Better Than Tears (sweeter than sleep)

The stormy winds

Knowing that Mondays suck universally really didn't help Jungkook at all while he moodily stared out the window at the snowy flakes sticking to the pane and being chased by the wind as they fell. Classes didn't start until next Monday, but he still needed to move from his dorm to the cafeteria to retrieve food, either whatever was cooked or lots of ramen to heat up in the small kitchen on the first floor that everybody pretty much only ever used to store alcohol and, well, heat up ramen. It didn't bother Jungkook that he'd been eating too much ramen and not enough food - and also that he'd been eating not enough ramen. The taste of Jimin's cooking was still faintly held on his tongue and he didn't want to shoo it away, but his stomach was rumbling too loudly for him to ignore and focus on anything else.

There was nothing for it: he'd have to face the storm.

It wasn't a terribly bad storm, at least, it wasn't when he had been watching from his window, but when he stepped out of the heated building into the December air, he immediately froze up. Not just because it was freezing, no, Jungkook remembered another winter with a storm and the memory chilled him even more than the wind creeping down his neck. He zipped up his coat all the way, having remembered it this time, and trudged forward anyway, not letting himself run away this time. He'd learned to be brave with Jimin and he wanted to keep the streak going. He wanted to prove something.

He wanted to not be lost.

Which was, unfortunately, exactly how he felt as he bent his head to the wind.

Lost.

--

Jungkook needed new snowboots, but his mom could walk again, and his dad came home too late and too tired. He didn't want to bother him, not when he still sang him to sleep, falling asleep next to him and taking up most of the bed space - but Jungkook didn't mind.

He did mind snow soaking through his shoes, but he could bear up, couldn't he? His mom was coughing a lot and waking him up at night, waking up his dad and he'd leave, and the bed seemed too big to sleep in. He'd try to sing himself to sleep, but his voice was too small. He pictured snow angels, lots and lots of snow angels and fell asleep to dream about becoming a snow angel. It was so pretty at first, but then people kept walking on him with the new snowboots, walking all over him and trampling his shape until he was the most tattered snow angel ever.

He woke up hating the snow.

His mom stopped coughing and started to walk again, and she caught him slipping off his snow-soaked shoes one day after school. She'd scooped him up and helped him dry off his feet, crying a lot for some reason. Jungkook liked that she could walk. He liked that she was taking care of him again, but he didn't like her crying. He told her that her tears would freeze and then the snow would win.

"You can't let the snow win, Mommy," Jungkook said with the brightest smile he could muster.

She laughed and cried even harder, hugging him tight. Jungkook cried too, not knowing why. When it was over, she wiped both their tears and smiled at him. "No more frozen tears, Jungkookie. We won't let the snow win."

Jungkook got new snowboots and it seemed that the snow hadn't won.

Until he slipped on ice and spent a scary afternoon in the big, white place he'd soon come to hate. Red against the whiteness of snow made a nice contrast. Jungkook had always liked the whiteness of snow. But that place was white too.

Jungkook hates white.

--

The cafeteria was warm and empty and Jungkook filled a plastic bag with ramen and other things that he probably wouldn't remember to eat. He blinked back his watery memories and sniffled his way back to the door and the freezing wind of outside. The trip back to the dorm seemed to take longer, but that might've been because he was shuffling his feet on the path, paying more attention to his eyes and not having tears freeze on his cheeks than on where his feet were going.