Unfamiliars - themarmalade(AO3)

Chapter 5

*This is not my story but from @ themarmalade on AO3*

-*-

A week passes like a fever dream.

Yoongi finds the house with the shed with the broken lock and sleeps on the musty sofa inside again. For a few days, he lives like a stray cat still. He sleeps fitfully, he eats scraps, he speaks to no one. He does not cry.

Shell shocked from everything ending and barely keeping himself together, he just can't.

On the fourth day away from Hoseok, he finally hates himself for sulking enough to get things done. He gets his ID card remade and visits the bank, stunned to hear that his account was intact. No one had gone on any shopping sprees with his credit card. It was way too good to be true, but he keeps his mouth shut and requests new cards.

With the cash he withdrew, he treats himself to a new outfit or two, a fantastic meal at a nice BBQ restaurant, and a night at a hotel, taking full advantage of the big bathtub. He refills the hot water twice, drinks a whiskey tonic or three and tries to enjoy himself.

A whole day as human Yoongi, functioning and normal, as if the last months had never happened. As if Hoseok had never happened. As if there was nothing left to do but carry on and let it all fade away.

Flushed pink and warm from the hour long bath, he curls up small in the giant hotel bed. The room is a stark, pleasant void, sucking feelings out of him like rainwater through an old roof. Clean and alone in a sterile hotel room that could be in any city anywhere, he cries.

It takes hours but he pulls Hoseok's t-shirt back on and cries himself to sleep. Hollow-hearted and weary, he hopes to god Hoseok isn't crying alone on the other side of town.

On the fifth day, he gets a part time job stocking shelves at the drugstore along the river. After the interview with a harried and disinterested manager, he stares at the setting sun glowing like liquid gold through the canal.

Just down around the bend and little further, maybe ten minutes if he sprinted, is where Hoseok rescued him, and a little shabby apartment on the river full of plants and warmth. Home, but not his anymore.

It's stupid to be so sad; he had known for so long that it was going to end. For the first time all week, he lets himself face the question that's been gnawing at him, Should I have stayed?

But, for what? For the cops to come and listen to him swear that a witch holding a crystal turned him into a cat behind a Chinese restaurant? To have nothing to give when they ask for an ID, an address?

Maybe he could've convinced Hoseok to hang up the phone. And then, what? How could it have possibly gone on after that? Hoseok would be uncomfortable at best, or angry that he'd been conned into sharing his life, his apartment, his self with some weird stranger.

Hoseok would always mean so much, and to have that marred with anger and disgust in the end... no, it was better to leave.

He's glad, at least, that he saved so many memories in his head, vivid and detailed, shining bubbles of beauty that he can conjure up and relive as the last of the hazy sun sets beyond the hills.

-*-

The seventh day is when he sees it. After the first shift of mind-numbing training at his new job, he strolls down the block to the convenience store to grab instant ramen and beer for an early dinner.

Steaming noodles in hand, he rounds the corner and settles down on the sidewalk, back against the concrete wall of the convenience store. Mechanically, he sets the cup ramen down on the warm asphalt, chopsticks on top, and rummages in the bag for the cold can of beer.