serendipity ∙ jjk

thirteen - heartfelt confessions.

The party that Hoseok encouraged a week before finally arrives, and you're not there, much to Jungkook's disappointment. It's the usual procession with booze, games, more booze, and socializing that falls under two umbrellas of dancing and hooking up or as most people call it almost fucking in a public setting until Jin comes around to tell these people to get a room that isn't their bedrooms. Of course, there's some use of recreational drugs, but that usually benefits associates of anyone in the fraternity since just about anyone can bring their own stuff and get lit there without the worry of getting caught by campus police. So, again, a normal night at the Beta Tau Sigma house.

Jungkook doesn't participate in much of the festivities besides drinking and sometimes getting high, but he prefers the sickening taste of alcohol better than the floating sensation from a blunt. Sometimes it's downright frightening because his first trip made him so paranoid he locked himself inside a car, and Jin and Jimin had to be the ones to get him out. Other times weren't so bad. But for some reason, he can't seem to get you out of his mind tonight.

For over a week, he tried not to be preoccupied with you and your interview or his own documentary as that's just the price fraternity brothers face for Beta Tau Sigma. If he could afford that luxury of having you in his thoughts during these hellish times, then he would have a lot to think of, between what you said about how similar writing and filmmaking are to how much he just wanted to see you in that time of momentary separation. But with the metaphorical radio silence and the lack of grunt work, he's free to let his thoughts roam.

He wishes you could've came out tonight, but you have duties to take care of for your article. And if you finish early, then you would stop by, but this is something important and he doesn't want you to rush. For now, he's content with just thinking of you and the conversation you both previously shared. The one about how film making and story writing are more similar than he gave it credit for. Like he said to you, he never really gave it a thought and thus never made the connection between those two forms of creativity. It's amazing just how much those two things coincide though.

He's grateful that the texting surely hasn't ceased, but not over this nagging feeling that he should be doing something now that he knows about the rough reality that writers face. It's as if there's a call to the way you spoke about writing and how underrated it has become in this modern age of viral videos and tweets. It strikes him how little people acknowledge writing as a necessary skill in day-to-day life, simply a notion of letters strung together into words into sentences into papers and whatever else seems to make a semblance of sense. He sees how frustrated it makes you, and that alone influences him when he sees it for himself. He wonders if it hurts to see that kind of disrespect, and to think of that makes him want to reconsider just doing a film on himself.

Sure, it's for a reason that he once told was for the sake of other young filmmakers. But that's what the lost boy film is for. Maybe... he can do it. And maybe he won't want to part ways with you so quickly. Maybe, just maybe.

Jungkook shakes his head, finally acknowledging the vibration from his back pocket. He excuses himself from the game room and accept his loss at billiards. Maybe it's the buzz or the desire to depart from this place that encourages him to move quickly—really, it's you. Just the hope that it's you helps him navigate across the sweaty and clingy bodies without too many collisions, not that he's looking back to check on whoever he shoulder-checked in the process.

As soon as he exits through the front door, he takes his phone out to see your contact name brightening up his phone screen. Now displaying a contact photo that he took at that brunch place with your permission, of course. He smiles and leans against a free corner of the patio before answering: "Hello...?"

"Jungkook?"

It doesn't take a genius to identify the irregularities in your voice—the quiver in your voice as you utter his name squeezes at his chest and his stomach drops. "What's wrong?"