Soul Mates | Jinkook ✓

6.0

All of his stuff fit into a single suitcase. It wasn't even a big one either.

Actually, that was a lie. It fit into a single suit case and a back pack, leaving him to carry the Yoshi plushie he normally slept with despite being twenty two years of age. All he really needed were his clothes. Everything else could be left behind. Taking a bunch of ratty blankets and thread bare towels and expecting them to fit in with all of his mates nice things was out of the question.

In the distance someone coughed, a loud, bone wracking sound that jarred him right down to the core. He definitely wouldn't miss that. The sounds of constantly living among so many other people. Of never really being alone.

It had started when he was eight. When his mother had dropped him off at his father's and just never came back. His father was already sick at that point, ill equipped to even take care of himself, let alone a child. When he passed away three years later Jin was sent off to live with an aunt. And then a cousin. And then finally he had just been left in some park somewhere to fend for himself. He was thirteen. He would be fine.

It was by luck that he learned how to survive. Old abandoned buildings made for really great temporary places to stay. If you didn't mind the concrete and rats. Most were only good for a few weeks though, until someone noticed and you had to leave. Even once he got a job he hadn't been able to get anything resembling actual shelter. No one would allow a sixteen year old to rent an apartment, and by the time he was of age it wasn't like he could actually afford one.

He had lived with Yoongi and Hobi for a while. In a tiny little run down one bedroom apartment, all of them working their asses off just to get by. But that had been pulled out from under them when the owner of the building sold it to some contractor to be torn down and made into a high rise. After that they all scattered, until Hobi and Jin had ended up working at the same place.

For the past six months he had been living in an old abandoned factory, the owner turning a blind eye to the homeless who had decided to attempt to make it their home. There was a wide open expanse on the second floor where the equipment had been taken away, and so they all gathered there. The windows had long since fallen, leaving it mostly open to the elements, and they tried to cover them as best they could. With scraps of cardboard and old blankets and towels. But it was cold and hard and unbearable. They would build a fire in the middle and cook on it at night, gathering to try and take in what warmth they could. Jin had been there longest, or almost, and so he had claimed a little far away corner for himself. Prime real estate that he was certain someone had already taken for themselves.

His pile of blankets had already been given away, to anyone who needed an extra. He had been collecting them for a long time, trying his best to patch the holes and to keep them clean. All of the padding he had used to make his bed had also been left, the cushion a prized possession in their world. Anything to make laying on the cold, hard concrete a little bit easier.

There was a laundromat half way between them and the store, and he would take his clothing there on the way, paying a small fee to have it washed and dried, picking it back up at the end of his shift. There was a gym a few blocks in the other direction, and he had joined entirely for the showers. The building still had running water on the first floor, but bathing in a sink just wasn't the same.

Bringing Jungkook here was out of the question. He couldn't allow him to see all of this. Maybe hiding it was wrong. Maybe he was being opportunistic. But Hobi had literally told him to take his shit and run. In fact, he had called him an idiot for not going and getting his shit the second Jungkook offered to have him move in. Why subject himself to those conditions any longer than he had to? Especially when he had someone offering him warmth and safety?