You saw it in my eyes forever ✓

chapter 10

The light of the sunrise has barely filtered through the Seoul skyline, barely touched Taehyung ’s house. Jungkook  leaves the house quietly, somberly, not even bothering to wake Taehyung  before he goes, as he usually does to say goodbye. Their conversation last night has left Jungkook  more uncertain than before.

The morning air feels heavy as he tries to take some deep breaths. Jungkook  feels so isolated that he caves; he pulls out his phone, and decides to finally reach out to certain people he’s been avoiding for the last month.

Wanna get drinks this weekend? They’ll be on me.

Mid-text, Jungkook  thinks he sees something in his peripheral – something moving from a street corner, as if ducking back. But between his grand total of two hours of sleep, and the general exhaustion he feels in his heart, Jungkook  accepts it as nothing more than one of the many shadows of the morning.

He thinks, sadly, that this isn’t the first shadow that’s been following him.

     ___________

“Jungkook , buddy, slow down,” Mingyu warns, reaching to take the beer from Jungkook ’s hand. He knows why Mingyu is concerned; it’s technically Jungkook ’s fifth beer in less than an hour. At this rate, Jungkook  will be stumbling out of the bar instead of walking.

Jungkook  simply moves out of Mingyu’s reach. “’m fine.”

Eunwoo  looks at Jungkook  with the same pitying expression that he gave him three beers ago. “What’s wrong, Jungkook ?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well, we hardly see you anymore,” Eunwoo  explains, barely concealing his frustration, “and then we have to find out through Instagram that you’re Kim taehyung's manager. And then, we find out that, actually, you’re dating him. And then you call us together for the first time in months, just to drink in silence?”

Mingyu nods. “Yeah. We didn’t want to bug you before because we figured you were going through some stuff, but,” Mingyu gestures vaguely to Jungkook ’s general appearance, “you look like shit, dude.”

Jungkook  lowers his beer from his lips. He does feel guilty about not talking to them. He’s ignored their texts and calls, as well as a couple hundred more from his brother since the scandal surfaced. At first, it was because Jungkook  felt ashamed, not of being together with Taehyung , but of the secrecy that he maintained since the beginning. It would take too long for Jungkook  to explain the situation to them, to explain that That Guy from Work was actually Taehyung  this whole time. It would take even longer to explain why (because, truthfully, Jungkook  still doesn’t understand some of the why himself). But still, one some level, Jungkook  knows he should have told them the truth sooner.

Jungkook  also didn’t talk to his friends about this before because he felt that he and Taehyung  could get through it together. He had confidence in them, in the foundation of trust they had built over the several months that Jungkook  worked at SuperBright, and in the little over a month they shared as a couple.

Jungkook  squeezes his beer. That foundation has a considerable crack in it now, and it has literally driven him to drink.

“Jungkook ,” Eunwoo  repeats, more gently, “what’s wrong?”

Jungkook  contemplates saying that he’s fine, but he’s been bottling everything up for so long. “Do you guys think that… if you wanted to, would you ever dump your girlfriends for an ex?”

“Of course!” Mingyu answers without hesitation.

Jungkook  looks into his beer glass, and swirls the golden liquid around the bottom. “What if you’d been pursuing your girlfriend for a while, though? Would you still do it?”