fade to black | jjk

shut up and groove

It is in the moments when Jeon Jungkook is surrounded by those he claims to love that he is, in fact, the loneliest. The smoke he can barely breathe in, the music that hurts to listen to, the nameless, faceless strangers he pretends to know just to bum a snort of molly. Every night has blurred together to culminate into the next, into the next, into the next. He's spent so much of his energy pretending to love it all, love them all, that reality and deception have melded together in a perfect dance of equilibrium.

By now, he can't tell whether he's crossed or somehow reached such a high that he has passed the plane of harmonic existence. Three shots of tequila in, he swapped the drinks for a few puffs of a rando's blunt, then, of course, he just has to balance that with some speed, so on and so forth. He can't even tell if his dick is attached to his body anymore. Someone's talking to him, but he doesn't bother paying attention.

Jungkook has gotten good at dissociating when it comes to things like this. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he wasn't. It became quite easy after a while, just like living his life in the third person when he recognizes himself doing something less than desirable. It is only a matter of letting his body and mind separate when it wants to happen.

He is outside himself when he smiles at the guy who gets him another scotch free of charge, when he lets the whore that's been grinding on him all night kiss his neck and whisper, I'll make you feel like you're in heaven, baby.

He needs a taste of that heaven right now. Badly.

He vaguely feels himself stirring from the loveseat to look around for his bandmates, but his body registers nothing but noisenoisenoise.

Nothing in that familiar sea of ambiguity, and he is but a rock eroding as paradigms shift without him.

He holds his head. How did he even get here? Why does he always end up like this, isolated and exhausted and in want of a life he would never have chosen?

Ah, that's right. The whole band came to celebrate a successful comeback season. And now he had no idea where they were, just like the last time, and the time before that.

It seemed Jungkook was always celebrating. That strange euphemism never fails to haunt him in underground clubs where his bandmates don't care to join him, sometimes in his own room when he got desperate enough.

And it is when he is alone that he begins to see the cracks in the patchwork system.

A slap on his back jolts Jungkook out of his thoughts. He swallows back his thudding heartbeat and turns to see Taehyung standing over him with a lopsided smile.

"Bro, you're shaking. Loosen up. We're here to have fun, remember?"

"You got something on you?" he counters without acknowledging the question. Taehyung glances around lazily—a habit one picks up at a place like this—before taking his Juul out of his pocket.

"Yeah. Here," Taehyung says, handing it to him, "It'll make you feel better." Jungkook doesn't even try looking up at the blond again before putting it to his lips, inhaling with a shameless shudder as the nicotine floods through his body. It is sweet, menthol-flavored relief from the constant ache that planted itself squarely on his temple ever since he got here.

Sweet, but temporary. Always temporary.

"Thanks, man," he mutters before handing the Juul back to Taehyung. He says something in response, but Jungkook can't hear anymore; he has sunken into the very depths of the ocean. There, he is alone. It's the lie he's weaved for so long that has finally caught up to him.

He claims to love those around him. Yes, he loves them. He loves them when he's tipsy. He loves them when they rub his back as he throws up in the toilet. But he loves with a bounty over his head, and for that, he can't really love them, no matter how hard he might try.

Jungkook gets up from his seat; he needs something stronger than fucking vapor. "I think I'm gonna head to the back. I'll see you at the dorm," he says, embedding a casual air about it as to escape quicker. Taehyung's brows raise, then furrow.

"Wait, isn't that where they do, like, the hard shit?"

"Yeah, it's fine." Jungkook turns to leave when Taehyung grips his wrist.

"Hey, hey..." He searches his face for any hint of emotion, but all he finds is stone. Eyes full of life dulled down to nothing more than polished onyx. The blunt he smoked at the beginning of the night is already beginning to wear out its effect, but Taehyung doesn't know that.

No one does.

With a final nod, Jungkook pulls away and heads into the throng of people. He almost wishes Taehyung would pull him again so that he'd have an excuse not to go, but when he turns back around, he is nowhere to be found.

Jungkook holds his head for the second time, letting out a sigh through gritted teeth. That underwater feeling is still there, only this time, he is drowning. No matter how hard he tries to float up to the top, he remains at the bottom, facing up to see the reflection of his own face against a backdrop of cyan waves.

(Die by his own hand or the hand that once fed him? Drown or suffocate? What does it matter when the results are the same?)

When he pushes, the crowd sucks him in deeper without any intention of letting go. It is one entity, one force, uniform yet filled with the chaos he longs for. He wants to join it to let it hang another victory medallion on its rack.

But the lights are too much. God, he feels sick just thinking about it, all that purple green pink blue red yellow. It makes his stomach flip as he goes further in.

And just when he thinks he might give in, the crowd thins, and he is finally in front of the inconspicuous exit sign that leads him where he wants to go. Opening the door, he follows the path of the hallway until the noise of the club dissipates behind him. He can hear himself breathe again. And there, he finds the back.

Really, the back is a small lounge room consisting of no more than 3 couches, a few tables that look like a junkie's buffet, and a bar to the side. Those who see him come in say nothing; they know better than to hassle a guest here.

All he wants to do is breathe and observe for the first few moments. Without the pulsating lights burning his corneas, he can finally see what's going on around him, though there's nothing much worth looking at. Directly in front of him, there is a couple going at it like animals, the girl's tube top sliding down to reveal a full, brazen tit. It's so quiet in the room that he can almost hear the slurping noises they must be making, with how much enthusiasm they're putting into it.

Real classy, Jungkook thinks.

Other than that, waitresses go by with full trays, not too concerned as to earning tips, (if you were in the back, you made bank. No questions asked.) and he sees a familiar face here and there—Sehun, Hyuna, hell, even Jiyong—but he averts his gaze when they look in his direction.

It makes him confront the shame of being somewhere like this. He can smell sin on them, on himself.

This will be the last time, he vows. Really, the last time.

With a few deep breaths, he saunters over to a table full of people, trained eyes locked on the lean in a woman's hand. She wears a low-cut dress that twinkles like a thousand cosmos, and long, blonde extensions fall past her shoulders to accentuate her rather nice figure. She notices his gaze and smiles.

"Want some?" she asks, already shoving the drink at him. Violet sloshes around in the solo cup. The color of poison, Deinera's misguided love for a naive god—he reaches for it.

And he feels that something that used to stir in his chest—the thing that compelled him to chase fast-fading sunsets until he could behold flaming orange in the palm of his hand, the voice that kept his head in the clouds—wither away in those moments. It leaves without noise, without complaint, and it is so faint in its goodbye that he almost can't tell it had happened through the hazy smoke and blood-red ambiance.

Except for the utter emptiness he is left with afterward. Now, he is vulnerable to that cold vice that grips him in its icy talons, whispering its filthy secrets that only pull him toward the drink once again.

He takes an unabashed sip.

His first death.