UNIVERSE / BTS.

62: let the river run / jikook

LET THE
RIVER RUN
( part 1 )

WORD COUNT 3.8k
OVERVIEW "all my sins need holy water, feel it rushing over me, so let the river run" / where jimin finds kindness in a random stranger who fell asleep in his boyfriend's apartment ( single parent!jimin, punk!guk / this is gonna get soft in pt 2 / title from river by eminem )

PLAYLIST river / eminem & ed sheeran

∆

"WHY ARE YOU doing this again?!"

park jimin's screaming at three in the morning again. park jimin's in an apartment that smells like a whiskey bottle hitting the carpet again. park jimin's looking at his boyfriend with an empty bottle in his hand, wondering what the fuck went wrong again. park jimin's having his heart shattered like a jack daniel's bottle by an angry drunk, again.

"why, jongin? fucking why?" jimin's eyes sting with how much he's been crying, and the baby down the hall is screaming and his heart is hammering and everything is wrong, wrong, wrong. jimin feels like he's gonna fall over, faint, throw up, anything — but all he's doing is crying. he just can't anymore. can't take the bottles all over the floors of their home, the constant stench of alcohol in jongin's breath, the unhealthy life his son is going to have if this continues.

"i'm leaving, jongin," jimin says firmly, more to himself than to taehyung, who jimin thinks it's past comprehension at this point. the man's head turns, to look at his blonde boyfriend, pupils blown, out of it, and jimin's terrified but tries not to show it. "i'm going, and i'm taking hyoseol with me. i'm sorry."

jimin goes to turn around and march to their room before getting the fuck out of there, but there's a sound from down the hall and suddenly jimin's son is quiet, he's stopped crying at the top of his lungs, and jimin's blood goes cold, because hyoseol never goes quiet like that. his instincts kick in and he runs down the hall, right into the room he shares (shared) with hyoseol and jongin.

in their ratty, untidy, drug stinking room, there's some random kid with pink hair standing over the cot and cradling jimin's son in his arms, humming to him and shushing him when he starts looking like he'll cry again. jimin doesn't know how to react, his first instinct being to hit whoever the fuck is holding his son, because he has muscled arms with tattoos and a few silver piercings and he looks like the kind of guys jimin wants to avoid, especially with the company jongin keeps.

"who the fuck—" jimin breathes out, careful to keep quiet because of hyoseol. "—are you?" he tries to ask this in the least scared way possible, trying to sound intimidating, and the pink haired man looks up, eyes wide, pierced eyebrow raised.

"oh, sorry, is he yours?" he nods his head towards the small boy asleep in his arms, and jimin nods, crossing his arms. "oh, i'm sorry, it's just he woke me up and i heard you— uh, heard you yelling, and he was crying a lot, so i just— yeah," the man (teen? jimin's not sure) scratches the back of his neck, holding hyoseol with one arm, black tattoos a strange contrast to hyoseol's yellow onesie. "i'm guk, kai's friend..."

jimin visibly flinches at jongin's dealing name, but he takes his son from guk and kisses his forehead, cradling him. he looks at guk, skeptically. "what are you doing here?" he asks, hyoseol's breathing steady as he sleeps. guk smiles awkwardly, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

"came here for some weed, 'cept kai gave me some fucked-up skunk. i couldn't think, let alone move shit, so i just crashed on the bathroom floor," he explains, and jimin notes the wetness on his ratty hole-filled shirt, probably from the bathroom. "he's, uh... yeah, i'm never doing skunk ever again. sticking to what i know."