet music, each carefully wrapped in cellophane. Most of the titles are things Jungkook’s never heard of, but he can pick out a few pop tunes and popular classical pieces in the store’s low light. 

“Where do you want to start?” asks an amused-sounding Yoongi, as though he can sense Jungkook’s indecision. 

“Something easy,” he replies, brushing a tentative hand over a few of the pieces. Yoongi huffs out a laugh. 

“Is this one good?” Yoongi asks, holding up a piece. Despite being unable to see the title in the dark, Jungkook nods, and Yoongi gestures him towards a pretty looking brown piano displayed in the middle of the shop like a centerpiece. They sit down, and Yoongi sets the piece of music down in its appropriate spot. The piano is gilded by the streetlights, illuminated as if by spotlight, and Jungkook briefly wonders how they’d look from an outsider’s perspective. Beautiful, probably, like something out of a painting. He smiles to himself. 

“Hyung?” he asks quietly. 

“Yeah?” Yoongi replies as he sight-reads the music in front of him, fingers ghosting over the keys of the piano but never actually pressing down. 

“Thank you.”

Yoongi pauses, shoots him a glance. His eyes sparkle in the light. “Of course,” he replies, the words weighted with an emotion Jungkook can’t name. Then he smirks a little, and the spell is broken. “Be a good student and don’t make me regret it.” 

The next two hours fly by as Yoongi painstakingly teaching Jungkook the basics of piano -he seems visibly distraught when Jungkook admits he has no idea where even middle C is, something that he can’t help but laugh at- and he tries his absolute best to commit all of the information to memory. 

Eventually, though, Jungkook starts making more mistakes than progress as the lateness of the hour and his inexperience catch up with him, and after one too many wrong notes he leans back on the piano bench, taking his hands away from the keys and letting them fall to his lap. Yoongi glances at him curiously. 

“Play for me?” Jungkook asks, almost shy. He’s never heard Yoongi play, but he’s certain it’ll be incredible. Far prettier than anything he’s managed tonight, anyway. 

Yoongi stares at him for a second, contemplative, then his hands are gently pressed against the piano keys and the prettiest melody Jungkook has ever heard is spilling from the open lid of the piano and ringing through the tiny store, echoing through the shelves of sheet music in a way somehow more ethereal and haunting than it would be in the most grandiose of churches. 

Jungkook stares unblinkingly at Yoongi, impossibly beautiful in the lights as he plays, gently swaying to the music and looking almost like he’s one with the melody, with its every note and dynamic. 

When he finishes the song, it’s like time unfreezes- suddenly Jungkook can breathe again, can think about things that aren’t Yoongi. He’s not sure he wants to. 

Yoongi hops up from the piano bench, ridiculously nonchalant considering he’d just played the most beautiful music Jungkook has ever heard in his life, and starts strolling through the aisles of music again. 

Jungkook wants to tell him how he feels, but words fail in comparison to the emotions swirling in his mind. Instead, he starts talking about the first thing that comes to mind just to break the silence. 

“How often do you come here and do this?” Jungkook asks. 

“Once a week,” Yoongi says as he skims the racks of music. He selects a piece almost at random, squinting at it in the dark for a moment before enfolding it in an arm. “I have an understanding with the owner.”

“They’re okay with you breaking in like this?” That sounds- suspicious, to say the least.

“I used to come in here and steal music every couple of weeks,” Yoongi says as he looks over the shelves one last time. Seeing nothing else interesting, he stands up properly and starts to move towards the exit. Jungkook hurriedly moves to follow him. “But every time I came back, I’d return whatever I’d taken the previous week. When the owner figured out that I wasn’t actually taking anything, he stopped caring. Sometimes he even leaves music out for me to take, now.”

“That’s nice of him,” Jungkook comments. He can picture Yoongi coming into this tiny store once a week to find pieces left for him, practicing them in the dead of night for no reason other than a profound love for music. 

“What are you smiling at?” Yoongi asks, tone gruff, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips to match Jungkook’s. 

“Your playing is incredible, hyung,” Jungkook tells him, because it’s the easiest way to sum up the overflowing affection warming his chest. The anxiety from this morning feels like a distant dream, now. “You’re an incredible musician.”

“You’ve barely even heard me play,” Yoongi points out, but Jungkook can see even in the low lights of the store that he’s blushing.

“I’d like to hear more, if you’d let me,” Jungkook says, and suddenly he’s a little nervous. Just because he would gladly listen to Yoongi play piano for the rest of his life doesn’t mean Yoongi feels the same.  

“I could start coming twice a week,” Yoongi says slowly as he pulls open the back door and holds it open for Jungkook to slip through. “If you want to keep learning.” 

“I’d love that,” Jungkook breathes, excitement singing in his veins at the prospect, and in answer Yoongi intertwines their fingers together and holds his hand the whole way back to the train. 

And this time, when Yoongi hops inside, ready to collapse into bed, Jungkook is right by his side. 

Chapter Text

“Hey, there’s a meteor sho-”

“I’d love to,” Jungkook says immediately.

Namjoon blinks at him in surprise and almost disappointment, like he’d prepared a persuasive speech or a PowerPoint presentation and now wasn’t going to get to use it. “I thought that would’ve taken a little more convincing, honestly.”

“Why? It’s fun to spend time with you.” The words feel a little awkward on Jungkook’s tongue -he’s never been the type to be openly sappy- but the way Namjoon blushes and smiles is worth it.

“Are you sure? I thought you might want to do something a bit more exciting instead,” Namjoon says, ever-considerate as always, and Jungkook shakes his head vehemently.

“Stargazing sounds fun, hyung,” he tells him. He decides not to mention that Namjoon could lecture him for an hour on how to file his taxes and he’d still listen with rapt attention solely because it’s Namjoon.

“Where would we be going?” Presumably there are all kinds of spots to go stargazing in and around the city, but it’s not an activity Jungkook has ever partaken in before.

“The roof,” Namjoon answers. “It’s quiet and I have chairs up there- it’s really nice.”

Jungkook tries to remember ever seeing chairs on the roof of the train and comes up empty. “On the train?” he checks.

Namjoon nods. “I know it probably doesn’t sound like much, but I promise the view is amazing.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fantastic,” Jungkook assures him, and it honestly does. He doesn’t get to spend much one-on-one time with Namjoon because of his demanding schedule of both community college and a part-time job at a gas station. Namjoon’s even been missing tagging sessions some weeks, apologizing profusely while he takes another late-night shift or stays up late to finish some school project. Jungkook’s been missing him lately, honestly, and stargazing will be a nice chance to just talk and stare at Namjoon’s pretty face for several hours.

“When is it?” he asks. He’s been going out with Yoongi for music lessons (read: half actual learning, half Jungkook delightedly listening to Yoongi play anything he can think of) twice a week, and while it wouldn’t be a big issue to cancel were there to be a scheduling conflict, he’d like to give Yoongi advance notice.

“Tonight,” Namjoon answers.

“Perfect,” Jungkook says. He’s got a few housekeeping -in the most ironic sense of the word- type things to do today- though he doesn’t really sleep anywhere other than the train anymore, it’s still good to check on his hideouts at least occasionally. He’s got nothing to do tonight, though, and he tells Namjoon as much.

“If you could be here around eight, that’ll be a good time to head up,” Namjoon says, and Jungkook nods his affirmative. He should probably leave now, then, if he wants to be back with ample time to spare.

He manages to do just that, a true stroke of luck given how most things tend to go for him, and ends up back at the train several hours before he’s supposed to be. He pops into the main car and meets Jin, who’s watching what looks like a competitive cooking show on TV with an expression that’s an entertaining mix of intensity and disdain.

“Some people shouldn’t be allowed near a kitchen,” he remarks in lieu of a greeting. Jungkook, very much one of those people, just makes a vaguely affirmative noise and sits down next to him, letting his head fall onto Jin’s shoulder easily.

Normally Jungkook would find it impossible to kill several hours watching a cooking show, but he finds that it’s much more enjoyable when Jin is offering up scathing commentary about just about everything the contestants do. He hasn’t laughed this hard in months.

When Namjoon finally walks in, battered school laptop in hand, it’s to Jungkook cackling so hard he’s practically falling off the couch as Jin absolutely eviscerates some poor contestant’s wildly misguided attempt at making Italian-Korean fusion food.

“You two look like you’re having fun,” Namjoon remarks, already snickering. Everyone in the train knows from personal experience just how impressively snarky Jin can be with or without trying.

“How was class?” Jin asks.

“Same as always,” Namjoon says, tossing his laptop onto one of the beanbag chairs. He glances at Jungkook. “Ready to head up?”

“Stargazing?” Jin asks, exchanging a knowing glance with Namjoon that’s entirely lost on Jungkook.

“Yeah,” Namjoon replies as Jungkook gets up and slips his jacket on. “There’s a meteor shower tonight.”

Jin smiles and mutters something that sounds a lot like “cute,” as gets up too, moving to head deeper into the train. “Hope you see a lot of meteors.”

“Us too,” Namjoon says, and together he and Jungkook head out into the entrance car. Namjoon tosses him a flashlight, and Jungkook catches it easily, shoving it into the pocket of his jacket. He undoes the latch of the train’s door and heaves it open, letting the outside air rush in and hiss against the walls.

“Have fun, you two!” Hoseok shouts from somewhere within the train.

“We will!” Jungkook calls back.

“You don’t have to wait up for us,” Namjoon adds.

“I’ll save you some dinner anyway,” Hoseok replies, and warmth swells in Junkook’s heart as he leaps out of the train.

The night is warm, thankfully, with the faintest hint of a breeze coming to brush Jungkook’s hair out of his eyes as he hops out of the train and onto the gravel of the railyard. The sun, having just set below the horizon, still exudes a faint, fiery glow across the rapidly-darkening sky.

Somewhere in the woods surrounding the outer half of the railyard, an owl hoots. Crickets sing all around them, bright and joyous, and the faint honk of a horn resounds from the city in the distance. It’s the kind of thing Jungkook wouldn’t ordinarily think about, but something about Namjoon’s presence makes Jungkook want to try and appreciate the world he lives in for the smallest of things the way he knows Namjoon would.

“It’s nice out,” he says quietly, and rather than disturbing the silence his voice simply blends with the sounds of the world around them.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Namjoon says, gazing off into the trees. There’s a slight smile tugging at his lips just barely visible in the twilight.

Jungkook takes in the way his eyes seem to glow, the way the last streaks of reddish dusk seem to make his pink hair shine, the hint of a dimple digging into his cheek as he grins. “Yeah,” he says. “Gorgeous.”

“We should get going before we lose all of the light,” Namjoon says after a second, and all Jungkook can do is follow him as he walks around the back side of the train. Jungkook doesn’t go back there often, as there’s no real reason to- all of the doors are on the other side of the train, and the only thing of note is a few particularly intimidating half-dead briar bushes.

Namjoon starts moving down the train, eventually reaching a car that, if Jungkook’s count is correct, is primarily used for storage. It’s one of the last cars in the line that makes up their train, and despite Namjoon and Taehyung’s best gardening efforts weeds and scraggly bushes have shot up all around it, a little patch of life among the endless gray and blue of the railyard.

There’s a ladder welded to the edge of this car, one that’s coated with more rust than paint and looks like it likely can’t support anything approaching a person’s full weight. Jungkook eyes it with vague distrust as they approach, but Namjoon easily leaps up onto the first rung, ignoring the ladder’s grating squeaks and groans of protest as he scales it. Once he’s at the top, pulling himself up and onto the roof of the train without trouble, he pokes his head over the side to shine his flashlight down at Jungkook.

“You coming?” he asks, voice brimming with excitement, and suddenly all of Jungkook’s reservations disappear as quickly as they’d come. He climbs the ladder quickly, and upon reaching the top he brushes the rust flakes off of his hands and grins at Namjoon. “What now?”

“We sit and wait for meteors,” Namjoon says, and as he speaks he collapses into a deck chair that looks like it’s somehow been bolted onto the roof of the train. There are three more just like it all in a row, and Jungkook takes a second to wonder how on earth he’s been so blind as to have never noticed this before.

He takes the seat next to Namjoon and finds it’s surprisingly comfortable for a chair that’s been exposed constantly to the elements for an untold length of time. He throws one hand over the arm of his chair, his fingertips brushing the surface of the train roof below him, and notes that Namjoon’s hand isn’t far from his, tapping out a quiet melody into the metal of the train.

He doesn’t reach for his hand- not yet, anyway. Instead, he looks up at the stars, now finally revealed in the absence of the sun.

Since they’re not in the heart of the city, the light pollution is less intense than what Jungkook usually sees. While the sky is far from clear -they’d have to be much farther out into the countryside for that- there’s still a variety of stars spilling across the sky, glittering and slowly gaining intensity as the night deepens around them.

It’s incredible.

“Do you know any constellations?” Jungkook asks after a few minutes without a single meteor. He knows he should be patient, but talking isn’t exactly going to scare the meteors away.

“Um,” Namjoon says distantly, staring intently at the sky. “That’s Lyra up there.” he points to a cluster of stars that looks like absolutely nothing to Jungkook.

“Where?”

“There,” Namjoon repeats, gesturing with his outstretched hand. “The four stars that look kind of like a diamond with the one star above it.”

A pause as Jungkook squints at the stars. “What.”

Namjoon tries valiantly to show him, but Jungkook just can’t see it, and eventually they lapse into silence again.

So maybe Jungkook doesn’t know any constellations, and Namjoon only knows a handful, but they don’t need to know the sky to appreciate it. There are still no meteors yet, but Jungkook is enjoying himself enough not to care; stargazing, he’s realized, is relaxing like nothing else. For once in his life, he's got nothing to worry about except potentially missing a meteor.

“What do you think the purpose of all this is?” Namjoon asks out of nowhere. He can’t tell how long they’ve been outside for -an hour? Two?- sitting in a comfortable silence, but he’s strangely relieved when Namjoon restarts the conversation between them.

Jungkook shifts his head so he’s looking at half of Namjoon’s face. He can’t see his eyes, but he can imagine the way they look- bright, contemplative, probably reflecting the delicate starlight all around them. Beautiful.

“The purpose of what?” Jungkook replies.

“This,” Namjoon says, and Jungkook watches his reach out a hand and gesture to the world around them, to the railyard and the train and the sky. “Everything we go through. The pain and the fear and the stress. What’s the point of it all?”

Namjoon doesn’t turn his head to face Jungkook, but judging by the easy way the question rolls off his tongue he likely asks it to people often. Rather than bitterness or melancholy, the only emotion in his voice is a genuine sort of curiosity, like he knows his answer to the question he’s posed but still wants to hear Jungkook’s. He certainly seems like the kind of person to always have existential questions on his mind, even if he doesn’t bring them up constantly, so he probably does have some profoundly philosophical answer waiting.

“I think,” Jungkook begins slowly, then stops. The meaning behind his own existence isn’t something he’s ever really thought about before, beyond the occasional derisive thoughts of, “life sucks and then you die, that’s just the way it is” when he’s had a particularly bad week.

“You don’t have to answer right away,” Namjoon tells him, voice light. He sounds entirely at peace with the world around him. “Think about it for a minute.”

So he does. There’s a vague sort of panic bubbling up inside him, some desperate need to impress Namjoon with whatever he says, but Jungkook knows logically that even if he said the truth -that he’s often too busy trying to survive to contemplate the meaning of life- that Namjoon certainly wouldn't be disappointed in the answer.

Still, though, he tries his best to come up with something, because he want to keep talking with Namjoon about things like this. Namjoon is so bright and interesting, with a brilliant mind that thinks about things in a way that’s beautiful and fascinating and Jungkook never wants to stop hearing it.

“I think,” he starts again, and although his first words come out slowly they quickly gain speed and confidence as he realizes just how much he believes what he’s saying. “I think that life sucks, yeah. And we have it worse than a lot of people- we’re homeless and starving and a gang has it out for us. But there are a lot of things in life that don’t suck, too, and I think that as long as we live to find those moments, then maybe the suffering isn’t so bad. Hopefully it all balances out in the end.”

Jungkook pauses, sucks in a breath. “And honestly? Everything I’ve been through these past few years has been worth it, because I got to meet you.”

The words sound odd coming out of his mouth, too cheesy and romantic to belong to him, but they’re as genuine as anything else he’s said tonight.

Namjoon lets out a noise that starts out as a startled laugh and ends up a little like a coo. It’s an odd sound, to say the least.

“You’re so-” Namjoon begins, and for the first time ever he looks like he’s lost for words. He’s smiling, though, so Jungkook definitely said the right thing.

“I mean it,” he adds, smiling brightly at Namjoon. “You guys are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“We don’t deserve you,” Namjoon says after a second, impossibly fond. “You’re wonderful, Kook-ah. Thank you for coming into our lives.”

He reaches across the divide between their chairs and intertwines their hands, squeezing Jungkook’s hand gently.

Jungkook, whose face is certainly on fire -thank god it’s dark out- turns to look back up at the sky. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

“Thank you for staying,” Namjoon tells him. “Everyone’s so much happier now that you’re sleeping here with us.”

The validation eases some stress in Jungkook’s mind he hadn’t even realized was weighing on him. He’s been sleeping in the train for a couple of weeks now, and despite the total acceptance of the rest of its occupants, there’s still been a consistent worry in the back of his mind that they’re tolerating rather than welcoming him. For now, at least, that little voice of uncertainty has been entirely silenced.

Jungkook can feel a smile stretch across his face so widely it’s almost painful.

Suddenly there’s a flash of light across the sky, so quick Jungkook almost doubts he saw it at all. “Hyung,” he whispers, urgent despite the meteor being long gone. “I saw one!”

“Make a wish!” Namjoon tells him excitedly, and Jungkook shuts his eyes to do just that and finds he has nothing to ask for.

-Well, for a split second he does, before he realizes just how stupid that is. He’s homeless and lives in an abandoned train, for fuck’s sake. Being soft for his six best friends and the love they give him unfortunately isn’t enough to satisfy his more pressing needs of food and safety.

So he wishes for a home, someday. One that’s got enough space for seven. One where he can be safe and not have to wonder where his next meal is coming from. One where he can have the things he’s always thought of as luxuries, like new clothes and a cell phone.

Somehow, staring up at the stars, fingers still tangled together with Namjoon’s, the idea doesn’t seem so far away.

Chapter Text

One Friday morning, between tagging sessions and music lessons and the rest of his suddenly busy social calendar -and how weird is that , he’s still not really used to it- Jungkook walks into the train to hear Jin being loud. This isn't unusual on its own, because Jin is often quite loud, and he and Jimin (or Taehyung, or Yoongi, or any of them, honestly) can aggressively tease each other for hours if left unchecked, but Jin shouldn’t be in the train at all today. He should have been working until at least the evening.

Yes, Jungkook knows all of their schedules by heart now. Yes, he plans his own days around them. No, that’s not weird. It’s not like he really has anything else to do with his days than hang out with the six of them, and he wouldn’t miss any time he could be spending in the train for anything short of the end of the world. Sticking his head through the entrance of the main car, Jungkook takes in Jin pacing dramatically back and forth across the room. 

“Hello?” he asks, immediately regretting his decision when Jin snaps his head around to stare at him with a concerningly predatory glint in his eyes. 

“Don’t do it,” Yoongi says immediately, sticking his head through the bedsheet door that leads to the kitchen. 

“Hush, he doesn't even know what I’m asking yet,” Jin calls back, before stepping very close to Jungkook and smiling all saccharine sweet. Jungkook freezes, as is to be expected when someone as gorgeous as Jin is so close. “Um,” he stutters weakly, sure his face is flaming red. 

Intensity burning in his eyes, Jin looks him up and down for a moment, then steps back and smiles. “Jungkook-ah, would you like to go somewhere with me?”

Jungkook instantly flashes back to Jimin asking a very similar question a couple of weeks ago and gulps. “That’s not an ominous question or anything,” he mutters whilst trying valiantly to force his face to return to its normal color through sheer willpower. It’s not working.

Yoongi snorts as he walks into the room, holding a juice box and moving to go sit down. “If you value your life, say no,” he advises, and Jin sticks his tongue out at him. 

“Stop being overdramatic, that’s my job,” he pouts, and Yoongi holds his hands up in mock surrender, effectively bowing out of the conversation. 

“If, and I mean if ,” Jungkook begins, watching Jin’s eyes light up and already accepting that he’s going on whatever excursion the other boy has planned, “I were to say yes, where would we be going?” Skating was by no means bad -although Jimin’s presence was definitely the best part of that particular experience- but Jungkook’s learned his lesson, and he wants to be prepared for whatever experience this ends up being. 

“The arcade!” Jin says with a smile, and that’s- actually not nearly as bad as Jungkook was expecting. 

“Wait, really?” he asks. Going to the arcade is a mundane enough activity that he can’t help but be a little suspicious. “Why me?”

“No one else wants to go with me anymore,” Jin explains theatrically, hand over his heart for additional effect. 

“Yeah, ‘cause you kick everybody’s ass whenever we do go, hyung,” Yoongi calls from where he’s now collapsed on a beanbag chair, watching the action and serenely sipping his juice. “It’s not fun if all you’re doing is losing.” 

Jungkook hasn't played video games on more than the rarest of occasions in years, but he had some talent when he was a kid. The prospect of competition too sweet to resist, he looks at Jin. “I’ll go with you,” he decides. 

“I’ll write your eulogy,” Yoongi tells him. 

“Please,” Jungkook scoffs, unknowingly tempting fate. “I’m sure it won’t be that bad. You guys probably just suck.” 

...It definitely is that bad. 

Jungkook realizes this only when he’s in a crowded arcade on Friday night and in the midst of getting his ass handed to him at some racing game Jin insisted they play first. There’s four other random people playing beside them, and Jungkook’s beating all of them to claim second place, but Jin is so far ahead he’s almost entirely lapped the poor loser in last. 

Jungkook is floored. 

Jungkook is also more than ready to show him up. 

He drags Jin over to some too-loud 1v1 shooter game next, and although he’s never played it before, the weight of the plastic gun in his hands is a familiar one that calls to mind memories of a childhood full of gaming. The first zombie pops up on the screen and, with a smooth flick shot that surprises even him, Jungkook nails a headshot onto it. The small score display on his side of the screen adds 1000 points, and Jin shoots him a look that burns with competitive spirit. 

Said competitive spirit doesn’t translate to skill and muscle memory, though, and Jin ends up losing by a margin so large that Jungkook can't help but laugh at him. Not to be deterred, Jin slams the gun down the moment time is up and drags Jungkook deeper into the arcade. 

It’s quieter back there, most people choosing to stick to the flashier, newer machines towards the front of the arcade, and the lack of people around means Jungkook spots their destination immediately. 

Skee-ball. 

The machines are old, made of worn rubber and scuffed wood where newer versions would be smooth metal and plastic, and half of their interior lights aren’t even functioning. “Do they even still work?” Jungkook asks skeptically. They’re definitely the oldest thing in the arcade by a considerable margin. He’s not sure he trusts them not to eat his tokens. 

Jin steps up to one of the machines with working lights and slams two tokens into the coin slot. “What’s the matter, scared?” He waits for the skee-balls to drop and the game to start, but nothing happens. 

Jungkook snickers. “Of exactly that happening? Yes.” 

Jin pouts. “These worked last time I was here.” He hits the return coin button on the machine -using a little more force than strictly necessary- but to no avail. 

“When was that, the eighties?” Jungkook mutters, and Jin whips around so fast to glare at him that Jungkook is kind of concerned for his neck. 

“Last week, actually,” Jin replies, “Before you were born, I know.” 

An age joke, really? And not even a good one. “Oh, the old and their poor sense of time,” Jungkook says wistfully, going so far as to gaze dramatically off into the distance. “So sad to see how the elderly deteriorate.” 

“Why do I keep you around again?” Jin huffs, finally giving up on retrieving his tokens with one last frustrated slap of the Skee-Ball machine. 

“Because you love me,” Jungkook tells him, then promtly flushes in embarrassment. 

Jin hums. “Do I?” Jungkook glances at him nervously, all deer-in-the-headlights, and Jin laughs. “Of course I do. You’re bratty but cute. Like a puppy, or something.”

Jungkook blushes further, which is stupid because Jin just called him a puppy , but recovers well enough to scoff back a, “What are you, then? An angry parakeet?”

“I’ll have you know that if I were an animal, I’d be a peacock,” Jin says primly. 

Jungkook snorts. “Whatever you say.” 

“You should respect me more, I’m your hyung,” Jin tells him, but there’s no real weight behind his words, and that gives Jungkook a choice. Exaggerated politeness, or he pushes further with the disrespect. He likes one option better than the other. 

“Of course, hyung ,” he says in the most simpering voice he can manage. “Anything you say, hyung . Would you like me to buy you some snacks, darling hyung ?” 

It has the desired effect- Jin bursts out laughing, his delightful windshield-wiper laugh ringing through the arcade. “That was horrible ,” he gasps through giggles. “Please, never do that again.” 

Jungkook grins. “Sure thing, Seokjin.” 

Jin smacks his shoulder. “I try so hard to be a good hyung,” he says tragically. “I do so much for you, and this is the thanks I get?” 

“It’s a labor of love, I’m sure,” Jungkook tells him cheerfully. 

“Unfortunately,” Jin mutters. “You know what? I’m getting snacks. You want anything?” 

“A pretzel, please!” 

“So one basket of nachos for me and nothing else, got it.” 

Before Jungkook can even open his mouth, Jin’s disappeared into the crowds to go get his food. Jungkook sighs, but he’s smiling. 

He’s got some time to kill and can’t really go anywhere, now, so Jungkook leans against a wall and revels in the feeling of the arcade. 

It’s an old place, old enough to be lit primarily with half-dead neon signs and cheap hanging light bulbs. The floors -which are hardwood, of all things- are so scuffed and uneven they’re a frequent tripping hazard, gouged and warped as they are. Pop music is blasting from overhead speakers so loud Jungkook can feel the bass in his bones, but the cacophony of noise in the arcade makes identifying the song impossible. The place is as colorful and vaguely surreal as a drug trip, and the energy and chaos of it all fills Jungkook up like a shot of the best energy drink in the world.

He really, really likes it here. He likes spending time with Jin, too- he’s funny and dramatic and conversation with him flows so easily that Jungkook feels like they could have fun doing just about anything together so long as they could talk. They don’t get to see each other all that often, because Jin works a lot , especially lately, and Jungkook’s sad to realize he’s what he’s been missing. Jungkook hopes arcade visits can become a tradition, like the tagging and the music lessons, because he could see himself spending time like this with Jin every week. Maybe with everyone else too, with a little convincing. Jungkook will have to make sure he and Jin don’t destroy the others too badly. 

He’s still smiling when Jin comes back, and the brunette looks at him curiously. He’s already wolfing down nachos like he hasn't eaten in days. “You’re that glad I’m back, huh?” he jokes. “I missed you too, Kook-ah.” 

“Wait, you left?” Jungkook asks innocently, snagging a chip for himself. “‘Hadn't noticed.”

Jin pouts theatrically. “You know what?” He yanks the basket of nachos away from Jungkook right as he reaches for another one. “Since I paid for these, I don't think you get to have any.”

 “You’re only doing this because you know I can’t kick your ass while I’m hungry,” Jungkook accuses, reaching for the chips again. 

“Excuses, excuses,” Jin sighs dramatically, but he relents all the same. 

They’re quiet while they eat, but it’s a comfortable silence, a brief armistice in their perpetual war of jokes and sarcasm. 

“For the next game, we should pick something we both suck at, so it’s fair,” Jungkook suggests when the basket of nachos is empty and resting in the bottom of a trash can. 

“Good point,” Jin hums. “I shouldn't kick your ass all night, it’s impoli- ooh, perfect!” Target acquired, Jin grabs Jungkook’s wrist and steers him towards the very front of the arcade, where the music is loudest and the crowds are the largest.

The end up in front of a bank of Dance Dance Revolution machines, and somehow Jungkook isn't even surprised. At least it fits the criteria he’d set.

Jungkook sucks at DDR. He knows he does. But Jungkook has also seen Jin attempt to dance before, so he’s fully aware that there’s absolutely no way Jin is any better than him. This can go either way, and honestly, Jungkook thinks he might win it. He has some stamina and coordination learnt on the streets that he can use to his advantage. Maybe. 

(That’s definitely not how this works, but hey, believing in yourself is the first step, right?)

Unsurprisingly, the DDR machines are mostly full, but there’s an open one right near the back corner of the arcade. Jungkook pushes Jin into going first, and leans against an out-of-order machine next to the working one they've commandeered to heckle while he waits his turn. The performance he’s about to see will either be tragically funny or just pain tragic, and Jungkook can’t wait either way. Jin isn’t going to hear the end of this for weeks . 

It begins innocently enough- Jin’s just slipping his tokens into the machine, not yet standing on the dance board, when someone else hops up onto the space. Wearing a ratty black jacket with the hood up, the man leers at Jin in a way that immediately sets Jungkook on edge. He seems vaguely familiar, too, but Jungkook can't think about that right now. Defusing this comes first before things get messy. 

“Hey, someone’s using that,” Jungkook says, careful to keep his voice even. 

“The fuck’s it to you, kid?” Jacket Guy snaps, taking a step forward to muscle into Jungkook’s space. He flinches, not used to rough street confrontations anymore, and the guy smirks. 

Jungkook takes a quick glance behind Jacket Guy to check on Jin and realizes he’s disappeared. Good. Jin’s height and his broad shoulders are intimidating at first glance, but Jungkook doesn’t think for a second that he could win a street fight against someone like this. 

“I don’t care, just lettin’ you know,” he replies, holds his hands up in surrender. “I don’t want a fight.” 

Jacket Guy jerks his head up and sneers, refusing to back down, and Jungkook finally realizes where he recognizes him from. If Jacket Guy ends up realizing the same thing Jungkook has, he’s fucked. He needs to find Jin and they need to leave. Now . 

“Should’ve thought about that before you butted in, then,” Jacket Guy snaps, face a little too close to Jungkook’s, and Jungkook catches a whiff of alcohol on his breath that makes dread curl in his gut. Alcohol makes the whole situation worse- if Jungkook doesn't get out of this fast, he might be getting punched into a DDR machine soon. Not a very enjoyable way to end his night. 

At least Jacket Guy shouldn’t recognize him- he doesn’t seem coherent enough to be thinking too hard. 

“At least let’s take this outside,” he offers, because it’d be stupid to not accept by this point that he’s getting beat up in the near future. The best he can do now is damage control. 

“Why?” Jacket Guy sneers. “Don’t want your boyfriend seein’ you get your ass kicked?” 

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Jungkook sighs, because the excuse doesn’t matter as long as he gets what he wants, and an ugly smile curls on Jacket Guy’s lips. 

“That’s what I thought, you fucking-” Jacket Guy begins, and Jungkook notices a figure coming up behind him, too fast to be on anything other than a collision course. 

The person slams into Jacket Guy before he can finish his sentence, and, with a practically audible splash, soda goes all over him from a cup in their hand, covering his whole body in sticky liquid. Sputtering, Jacket Guy whips around with murder in his eyes, ready to eviscerate the poor soul who dared to do such a thing-

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” Jin says with a tinkly little laugh that sounds nothing like his real one. In one hand, he’s gripping a soda cup so tightly the plastic is cracking. He reaches out and pats ineffectually at Jacket Guy’s now-soaked jacket. “Really, I couldn’t see you, it’s just so dark in this arcade-”

Jacket Guy takes a long look down at his ruined jacket, a longer one at Jin. “Watch it, asshole,” he snaps. He finally moves out of Jungkook’s space, and Jungkook partially collapses into the back bar of the broken DDR machine the second the attention is off of him, legs weak and unsteady in the absence of a threat. 

Trudging off to go clean himself up, Jacket Guy flips off Jin and Jungkook with a vengeance. Jin, the picture of a polite arcade-goer, smiles apologetically at him until he’s out of sight. The moment he is, though, Jin’s expression shifts to one of intense worry, and he rushes over to Jungkook. 

“Jungkook-ah, are you okay? Was I too late? The drink line was so long, I’m sorry,” he babbles, hands anxiously flitting around Jungkook’s body without ever touching it. The cup is now on the floor, soda dregs seeping into the hardwood. 

Jungkook smiles wide, relief and amusement and fierce affection for Jin bubbling up inside of him. “Hyung, that was amazing!” 

“Was it?” Jin asks, almost bashful. His hands have found Jungkook’s cheeks and are now cupping them delicately. “I just did the first thing I thought of to help.” 

“That was so damn smart, really,” Jungkook marvels. “You fixed everything and no one even got hurt.” It was also funny as hell to watch- Jin managed to both defuse the entire situation and casually ruin Jacket Guy’s night in the pettiest way possible. It was incredible. 

“I aspire to be as chaotic as you someday, hyung,” he adds, because it’s true and Jin deserves to hear it, and the other boy looks positively charmed, letting out a squeaky little giggle and going ever so slightly red. He’s beautiful. 

“We should probably move, in case that guy comes back,” Jungkook says, standing up fully on still-wobbly legs. After all of the tagging nights he’s been through one would think Jungkook would get better at handling the aftermath of near-death (dramatic, but that’s what it feels like sometimes) experiences, but his legs still feel rubbery and likely will for a while. Humming in quiet agreement and still looking a little flustered from his soda stunt, Jin falls into step beside him, and they walk. 

At some point while they move through the arcade, looking for more games to play, Jin totally stops dead. Jungkook somehow doesn’t notice at first -he’s going to chalk it up to being traumatized from the encounter with Jacket Guy- and ends up leaving him behind, which leads to a delightful two-minute panicked search for his hyung. 

Jin, it turns out, is standing near a pillar with prizes hanging off of it like a gaudy Christmas tree. Jungkook takes one look at it and instantly knows which prize he’s going for. 

“How many tickets is it, hyung?” Jungkook asks curiously, coming up behind him. 

Dejectedly, Jin turns to look at him. “Too many.” 

“For us? No way,” Jungkook replies. “We kick ass at games, we’ve got this.” They probably don't have this, in all honesty -Jungkook caught a glimpse at the price tag on the prize Jin is after, and it’s a lot of tickets- but they’ll have fun trying, right?

“I kick ass at games, you mean,” Jin corrects teasingly. “You’re good, but I’m better.” 

“Prove it then,” Jungkook grins, gestures at the arcade all around them. “Whoever gets the most tickets wins.”

“You’re on,” Jin says, and in a second he disappears. 

“Wait, hyung, what-” he begins, but Jin’s already been swallowed up by the crowd. 

So now he’s alone. “Well,” Jungkook sighs, decides to get started. “Let’s get it, I guess.” He glances around, spots an empty combat game, and decides that’s not a horrible place to start.

Ten minutes later, Jungkook has a long string of tickets in his possession and a new high score on the game’s leaderboard, and he hums happily as he glances around for something else to beat. Jin is going down . 

They end up meeting back up again by accident an indeterminable amount of time later. Jungkook has accumulated far too many tickets to hold his hands, so he’s been looping the strands around his neck like a massive, frizzy necklace. Jin seems to be in the same boat in terms of ticket numbers, but rather than wearing his, Jin is storing them in an overflowing plastic grocery bag he’s picked up from- somewhere. The label on the bag isn’t even in Korean. 

“You look like a lion,” Jin jokes when he catches sight of Jungkook, brushing a hand over one of the shorter ticket strands. Unsteadily balanced on his neck, it flutters to the floor. Jungkook glares at Jin playfully. “You’re picking that up.” 

“I’m counting it as mine, then,” Jin says, stuffing it into his bag. 

“I don’t need it, I’ve still got more tickets than you,” Jungkook replies. 

“Suuure you do,” Jin hums. “Let’s confirm that, shall we?” 

They make their way over to the two  ticket counters in the arcade, waiting for a couple to finish totalling their tickets (it ends up being less than a hundred, which is sad in Jungkook’s opinion). When they’re done, they turn around and look at Jungkook and Jin’s haul with matching expressions of shock. 

The girl glances down at the receipt in her hands before looking back at them with an expression of utmost jealousy. Jin smiles pleasantly at her. As the couple leaves, Jungkook hears the girl mutter, “why can’t we win things on our dates like they do?” to her boyfriend, and he catches Jin’s eye and snickers. 

“Don't be mean to the arcade-game-challenged,” Jin admonishes, but he’s laughing too as he puts his first tickets into his machine. 

After a few minutes, there’s a queue forming behind them as they gleefully feed their tickets into the counters, occasionally shooting glances behind them to revel in the jealous stares of the other arcade-goers. At some point, Jin’s hand found his, and they’re now moving as one. 

It takes a stupidly long time for them to total up all of their tickets. After a while, the line behind them even ends up clearing up as people get so frustrated by the wait that they leave altogether. The final amount the machines give them as they wait patiently for them to spit out their receipts is so high Jungkook has to do a double take. 

“Did we really-” he begins, and then realizes that if anyone could get a ticket number that high, it’s the two of them. Jin fuels Jungkook's competitive streak like nothing else, and he loves it. 

“Yep!” Jin cheers, snatching up the receipt and dragging Jungkook over to the pillar from earlier by their linked hands. 

Jungkook has been holding hands with a lot of pretty, wonderful boys lately, and every time it happens he feels like he’s in heaven and about to combust all at once. It’s strange. Maybe Jungkook will have to hold everyone’s hands even more so he can try and understand the phenomenon further. It’ll be for science, of course. No other reason. 

Jin finally lets go of Jungkook’s hand when they reach the prize pillar, and he gleefully reaches up to the top and unhooks a giant novelty Toad plushie. 

The thing is a solid meter tall and Jin looks at it like he’s found the love of his life. “What should we name it?” Jin asks excitedly, holding the plushie like one would a baby. 

“Toad, maybe?” Jungkook deadpans, trying to ignore how cute Jin’s being. It’s not really working. 

“That’s a horrible suggestion,” Jin tells him. “How about...Mario?” 

Jungkook opens his mouth and closes it. 

“If that’s what makes you happy,” he says slowly. 

Intertwining their fingers again, Jin grins. “Damn straight it does, now let’s go buy it!” 

A quick walk through the arcade later, Jin slams their ticket receipts down in front of the prize counter attendant like they’re winning lottery tickets. She doesn’t even blink. “What would you like, sirs?” she asks, voice so entirely free of inflection it’s a little scary. Jin heaves the Toad plushie up onto the counter, and that does startle a reaction out of her. 

“Sirs, that’s fifteen thousand tickets, you don’t have that many-”

“You’re right,” Jin tells her coolly. “We have seventeen thousand.” 

The poor attendant stares at their receipts for a long moment, like she can’t quite process the numbers written on them, and then turns back to them, eyes wide. “Somehow,” she mutters, then raises her voice to a normal volume. “You have two thousand tickets left over. Is there anything else you’d like to exchange for today?” 

As if on cue, Jungkook grins and slaps a fake flower crown onto the counter. It’s obviously plastic and rather cheaply made, but the fabric roses on it are a pretty shade of light blue Jungkook thinks would look fantastic on Namjoon. “This, please!” he chirps. 

Jin glances at the crown with interest. “Who’s that for?” 

“Namjoon-hyung, I was thinking,” he says, suddenly a little bashful. “The colors would look good on everyone, though, so maybe you could share it?”

“That’s a cute idea,” Jin compliments, picking up the crown and dropping it on Jungkook’s head. 

“You haven’t paid for-” the attendant starts, then sighs. “Oh, whatever.” She stuffs the Toad plush into a trash bag she’s magically acquired and hands it back to them. “It’s yours, have a good night.” 

“Thank you,” Jin says politely, grabbing the bag. Jungkook intertwines their fingers and carefully adjusts his flower crown, and they head toward the exit of arcade, heads held high like royalty. 

Out on the street, painted silver by the moonlight, the night air is pleasantly cool compared to the heat of all of the bodies in the arcade.  

“So,” Jungkook says as they walk, “Did my gaming meet your expectations?”

“Surpassed them,” Jin hums, waving the trash bag with Mario in it around a bit to emphasize his point. “You should come with me every time I do this.”

Jungkook grins. Another quiet hope of his come true. His world is so full now, with the six of them by his side, that it feels almost like a dream. “I’m down for it if you’re fine with losing every week.” 

"Speaking of which, who ended up with the most tickets?” Jin asks. They’d somehow forgotten to check in their excitement over obtaining Mario. 

Jungkook fishes the receipts out of the pocket of his jacket and examines them. 

“I won,” he says quickly, and moves to stuff them back into his pocket. 

“Wha- no you didn’t, let me see them.” Jin reaches for the receipts, and there’s a brief struggle that ends with Jin’s face closer to his than what’s generally considered an appropriate distance and Jungkook backed up against a streetlamp, face burning red. Unsurprisingly, he ends up letting go of the receipts. 

Jin doesn’t bother to move while he looks them over, and Jungkook has never prayed that someone’s a fast reader before, but that’s what he’s currently doing. 

“We tied,” Jin finally says, continuing to stare at the papers in his hands like maybe the numbers will change if he looks long enough. 

“I’m sure I’ll beat you next week,” Jungkook says, ducking under Jin’s arms to free himself from his lamppost prison. 

“As if,” Jin scoffs, tucking the receipts in his own pocket.  “You’re getting demolished next time we go.” 

“I get to pick the prize, though.” 

“That’s fine. The only prize I need is destroying you.”

“You won’t be doing that next time, trust me.” 

They both walk into the train that night like they’ve returned from winning a war, and Jungkook feels warm all over at the smile Jin offers him. 

“Next week, same time?” he asks. 

“You’re on.”  

Chapter Text

Jungkook is no stranger to crime. Petty crime, of course -he’s no gang member or murderer- but general delinquency and living on the streets have always gone hand in hand for him. 

Recently, though, he’s been much more of a law-abiding citizen than usual, because he doesn't have to steal to eat or loiter in places he shouldn't for safety anymore. The extent of Jungkook’s criminal activities has now shrunk down to just tagging, and you won’t catch him complaining about that. Living without the constant fear of arrest hanging over his head is a luxury Jungkook very much appreciates. 

Yet here he is in a gas station convenience store, refusing that luxury, backpack in hand and surreptitiously shoving bags of chips into it when he’s sure there’s no suspicious eyes on him. This is probably one of the easier robberies he’s done, thankfully, because the gas station’s cashier is nowhere to be found, and the only other customer in the small store with him is a teenage girl who, judging from the shifty look in her eyes and excessively large handbag she's carrying, is here to do the exact same thing he is. 

But while the girl goes straight for the alcohol section and starts stuffing her bag, Jungkook moves slowly and deliberately through the aisles of cheap food, picking out specific items and organizing them in his backpack with care so nothing gets crushed. The food he’s stealing needs to look, well, not stolen. 

Jungkook’s successfully pilfered everything on his list except for drinks when he hears slight humming -it sounds familiar, oddly enough, are they humming a song he knows?- from the checkout counter and curses under his breath. The cashier is back from their break, which makes his escape ten times harder. 

He strategically hides behind a rack of sunglasses -even puts on a pair, because you can never be too careful-  and peeks over the top to glance at the cashier, trying to get a read on what he’s dealing with. 

Their back is turned to him at first, and Jungkook is briefly lulled into a false sense of security- the cashier isn’t particularly intimidating, and if Jungkook really tries he’ll most likely be able to outrun them if necessary. But then they turn around, and Jungkook ducks behind the rack of sunglasses with a clatter, hissing a variety of much stronger curse words that are suddenly much more befitting of the situation. 

The cashier is Hoseok . 

This is the ultimate nightmare scenario, because Hoseok is nice . Nice people turn shoplifters into the cops upon catching them rather than letting them go because it’s the right thing to do. Nice people care about things like morality and justice. Compounded with the fact that Hoseok wasn’t supposed to ever find out about Jungkook’s plan, this could not get any worse. 

See, Jungkook has a reason for being here, shoplifting from a gas station that one of his friends is apparently working at, and it’s a good one. 

In the train, it’s a generally accepted rule that everyone takes turns going grocery shopping, rotating through age order because it's easiest. It keeps the chore distribution even and everyone takes turns paying, so expenses are kept even too. 

Jungkook, though, is exempt from this system. At first it didn’t bother him, because hey, free food, but now, after spending so much time in the train and eating so many of his meals there, he feels terrible taking so much and never paying any of it back. He wants to contribute somehow, but getting a job is difficult, if not impossible, without an address or a phone. 

So Jungkook is stuck wanting to help out and without any money to help out with. And in the capitalist system he unfortunately lives in, that’s kind of a necessity. 

That leaves Jungkook with one option: stealing. And he’s stolen plenty in the past- that’s where most of his meals used to come from. 

So he’d memorized their collective grocery list overnight, purposefully picked a gas station a good distance from the railyard so he wouldn’t be recognized (that worked out well, hadn’t it?) and gone shopping. 

And now he’s going to get arrested for it. 

The rational part of Jungkook’s brain -oddly, it sounds a lot like Yoongi-  reminds him that Hoseok is his friend, and that he trusts and likes Jungkook, and there’s a good chance Hoseok will let him go whether it goes against his morals or not. 

But that’s the last thing Jungkook wants, honestly- Hoseok will definitely get in trouble and probably fired for letting a shoplifter escape, or maybe even incriminated as Jungkook’s accomplice, and he’ll take whatever punishment comes his way to spare Hoseok from that. 

He’s still got a chance, though. If he can grab everything else on his list and make a run for it, he might be able to escape with both his plan and dignity intact. He’s good enough at stealing that this shouldn’t be too hard to pull off. Slipping off the sunglasses, he moves deeper into the store to pick up the last couple of things he needs and hopes for a miracle. 

But luck is not with Jungkook on that day, and when he’s putting a few bottles of iced coffee into his bag -for Hoseok, ironically enough- he hears footsteps behind him and freezes. Shit.  

“Sir, please put down the bag or I’ll call the co- Jungkook ?” 

Jungkook has never heard Hoseok’s voice hit a pitch that high before. Huh. 

“Hi, hyung,” he says sheepishly, edging towards the door. Running won’t fix anything -Hoseok quite literally knows where he lives- but it’ll give him time to think of an excuse, at least, which he desperately needs. 

Hoseok, however, isn’t stupid, so he shifts to stand in front of the door, meaning Jungkook would have to shove him aside in order to leave. Jungkook isn’t going to do that, would never hurt his friend, and Hoseok knows it. 

Raising his hands in the air like he’s being arrested, Jungkook sighs and accepts defeat. “What do you have to do to me?” 

“What are you doing here?” Hoseok asks, still looking Jungkook over like he’s a particularly vivid hallucination. “We have food at home, why are you stealing?”

Jungkook stares resolutely at the floor, unable to meet Hoseok’s eyes. “Can we not talk about this now?” he pleads. “Just do whatever you have to do.” 

“Are you-” Hoseok gasps. “Are you leaving us?”

Jungkook snaps his gaze back up to the brunette, who looks positively distraught. “What? No! Just- Can we talk about this when you haven’t caught me committing a crime? Please?” 

The bell on the door tinkles behind them, and Jungkook watches the teenage girl discreetly slip out of the store. Hoseok doesn’t turn around. 

“I don’t even- I saw you this morning, why are you even here?” 

“Why are you here?” Jungkook asks right back. “I thought you worked at that dance studio?” 

He might be five minutes away from being arrested, but the first thing that pops up into his mind is a pang of worry at the thought of Hoseok working another job. He already comes home so tired from the dance studio every day- a second job would be way too much for him. 

“I’m covering a shift for Namjoon-ah,” Hoseok explains, voice still very distant. “He has a class today.” 

That doesn’t sound like something either of them should be allowed to do, but Jungkook of all people certainly can’t talk about right or wrong at the moment. 

“I’m gonna call him,” Hoseok says slowly, almost to himself. “He’ll tell me what to do.” 

Jungkook very nearly opens his mouth and suggests that he calls the cops instead, because that’s the default protocol for shoplifters, even when they are your friends, but his self-preservation instincts remind him that might not be the smartest idea, so he keeps quiet. 

“Uh, just go- wait in the back room, I guess?” Poor Hoseok looks lost. “You’re not gonna run away, right?”

“We practically live together, what good would running do?” Jungkook points out as he obediently slips behind the counter and opens the door to the back room. “Tell Namjoon I say hi?”

Hoseok chokes on a startled laugh. “Yeah, of course.” 

~0~0~0~

Sitting in the back room of a shitty convenience store where there’s no AC, waiting to face Hoseok’s inevitable disappointment, Jungkook wonders if this what hell is like. It’s certainly hot enough. 

Everything had been going so well lately, too- nothing truly bad had happened to Jungkook for just long enough that he was starting to think maybe his life really was beginning to turn around. Like he had a shot at not being alone and destitute for the rest of his miserable existence. 

And then he had to go and mess it all up, all because he wanted to help. Could he be any dumber?

Jungkook lets out a sigh that's uncomfortably close to a sob and buries his face in his hands, staring at the door in trepidation through the gaps in his fingers. 

After what feels like an eternity with nothing but his miserable thoughts for company, the door swings open with a sad little creak to reveal Hoseok, expression unreadable. Jungkook lets his hands fall into his lap, twisting them tgether nervously.

Well, best to talk first and get it over with, right? No sense in delaying the inevitable. 

“So,” Jungkook says conversationally, like he’s not already planning strategies to survive in prison, “when are the cops gonna get here?” 

“Why’d you call the cops?” Hoseok asks, suddenly looking very uncomfortable. 

“I didn’t?” Jungkook tilts his head in confusion. “That’s what you’re supposed to do.” 

Hoseok looks at Jungkook like he’s grown another head or just revealed he’s secretly a K-Pop idol. “Why on earth would I do that?”

Jungkook stares right back. “Because that’s the morally correct thing to do?”

Hoseok scoffs. “Four of my bo-best friends go out and break the law on a weekly basis. I spend ninety percent of my time in an abandoned train and I’ve busted Jimin-ah out of jail once-”

“-Wait, you what -”

“-And you think I’d turn you over to the cops just because it’s moral?” Hoseok actually laughs a little. “Please.” 

“But you’re so,” Jungkook gestures at him helplessly, “Nice, and sunshiney. The last time I told you I was sad you hugged me for an entire hour until I said I felt better. No offense, but you’re the last person I’d ever expect to aid and abet crime, much less commit it.” 

“Jimin-ah’s nice too,” Hoseok points out, hopping up onto the desk and perching there with an amused grin. He seems almost proud that Jungkook is so floored by all of this. “So’s Tae-yah. And Namjoon-ah. And Jin-hyung. And Yoongi-hyung. Being ‘nice’ doesn’t mean anything.” 

“Jimin-hyung is terrifying,” Jungkook counters. “Everyone else is nice, yeah, but not in the ‘I’m an upstanding citizen’ way you are.” 

“And you’re just as nice,” Hoseok adds lightly, before his tone slips into something a little more serious. “So why are you out stealing?”

He frowns for a moment, looking almost physically pained by what he says next. “If you want to leave, we won’t stop you, just- can you tell me why? We thought you were happy with us, and we just want to understand-”

“No!” 

Both Hoseok and Jungkook wince at the volume of his shout- and, in Jungkook’s case, at the sheer desperation in his voice. 

Suddenly feeling very small and awkward, he waves his hands around in a panic. “I promise I don’t want to leave- I really love living with you. I’ll stay for as long as you’ll have me.”

“Okay,” Hoseok says slowly, though there’s an affectionate smile creeping across his face. “So why are you here, then? If you want something we don’t have at home, anyone would be happy to buy it for you.”

Jungkook is quiet for a long moment, embarrassment weighing down on him and refusing to allow him to speak. “I-” he begins, far too quiet, and coughs awkwardly. “I wanted to help out.”

“With what?” Hoseok asks. 

Jungkook stares resolutely at the dirty stone floor of the back room, unwilling to meet Hoseok’s gaze. He’s sure his cheeks are dusted red. “I want to contribute to stuff around the train. You guys never make me pay for groceries or anything, which is really nice of you, but I don’t want to just take up space and food from you guys and never pay anything back.”

He waves a hand towards the door. “And stealing is the easiest way to get groceries, so.”

He sneaks a glance up at Hoseok to find that he's looking at Jungkook with an expression of utmost affection, utterly charmed. Jungkook glances away and flushes even brighter. 

“Aww, Jungkook-ah,” he coos, “that’s so sweet.” He jumps down from the table and sweeps Jungkook up in a hug that he cautiously returns. 

"You're not- mad, are you?" It's a bit of a silly question, but Jungkook wants to be absolutely sure. 

Hoseok's eyes widen, like he hadn't even considered the thought, and he shakes his head rapidly. "Of course not! Just don't do it again, okay? We can find a better way to let you contribute around the train than doing something as dangerous as stealing."

That's a promise Jungkook is more than happy to make. "Okay."

“And I can make sure you won't get in truble for today, I think,” Hoseok says. “Namjoon-ah gave me some good advice about what to do.”

A pause. “Oh! Right. He said hi back, by the way. And he wants to know if you’re up for tagging tonight and on Thursday.”

Jungkook lets out a suprised laugh that quickly loosens into something deeply, impossibly relieved. Nothing’s changed between them. Honestly, he should’ve known. It’s all too easy to go with his gut instinct, to let his fear of abandonment and betrayal run wild in his mind whenever the slightest thing happens, but, whether they mean to or not, the six of them always manage to bring him back. 

“Tell him I’ll be there,” Jungkook says, smiling. 

“I’ll let him know as soon as I finish up,” Hoseok promises, breezing out the door. 

Alone again in the small room, Jungkook takes a second to just relax, letting all of the tension bleed out from his shoulders. He's okay. The seven of them are okay. Everything will be alright. 

Hoseok’s phone buzzes from where he’d left it on a side table, and Jungkook glances at it on instinct. The lockscreen is the picture Hoseok had taken of him and Taehyung sleeping next to each other all those weeks ago. 

Something in Jungkook’s heart softens and turns to putty. 

He’s really, truly lucky, isn’t he?

The door swings open again, letting out a squeak so loud Jungkook can’t help but wince, to reveal Hoseok with a sly grin on his lips. 

“There was some freak electrical glitch that messed with the camera systems,” Hoseok tells him nonchalantly. “I’d have fixed it, but since I don’t work here I don’t know how to deal with any of that stuff.”

Jungkook blinks at him for a second. “A real shame,” he replies. “Guess we’ll never know what happened while they were out.”

“Nothing important, I’m sure,” Hoseok adds. 

They just grin at each other for a second, biting back laughter. 

"I'll put the stuff I took back," Jungkook offers, starting to stand up. Hoseok has definitely left the store unattended for much longer than he should've. 

Hoseok waves a hand. "It's fine, I'll take care of it."

He looks at Jungkook with a smile that feels like summer sunshine, holds the door open for him as they step into the -thankfully empty- store. "My shift ends in three hours," Hoseok continues, and Jungkook glances at him curiously. 

"We do still need to go shopping for the week, so do you want to come with me? I hate doing it by myself."

Jungkook can't help but laugh. "I'd love to."

Chapter Text

“I got hit on today,” Hoseok announces casually, with the air of one discussing the weather. 

At his nonchalant words, everything in the train grinds to an utter halt. Jungkook isn't even sure anyone breathes . He knows he’s not. There’s some odd, inexplicable panic racing through him at the thought of Hoseok getting hit on, and he really doesn’t like the implications of feeling that way. The silence is equally disconcerting- Jungkook has no idea how everyone else is going to react, but the sheer quiet is scarier than anything they could possibly say or do. 

Then Jimin starts laughing. Jungkook stares at him, wide-eyed, and everyone else starts doing the same all around him. Hoseok is cackling loudest of all, slumped against the nearest person -Jin- and expression radiating pure amusement. 

Jungkook is very, very confused. What’s so funny about Hoseok being hit on? He’s gorgeous enough that it has to happen all the time. 

“Who was it?” Yoongi asks as he catches his breath.  

Hoseok’s expression shifts to something more sympathetic. “A girl in one of my classes. She’s really good, and I guess she took my compliments as more than I meant them.”

Jimin winces. “Ah, that’s rough for her.” Everyone else nods empathetically, and if Jungkook was confused before, he's now utterly lost. Is Hoseok- already dating someone, maybe? That’s the only logical conclusion he can draw, but Hoseok’s never mentioned anyone before. Maybe he’s just private about that sort of thing, trying to keep his friends and significant other separate until he’s sure enough about them to bring them to the train?

“-Kook-ah, you okay?” It’s Hoseok, because of course it is, waving a hand in front of Jungkook’s face. When he succeeds in getting Jungkook’s attention, his expression softens into something like concern. “Is something wrong? You look upset.” 

Jungkook offers a smile he hopes doesn’t look as incredibly plastic as it feels and shakes his head. “I’m fine, hyung.”

He’s not, though, and he’s not sure why. Something inside of him has snapped and rebelled at even the remote possibility of Hoseok dating someone, but that doesn't make any sense . There’s no reason for him to feel that way. Hoseok has never once ignored or abandoned him for a possible significant other, never made him feel slighted or replaced. Hoseok is like sunshine; he’s a wonderful person and friend, someone Jungkook is incredibly glad to be able to know. He should be overjoyed that Hoseok has someone who will give him the love he so completely deserves. 

So why, why , does his stomach twist the way it does when he imagines Hobi going out with, hugging, kissing some nameless person outside of the six of them?

“I’m going out,” he decides, because even the train, his solace, has suddenly become choking. He grabs his jacket from where it’s draped on the couch, mutters a quick apology to Jimin when the redhead has to move from where he’s resting his face against the jacket’s colorful fabric so he can take it, and leaves without another word. No one tries to stop him, and he’s not sure if that makes him feel better or worse. 

Jungkook walks without purpose for a while and eventually ends up on top of a half-finished store of some sort, legs dangling off the edge of the concrete roof. It’s a cooler day than it’s been in a while- a sign summer is slowly reaching its end. He’s not sure what he’ll do for the winter- maybe move into the train full time, if they’ll let him. It’d certainly be a lot warmer than anywhere else he could hole up. In years past, every day had been a battle against frostbite, a fight he’d come uncomfortably close to losing all too many times. 

Jungkook tries his best to think about things that don't involve the six boys in the train that he cares about more than anything else in the world -and since when had that feeling crept up on him?- and manages for all of five minutes until he realizes that they’re all he has to think about. So, as unpleasant as it may be, he decides to try and figure out just what the hell is wrong with him. 

The thing is, Jungkook really, really likes them. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he likes them more than anyone he’s ever known before, both individually and as a unit. Despite only knowing them for a scant couple of months, he sometimes feels like they’ve been together for years, laughing and doing dumb things and caring for each other in their train. 

There’s Namjoon, who’s by far the smartest person Jungkook’s ever met but who somehow never manages to make anyone feel dumb with his intellect. Every time Jungkook looks up at the night sky, now, he hears Namjoon talking about stars and galaxies and the universe, hears him spin poetry and stories more beautiful than most books without even trying, and the heavens don't seem so cold and distant anymore. He’s beautiful, too, in a way that hits Jungkook like a punch in the gut when he least expects it. 

Hoseok’s smile outshines the sun at its brightest without even trying. He’s energy and affection and life in the most beautiful way possible. They’ve made a routine out of grocery shopping together, and whenever someone asks about it, all they do is look at each other and laugh. Hoseok’s kindness can never possibly be overstated, but he’s got an admirable backbone, too, a contradiction that never ceases to impress Jungkook. 

Jimin is still as ethereal as he’s ever been, but Jungkook now thinks he’s prettiest when he’s falling over from laughing too hard, or when he’s teasing Jin with the kind of smile on his face people would fight wars for. He’s graceful and talented and funny and wonderful and Jungkook should be too jealous to even think around him, but all he ever actually wants to do is tease him until he’s cackling so loud the sound rings through the train like church bells. 

Taehyung is impossible to describe in a way that captures him in his complex, gorgeous entirety. They go tagging every week now, Jungkook and Taehyung and Namjoon, and he’s never once gone more than ten minutes without holding at least one of their hands during an excursion. Taehyung has the whole universe caught up in his eyes and his smile is as beautiful as the rising moon and Jungkook goes weak in the knees every time they meet gazes for too long.

Jin is beautiful and a little too loud and has a laugh that sounds like windshield wipers, and Jungkook has never been so utterly charmed by someone in his life. He’s got the kind of passion and charisma and wit Jungkook could only dream of having, and just talking to him for ten minutes can be enough to make Jungkook’s entire day. They’re still tied in terms of total arcade tickets won -well, he’s about fifty behind, but he’ll make that up next week for sure- but Jungkook would gladly lose on every outing they have for the rest of his life if it would bring a smile to Jin's face. 

Yoongi is like a lion, until he’s not, and then he’s a kitten. He’s gruff and sarcastic but he cares so, so much for the six of them in a way that leaves Jungkook in awe sometimes. Jungkook dreams of the way he plays the piano, the haunting, ethereal music he produces so easily it’s like he was made for it, the way he smiles when Jungkook tries something new in their weekly lessons and gets it right on the first try-

Oh. Oh.

He likes them. 

(Loves them, more accurately, but that’s too scary of a thought to even consider.) 

It’s such an obvious realization that Jungkook suddenly feels incredibly stupid for not having realized it before. 

Jungkook briefly attempts to headdesk, because it feels like the appropriate thing to do in such a situation, before realizing that, hey, if he leans too far forward he’ll fall off the building and die, and that’s not really how he wants to go out after having such an important epiphany.

That’s when it hits him properly that he likes them. Six people. Doesn’t that mean he has to choose? Jungkook tries to imagine picking one of them, confessing to one of them, dating one of them and no one else. It doesn’t work- he can’t picture their dynamic changing like that. They’re seven, not two or four or five. 

He decides after a moment of contemplation that he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it, and hops down off of the building ledge. Right now, he needs to go back to the train and apologize to Hoseok. Then he’ll figure out how to confess. 

The walk back is quick, and when Jungkook arrives back home, he doesn’t knock; he doesn’t want to disturb the peace. Instead, he slips back in through the door, making extra effort to be quiet. Jungkook isn’t sure why he feels the need to be so sneaky, but some inexplicable pull in his gut seems insistent that too loud would be a mistake. Tiptoeing through the first car, he sticks his head around the threshold of the main car to see who’s inside.

Jungkook hadn’t really expected to see anything out of the ordinary when he’d glanced into the room. Jimin and Jin curled up next to each other reading, maybe. Taehyung eating leftover takeout and laughing at some dumb story of Hoseok’s. Yoongi napping and Namjoon writing on his phone while they share earbuds. He’s seen all of these before, and pretty much any other combination of the six of them and their various hobbies one could think of. 

One thing he has not seen, and literally never expected to see, however, was Hoseok and Yoongi kissing on the couch. 

Jungkook is fairly sure his brain goes through the human equivalent of a Windows blue screen. 

He may have even blacked out for a few seconds, because he ends up sitting on the ground and slumped against the wall, hand clapped over his mouth to stay quiet, with absolutely no recollection of doing either of those things. 

The first coherent thought he has is that explains a lot , followed by a wait, no it doesn’t , because two of his best friends are dating, and he had no idea . 

It’s like a little going through some messed up version of the stages of grief- first comes shock and confusion, then the jealousy hits Jungkook like a bus. 

He’s not even sure what specifically he’s jealous of, so it manifests in a very strong urge to scream that he’s only just able to repress. He’s- too late? Actually has a chance? A step closer to achieving his master plan? Jungkook has no idea. He’s not sure he’s ever felt this many conflicting emotions at once before. 

“Really? Without me?” A new voice says, and Jungkook can’t help it- he glances around through the entrance again from where he’s sitting. 

Taehyung is standing there,  the faintest lilt of a grin on his lips as he stands in front of the couple on the cough. Hoseok laughs and, as Jungkook watches, he hops up off the couch and moves to kiss him. One of his hands remains tangled in Yoongi’s the whole time. 

Jungkook has aged about thirty years in the span of five minutes, he's sure. He normally prides himself on his ability to think on his feet, to adapt to new things quickly, but that clearly can’t be true, because he's so utterly thrown by what he’s just seen that it’s like the very earth has fallen out from under him. 

Still, though, beneath all of the confusion and shock, there’s something a little like hope forming. Three of them are dating- who’s to say it can't be more? The six of them could be together, even, and then Jungkook wouldn't even have to bother choosing. 

But they'd have to choose him, Jungkook realizes, and the uncertainty is suddenly back in full force. It’s getting easier and easier to forget that he’s the odd one out in their group with every day that passes, but in the end, whatever relationship they have has likely existed for far longer than he has in their lives.

Jungkook takes a deep breath and releases it, tries to steady himself. He can’t stay out here forever. For now, at least, he has to pretend everything’s normal, even if his mind is still reeling and there are so many emotions screaming in his head all at once that it’s almost too much to bear. 

He waits until he’s sure they aren’t kissing to walk in. 

Taehyung has disappeared, presumably having gone deeper into the train, leaving Jungkook with only Yoongi and Hoseok to face. 

“Oh, Jungkook-ah!” Hoseok smiles, waving from the couch. “Welcome back!” 

“Are you feeling any better?” Yoongi asks. 

Jungkook is decidedly not feeling better, but he nods and smiles anyway. Yoongi and Hoseok shift over so he can sit between them on the couch, and he stares blankly at the space for a moment, caught up in memories of them kissing in that very spot. He decides to sit on a beanbag chair instead, glancing away when he meets their eyes and finds twin expressions of hurt. 

How many other times has he missed them kissing? What else has he not seen? How could he have never noticed before? It feels like something in the outside world should be different to reflect the way he’s feeling- the sky should be red instead of blue or it should be snowing in summer, just to reflect the monumental change Jungkook’s been through today. He knows he’s doing a terrible job of pretending nothing’s different, knows this is probably why they hadn’t told him in the first place-

And god, that hurts worst of all. Jungkook cares for each of them so much it’s stupid, tries his best to show it constantly, and they still thought he wasn't trustworthy enough to share such an important piece of information with. 

“Jungkook-ah?” Hoseok asks, voice tentative in a way it almost never is. “Did we do something wrong?” he shoots a subtle glance at Yoongi that’s pure worry, but then his gaze is back on Jungkook, nervous and uncertain and above all else sad, and it breaks Jungkook’s heart. 

“No, no, it’s not you,” he lies, a little too quick to be believable. “I promise. It’s just me being stupid.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Yoongi offers, and Jungkook watches as he not-so-discreetly moves to hold Hoseok’s hand. Hoseok offers him a watery smile, expression full of palpable affection. 

...On second thought, Jungkook realizes, maybe they hadn’t been hiding anything from him in the first place. Maybe Jungkook was just too starstruck (read: blind) to notice that the six of them had a relationship closer than what could be considered strictly platonic. 

“It’s nothing,” Jungkook says, shaking his head. “Just- if something was going on, you’d tell me, right?” He hates the way his voice lilts at the end in uncertainty.

The look Yoongi and Hoseok exchange this time is full of visible confusion. “Nothing’s going on, but of course we would,” Yoongi says slowly. “You’re a part of this household as much as much as any of us. You’re here more often than Jin-hyung these days.” 

“We wouldn’t keep anything from you, Kook-ah,” Hoseok adds, and he sounds so genuine, so believable. “We’re friends.”

Jungkook can’t help but crack a pleased smile at that. “Thanks, hyungs,” he says. Their responses confirm it for him- there has to be another reason behind them not telling him they were dating. Hoseok, who buys him snacks whenever he so much as casually mentions being hungry and gives him forehead kisses that make his heart sing every night before he goes to bed, wouldn’t lie to him. Not about this. And besides, Yoongi is quite possibly the world’s worst liar. He wouldn’t be able to hide something like this, not with all of the time they spend together. 

Jungkook just being blind is looking more and more like the only logical possibility. 

“Saying ‘you’re one of us’ makes us sound like we’re a cult,” Taehyung remarks, slipping back into the room. Collapsing next to Hoseok on the couch, he immediately rests his head on the brunette’s shoulder and regards Jungkook curiously. “Why are you all the way over there?” he asks. “There’s room on the couch.” 

With an offer like that, how can Jungkook refuse? Dutifully getting up and joining his friends- family? Crushes? Loves?- on the couch, he accepts how gone he is for them, leans against Yoongi, and gets comfortable. Hoseok and Yoongi’s joined hands are now resting on his lap. 

“So, how’s working at the boba place?” Hoseok asks Taehyung after a moment, and the vaguely uncomfortable silence left over from Jungkook’s questions is filled as he immediately launches into a story about a middle-aged lady who ordered tea without bubbles and then threatened to sue when she realized her tea didn't have any. Jungkook’s heard this story before -he and Taehyung always pass by the boba shop when they go tagging, and Taehyung physically cannot walk past it without telling at least one horrible customer story that has Jungkook laughing so hard he sometimes forgets to breathe- so he watches the three of them talk and nods along when they do, trying to pick up on the hints he missed before. 

There’s not many, actually, which slightly assuages Jungkook’s damaged pride. Other than the hand-holding, which is literally constant, they just seem like exceptionally close friends. Or at least what Jungkook assumes close friends act like, considering he’s never really had any before this. 

It’s only when Hoseok laughs big and loud at something Yoongi says, head falling back and eyes slipping shut in mirth, that Jungkook notices any real sign of anything about their dynamic being non-platonic. It’s in the way Yoongi looks at him- soft, affection practically bleeding from his gaze, and in the way his smile widens and gets almost dopey as he watches Hoseok cackle in an emotion that can only be described as smitten . 

It’s not something Jungkook would notice were he not actively looking for it, but now that he is, it’s plain as day that they all love each other with an intense devotion he’s just beginning to pick up on. 

The sound of footsteps comes from deeper in the train, and as Jungkook glances up he catches sight of Jimin and Namjoon entering the main car. They’re are surreptitiously holding hands, trying their best to block their intertwined fingers from view with their bodies, and doing a truly terrible job of staying subtle. Jungkook pretends he doesn’t notice, but his mind is singing two more, two more so loud he can barely hear anything else. 

He has a chance, maybe. At the very least, he knows now that the six of them all have to be dating. Jin isn’t here, of course, but Jungkook seriously doubts he'd be left out of whatever it is they have with each other. 

Jimin immediately moves to collapse into his lap, and Jungkook accepts the weight without complaint, arms coming up to circle around his waist. It’s instinct at this point, reinforced by weeks of this exact thing happening just about every time they end up on the couch together, and by now the contact has become almost an expectation that comes with Jimin’s presence. 

Then Jungkook remembers he’s in lov- likes him, and suddenly he feels more awkward around Jimin than he has since they've met. Their relationship has always flowed well, a product of their easy, shared affection and ability to cheerfully banter with one another for just about forever, but now- now even just touching feels strange. Like it shouldn’t be allowed, not when Jimin has five boyfriends and Jungkook isn’t one of them. 

He knows logically that it’s all in his head, that nothing in their dynamic will change unless he wants it to, but dammit, the knowledge is killing him. Everything feels different- tense, almost, like the world is holding its breath and waiting for something to happen. 

He’s not sure what possesses him to open his mouth- stupidity, probably, or some foolish blend of desperation and fragile hope. He’s been through too much in the past half hour to think things through with any degree of rationality. 

“Hyungs,” he begins carefully, eyes trained on Yoongi and Hoseok’s intertwined hands in front of him. He pauses for a moment, realizes he has no idea what to say. I kind of fell for all of you just because you’re nice to me, sorry about that! 

After a moment Jungkook tries to speak again, the words on the tip of his tongue- and nothing comes out. Something about their smiles, so honest and trusting and affectionate, is suddenly terrifying. He can’t lose that if his feelings aren’t reciprocated. Jungkook has accepted so much from them already- he should be glad he has their friendship, instead of wanting anything more. 

“It’s not important,” Jungkook says, smiling brightly at them to disguise the lie. 

They smile back easily and shower him with “that’s okay!”s and “take your time!” Namjoon stares at him with that scrutinizing look of his, clearly doesn’t believe him, but he smiles comfortingly too and lets the issue drop. 

He’ll tell them. Just- not yet. Later, when he’s really ready, when he’s had time to rehearse what he’s going to say. When he’s less afraid of the rejection that’s so likely to come. 

He’ll just have to act like nothing's wrong in the meantime. If there’s one thing Jungkook is good at, it’s repression- what’s one more pointless emotion swept under the rug? 

Jimin turns then to smile at him, eyes crinkling up, and Jungkook realizes this is going to be a whole lot harder than he thought. 

Chapter Text

Everything comes to a head one late summer afternoon, when their smiles outshine the sun and they’re in the mood to do something worse than usual; the world doesn’t give a fuck and neither do they. 

Jungkook is restless- there’s a fierce, nervous sort of energy humming in his bones as he attempts to read a book Jimin recommended him a few days back. He’s been on the same page for at least five minutes now, trying his best to focus on the story so that when Jimin asks about it later he’ll have actually made some progress, but the words simply aren’t sticking in his brain.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Jungkook snaps the book shut and tosses it to the opposite end of the couch. He hasn’t been right since that day on top of the shopping center, the day he’d realized. 

I’ll just act like nothing’s wrong, he’d thought at the time, and although it sounded easy enough in theory, in actuality the past few days have been almost physically painful to get through. Everyone’s so sweet and affectionate and Jungkook can’t take it, not when every smile and gentle brush of fingers scrambles Jungkook’s brain into awkward, nervous mush. 

He has to tell them soon, before he ends up cracking and doing something stupid like distancing himself from the six of them just to preserve his sanity. Even if they reject him, even if they laugh at him and his silly, surely unrequited-feelings, Jungkook cannot lose the best thing he’s ever had his life. 

Something outside rumbles, the sound so loud it practically shakes the floor, and there comes the distinctive sound of tires crunching on gravel. 

Snapping back into awareness, Jungkook tilts his head and instinctively glances towards the train’s entrance. Confusion is the first emotion that trickles into his awareness, quickly replaced by a creeping sense of dread. No one comes anywhere near the railyard in any kind of vehicle, not when the roads leading to it are rough and overgrown, practically more pothole than pavement. 

There’s only a handful of possibilities of who might have just pulled up to their train, and Jungkook really doesn’t like the thought of any of them. Anxiety begins to tug at his gut, leaving him tense and already halfway in fight-or-flight as he mentally prepares for the fight that’s likely just around the corner. 

Slowly, he stands up. Most of the train’s other occupants aren’t home today- it’s just him, Namjoon, and Jin. While he’s thankful the others will be safe from whatever might come next, they’re also much less capable of defending themselves than they normally would be.

Jungkook squares his shoulders and takes a deep breath. No matter how messy this may get, he’s prepared to fight tooth and nail to keep his home safe. He won’t let anything hurt his best friends- not the Shadows, not the cops, not anyone. 

He’s about to take a step forward and meet his fate with dignity when Namjoon appears behind him with his face set in a worried frown, brushing past and somehow managing to make Jungkook feel infinitely better without even opening his mouth. 

“You think it’s the cops?” Jungkook asks, voice hushed in nervousness, like if he talks too loudly the police will bust in and arrest them on the spot. 

Namjoon slips out towards the front door, steps quiet and slow, and Jungkook follows close behind. “No idea.” He pauses right as he’s about to crack open the front door and turns to Jungkook. His expression is stony. “If I tell you to hide, do it, okay? No matter what happens.” 

Jungkook crosses his fingers behind his back and nods. For all of his smarts, Namjoon’s an idiot if he thinks Jungkook’s going to just abandon him to whatever’s out there. 

Quietly, carefully, Namjoon does undoes the latch on the train’s door, movements so slow Jungkook almost wants to yank the door open himself just to put an end to the suspense coiling around his lungs, starving him for air as he forgets to breathe in his anxiousness. 

When there’s finally a crack in the door wide enough to see through, Namjoon sticks his face up to the tiny beam of light, squinting as he tries to make out what’s outside. When he does, he mutters something under his breath too softly for Jungkook to make out and throws the door open to leap out of the train. 

Jungkook stumbles into the light provided by the now opened-door to stare outside, confusion and worry and shock all making his heart seize in his chest as he takes in the scene before him. 

The first thing he notices is that there’s a truck parked haphazardly in front of the train. It’s black and generally unimpressive-looking, its exterior dull and scratched and its windshield dusty. Not a police car, clearly, but if they haven’t been found by the cops, then who- 

The second, much more important thing Jungkook picks up on is that there’s a person sitting in the bed of the truck, and as he catches sight of mint-green hair he immediately does a double take because Yoongi of all people is somehow involved in all of this. 

As Jungkook stares, utterly uncomprehending, Jimin pops up next to Yoongi, hair tousled and eyes visibly sparkling. 

“Hi, hyung!” he shouts to Namjoon. To Jungkook, he offers an excited wave. “Hi, Kook-ah!”

Jungkook can do little more than wave awkwardly back as Jimin runs a hand through his hair, succeeding only in dishevelling the orange nest atop his head further. 

What the hell-

The front door of the truck swings open and Taehyung hops out, idly twirling the keys of the truck on one finger and grinning like he’s just won the lottery. Hoseok trips out of the passenger seat after him, rubbing his face and smiling. His lips look redder and fuller than usual, almost like he’s wearing lipstick. 

“We’re home!” Taehyung sing-songs, clearly taking great delight in the utter shock on Namjoon and Jungkook’s faces. 

Something touches Jungkook’s back and he jolts, whirling around, but it’s just Jin, rubbing his eyes and clearly fresh from a nap. He stumbles outside, and Jungkook finally jumps out of the train himself to stand with the others in front of what’s apparently their new truck. 

“Where did you get a truck?” Jin asks, voicing just one of the many, many questions currently rattling around in Jungkook’s head. 

Taehyung shrugs, tosses him the keys. “Never said it was mine.” 

“How did you even-” Jin says wonderingly, then shakes his head. “Are the cops after you?”

“Please,” Hoseok scoffs. “We lost them six blocks ago.”

Yoongi giggles from the bed of the truck, and it’s then that Jungkook realize all four of them have the same gleam in their eyes- one of sheer, unabashed euphoria, the kind of high that only comes from doing something very much illegal and getting away with it. 

“Don’t you all have work?” Namjoon asks, clearly baffled. 

“They’re taking long lunch breaks,” Jimin laughs. 

“We’re going on a joyride,” Taehyung informs them, “and you’re coming with.”

With an offer like that, how could anyone refuse? 

Jin, apparently fine with driving, retains his hold on the car keys and climbs into the driver’s seat without complaint. Everyone else not already in the bed of the truck clambers in, hopping from the truck’s back tire over the sides. 

There’s a pair of garden shears in one corner for reasons unknown -where on earth did Taehyung steal this truck from?- and the bed of the truck is dusty but not otherwise uncomfortable. It’s a small space though, definitely not large enough for six people to be lay comfortably, so they end up sprawled over one another in the first comfortable position they can find. Jungkook couldn’t move his legs if he tried without shoving at least two people off of him. It’s the most comfortable he’s been in a while. 

With some effort, mostly thanks to Jimin and his absurd arm strength, they manage to pry the truck’s back window open so the seven of them can talk to each other freely. As they pull out of the railyard, conversation flows quickly about mundane things like their grocery list and work shifts for the rest of the week, but there’s an almost palpable atmosphere of excitement in the truck. They’ve never done anything quite like this before- it feels special, an experience they’ll doubtlessly never forget. 

They hit a gas station first. Hoseok takes care of filling up the truck following a terrifyingly competitive game of rock-paper-scissors, and everyone else extricates themselves from one another to troop inside the tiny adjacent convenience store. 

Jungkook grabs himself a couple of chocolate bars and moves to wait next to the checkout counter for everyone else, watching with vague amusement as Taehyung grabs enough snacks for ten people. He pays for it all without comment despite the strange glances he receives boeth from everyone else and the poor cashier who has to ring it all up.

Jungkook, with his mostly free hands, ends up carrying a large portion of the food back into the truck, tossing the bags of food into the bed of the truck before vaulting in after them. 

“I hope you’re going to share,” he sniffs, though there’s no real annoyance behind his words. 

“I was planning on it,” Taehyung hums, but instead of starting to eat he simply gathers all of his snacks into a pile not unlike a dragon’s hoard.

It’s odd, but no one questions it- sometimes Taehyung just does things beyond their immediate comprehension. 

Once they’re back on the main road, Taehyung sticks his head in through the window and whispers something in Jin’s ear as everyone else watches curiously. Upon finishing, he leans back and looks at Jin expectantly. 

There’s a pause wherein Jin seems to be thinking very hard, and after a moment he shakes his head as if to shake himself out of a daze. “Oh, what the hell,” he says to himself, and takes a sharp turn down a main road. 

“What did you say?” Hoseok asks. 

All Taehyung does is grin, sharp and excited. “You’ll see.” 

After a few more minutes of driving, a tunnel comes into view. Jungkook’s been there before on foot- it’s not a bad place to hide from the cops in due to its interior being so poorly-lit. 

“Here?” Jin asks, twisting his head around just enough to make eye contact with Taehyung in his peripherals. 

Taehyung nods. “Yep.” 

“Are you going to tell us what you’re planning?” Yoongi asks, suspicion creeping into his voice. 

“Of course, hyung,” Taehyung replies, face lighting up in a smile. “We’re going to shut the tunnel down.”

It’s a stupid idea. There’s no point to it besides screwing over as many people as possible, but, well- that’s the point. It sounds like it’ll be fun, so long as they don’t get arrested on the spot. 

And besides, don’t they deserve something like this? Society likes to spit on them, likes to call people like Jungkook “delinquents” and “bad people” instead of trying to help. Upsetting a few people won’t make up for years of scorn and abuse by just about everyone, but it certainly won’t hurt.

Their agreement is unanimous and immediate. 

So, not two minutes later, it begins. Jin manages to parallel park in the tunnel flawlessly, which is quite possibly the most impressive thing Jungkook’s ever seen another person do. The cars pile up quickly while the seven of them wait. 

Horns start honking almost instantly, especially as the drivers closest to the truck realize that the inconvenience being caused is a deliberate one. When it reaches a crescendo, when the whole tunnel seems to be filled with honking and shouting, they exchange glances, biting lips and covering faces to hide their manic grins. 

“Go get ‘em, babes,” Jin shouts, and with a battle cry everyone else leaps out of the back of the truck. 

What follows is chaos in its finest, most intoxicating form. 

With arms loaded full of snacks and drinks, the six of them throw themselves into the lanes of stopped cars, kicking tires and throwing soda on windshields and generally causing as much havoc as possible. Jungkook flips off more people in thirty seconds than he ever has in his life as he races between the cars, splattering tiny cups of yogurt onto every windshield he sees. 

Yoongi is engaged in a shouting match with someone leaning angrily out of their window. Taehyung is pressing his face against the windshield of a sedan and yelling. Wasted food and drink litters the asphalt below the cars, crunching as Jungkook runs. 

It’s indescribably enjoyable to do something bad just for the hell of it, to finally fight back against a system that’s been choking Jungkook his whole life. He feels on top of the world, like he could fight every member of the Shadows and win, like every second of his life before now has just been leading up to this- commiting a ridiculous act of vandalism with the six loves of his life by his side. 

They don’t get long to enjoy themselves. The echo of police sirens quickly begins to fill the tunnel, and although the cops will have to fight through a herd of angry commuters to get anywhere near them, someone yells, “run!” and they bolt back to the truck. 

Jungkook throws himself into the shotgun seat of the truck with an unnecessary amount of force, nearly smacking his head into the seat’s armrest. Reaching out blindly behind him, he manages to slam the door shut. There are several loud thuds from the back of the truck, combined with some incredibly high-pitched cackling, and Jungkook can’t help but break into hysterical laughter of his own.

Holy shit, that was amazing!  

Jin slams the truck into reverse and turns out of the tunnel, immediately gunning it as they turn onto the empty road in front of them. The sirens blaring behind them grow quieter for a moment, then begin to pick up in volume again. 

“The cops are after us!” Hoseok announces, unhelpfully. 

Jin hisses a few choice words under his breath and speeds up further, swerving around the few cars they encounter as they race down the city streets. 

“Where are we going?” Jungkook dares to ask. 

“No idea,” Jin replies distractedly, and all of a sudden he’s laughing. “This is insane,” he murmurs, almost to himself, and takes the next turn so fast Jungkook is pretty sure they leave skid marks. 

“Don’t kill us!” Yoongi shouts from the back. 

“No promises!” Jin calls right back, and everyone laughs, drunk on the exhilaration that comes with crime and potentially life-threatening experiences. 

Jungkook loves the six of them with every fiber of his being, so much that it's almost painful. So much that it feels like his body will combust from the sheer force of his adoration if he doesn’t run or scream or just do something. 

He can’t take it anymore. Between peals of laughter in the truck, Jungkook leans over and kisses Jin on the cheek without even thinking. It’s so easy and natural for a second he wonders how he’s never done it before. 

If anything, he’s kind of mad. Jungkook had stressed about admitting his feelings constantly over the past few days, and that was all it took? He could’ve saved himself hours of agonizing over how to confess perfectly if he’d known it would be this easy.

Belatedly, he realizes the truck has gone silent, and there’s a tension he’s never felt before crackling in the air. 

“Jungkook, do you-” Namjoon doesn’t seem sure how to continue. 

“I know,” Jungkook blurts, still half leaning over Jin. He takes a deep breath, knows there’s no going back after this. “About the six of you, I mean.” There’s varying reactions. Heartbreaking uncertainty and nervousness from Namjoon and Taehyung; an instant wariness from Jimin and Yoongi. For a second, Jungkook wonders show many other people they’ve told, how many terrible responses they’ve received for such fear to be their default. It’s a sad thought. 

“Well, we weren't exactly good at hiding it,” remarks Hoseok. He alone seems to lack any sort of worry in his eyes as he looks at Jungkook. 

Yoongi shoots him a glare. “What a helpful observation,” he deadpans. “Really what we needed right now.”

Jungkook can't help it- he starts to laugh. Even in moments like these, while they're running from cops and he's halfway through a love confession, the six of them are still the same. He loves them so much it’s stupid; he can't imagine even going a day without seeing one of their smiles anymore. 

He looks each of them in turn and finds his own feelings mirrored right back in soft smiles and affectionate expressions, and his cheeks hurt with the force of his own grin.

“Go on, Jungkook-ah,” Namjoon says gently, everyone else nodding around him, and it gives Jungkook the courage to continue. 

“Six people is a lot,” he begins slowly, trying and failing to stop smiling, “But if you’re open to a seventh-”

He can’t even finish his proposal, can’t even wonder about their answer, can't even blink or breathe before Taehyung lunges forward and kisses him. It’s awkward and strange- there’s a leather seat and a window frame between them screwing up the angle, and Jungkook kind of desperately needs oxygen the whole time, but it’s quite possibly the best five seconds of his life. 

When they break apart, Jungkook gasps unattractively like he's just come up from underwater, and Taehyung laughs at him. “Let me breathe first next time,” he says in an attempt to save face. 

“Ooh, next time,” Jimin coos with a dangerous smirk on his face. “Nice, Tae-yah.”

Jin, who’s been driving pretty intensely up until this point, finally cuts in. “This is genuinely adorable and I’m glad I can finally kiss Jungkook-ah every time he does something cute,” -Jungkook chokes upon hearing that- “But might I remind everyone that we’re currently running from the cops?”

“But we’re not running, we’re driving,” Taehyung points out, and the resulting glare he receives from Jin is powerful enough to vaporize small villages. Taehyung doesn't seem particularly bothered. 

“Joon-ah, can we throw him out the back?” Jin asks sweetly. “That’ll probably make the cops stop chasing us.” 

Jimin is laughing so hard at all of this from where he’s collapsed on the truck bed that his giggles are now entirely manifesting themselves in little squeaks. 

“You can’t throw me out of the car,” Taehyung reasons, casually moving Jimin’s head into his lap so he can laugh more comfortably. “I haven’t even gotten to properly go tagging with Kook-ah yet.”

They take a particularly sharp turn that throws Jungkook into the passenger seat window of the truck. “What do you mean, properly?” he calls as he sits back up again. “We go tagging together all the time?” Taehyung shoots him a look, and suddenly Jungkook realizes exactly what he’s been missing the whole time. 

“Oh,” he says weakly. Tagging next week will be interesting (to say the least) if they don’t all get caught by the cops. 

“We’ll talk when we get home, okay Jungkook-ah?” Hoseok asks. He leans forward to press a delicate kiss to Jungkook’s cheek, and all Jungkook can do is smile so wide his cheeks hurt as they head down yet another back road, the sound of sirens fading in the distance. 

~0~0~0~

After finally shrugging off the cops, they eventually ditch the truck in a parking garage Jungkook couldn’t find again if he tried and sprint the rest of the way home. 

Through some strength Jungkook didn’t know he had, he manages to throw the train’s door open with trembling arms and throws himself inside, stumbling into the main car and immediately collapsing onto the nearest beanbag chair. 

He wants to sleep for a week. Or at least until his body stops feeling like it’s recently been gutted from the loss of the nonstop adrenaline high that’s been keeping him going for the past hour. 

Various groans and sighs can be heard as everyone else comes in and falls down in various places around the room. For a few minutes they’re quiet, simply taking a moment to recover from running nonstop from the cops for an hour straight.  

“Well,” Taehyung says matter-of-factly, the first to break the silence, “that was-”

“Incredible,” Jimin fills in, snuggling into his side. 

“In more ways than one,” Jin agrees, shooting a smile Jungkook’s way that turns his insides to jelly.  

“We should probably talk about that,” Namjoon says. 

Jungkook pulls his protesting body up into a sitting position and takes a long look at the six of them. “I meant what I said, back there,” he tells them. “I really do want to be a part of- this, if you’ll have me.”

“We’d love that,” Yoongi says, and the smile he gives Jungkook is so soft and loving he can barely stand it. “It’s a lot of work and communication, but as long as you’re willing to try and talk through anything that comes up, we’d be really happy to have you as our boyfriend.”

Boyfriend. The very mention of the word makes Jungkook’s heart melt into a puddle of goo in his chest. 

“I just have one question,” he says slowly. Hopefully he’s not about to ruin everything they’ve just gained, but it’s been bothering him for a while now, a little itch in the back of his brain. He needs to know.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jungkook bursts out. 

There’s no need to ask clarification- everyone knows exactly what he’s referring to. The one thing they’ve kept from him, the only part of their lives they’d kept him from seeing. 

Jungkook isn’t upset, really- dating six people at once is quite a big secret to tell anyone, no matter how much you trust them. He’s hurt, true, but on some level he understands. Sometimes it can be hard to trust people no matter how much you care for them. 

Like their minds are connected, like maybe they’ve had this discussion a million times over and are trying to summarize it for him, the six of them explain themselves in bursts, words flowing so quickly it almost seems desperate, like they’re begging him to stay, to understand. 

“We didn’t want to freak you out,” Hoseok begins, something akin to guilt shining in his eyes.

“You were so cute,” Jimin adds almost mournfully. 

“-and sweet,” Yoongi says. 

“-And we just didn’t want to scare you off,” Taehyung continues. 

“Lots of people don’t understand what we have, and ever fewer accept it,” Namjoon explains. After a second, his eyes widen and he backtracks. “That’s not to say we didn’t trust you or anything! We just didn’t want to make you feel weird while you stayed with us.” 

“So to make sure you stayed comfortable, we all agreed to tone it down with each other for a bit,” Jin finishes. “And the whole time, we all tried to see if you might be interested in- well, any of us, but we were all hoping.” 

“I’m not mad,” Jungkook reassures them, and he’s immediately rewarded with six relieved smiles. “But I’m confused- when did you try to see if I was...interested?”

The six of them exchange a meaningful glance that goes completely over Jungkook’s head. There’s a pregnant pause. 

“We’ve been flirting with you since you got here,” Yoongi says at last, sounding almost exasperated. 

“You what? ” Jungkook squeaks out. When? Where was he? They’ve never once tried to-

“We’ve all been taking you out on dates like once a week for the past two months,” Hoseok says, a fond sort of amusement in his voice. “You didn’t know that?”

Oh. 

“Wait, those were dates?"

Several sighs thick with affectionate annoyance can be heard around the room. “Yes.” 

“I told you,” Jin hisses to someone -Jimin, maybe? “I pinned him up against a lamppost and he still didn’t get the hint.”

Jungkook knows his blush is likely cherry-red by now, and he buries his face in his hands. 

“I’m so stupid,” he moans. 

“Yeah,” Jimin says cheerfully, but we love you anyway.”

~0~0~0~

Less changes than he’d expected. 

Jungkook still lives in a train with his six favorite people in the world. He still goes tagging and has piano lessons and fights Jin at the arcade once a week with an intensity that never ceases to amuse everyone else.

However, now he gets to wake up every morning to kisses and cuddles and truly cringe-worthy flirting -Namjoon is such a sap - and Jungkook’s whole world feels like the sun is shining on it every single day.

Tagging is a lot more fun now that he gets swept up in adrenaline-fueled kisses every time they finish a hit. So is everything, really- there’s a surprisingly small list of things kisses won’t improve.

And sure, things aren’t perfect. There’s still budget struggles and Jin still works too much and Jungkook still feels left out by the six of them sometimes, but they make every effort they can to work things out. They’ve been through enough by now that Jungkook knows there’s no problem they can’t solve as long as they talk about it, and it makes him the most optimistic he’s been in a long time.

Then everything changes- but for once, it’s for the impossibly better. 

When Jungkook walks into the train one day not a month after they’ve started dating to find everyone sitting in a circle, looking serious, his first instinct is nervousness. But then the six of them smile at him, and Namjoon pulls him into his lap, and Jungkook relaxes immediately. “Why are we having a meeting?” he asks curiously.

Taehyung shifts from where he’s currently resting against Yoongi to collapse against Jungkook and Namjoon. He continues holding Yoongi’s hand regardless. 

Jin grins, eyes bright with excitement. “We finally saved up enough.”

“Enough for what?” Jungkook asks, tilting his head. What more could they need?

“An apartment!” Hoseok crows. “Big enough for all of us!” 

Jungkook’s jaw drops. Apartments, especially one big enough to hold so many people, are incredibly expensive. Saving up enough to actually move into one probably took years. 

“I’m so happy for you!” he cries, yanking the nearest person -Jimin- into a hug. “That’s amazing, you guys are gonna love not living in a train anymore-”

“You’re gonna love it too,” Yoongi cuts in. “There’s space for seven.”

Jungkook stares at him because, in all honesty, for a second he’d forgotten he was a part of all of this. “Are you su-” he begins, because no matter how much they tell him they adore him on the daily, sometimes his first instinct still wins out. 

“Yes,” six voices say immediately, so synchronized it’s a little scary. 

“Absolutely,” Namjoon adds. 

“It wouldn’t be home without you,” Hoseok finishes. 

And If Jungkook’s eyes well up with tears and he spends the next five minutes being cooed over by his six boyfriends, the absolute best people in the world- well, that’s no one’s business but his own.