student of the year; taekook

23: attempts to heal

this is really long, sorry about that but it is just like a small little countdown to the end of 2019 with some angst.

 btw the corona virus doesn't exist in this story (obviously), so their 2020 is much more normal than ours.

december 29, 2019

some days go by, hours just pass through and jungkook barely processes it all. nothing really seems to affect him anymore. he just wakes up and goes to bed essentially.

he stays at his father's because every time he looks at the estates, he thinks of hoseok's christmas party and it brings a slew of emotions that he isn't ready to deal with. it's not like his mother or haneul really cared about his whereabouts, they were happy to pretend like he was off doing something else. even though he doesn't do much in this point of his life nor does he have the energy to do anything really.

jungkook has yet to really talk to yoongi or namjoon. he doesn't expect them to worry too much about him, they have their own lovely relationships to be in and he's said that he's fine over text once before they quickly drop it. 

of course, that's a big fat lie. he's not fine but pretending is always a lot easier than actually sitting down and thinking about what he feels.

emotions are hard for jungkook, he's always been a logical guy, he's good at following patterns and recognizing them, good at memorization and thinking about quick solutions. emotions and feelings are inherently illogical and he's hypocritical for choosing the easier route by not thinking about them.

so, he buries himself in his work and studying, looking at all of the american colleges he got into. anything is better than thinking about taehyung, literally anything else on the planet. 

they haven't spoken in a month. they've known each other for four, he fell for the older in two, but this one month feels longer than anything. jungkook's seen the texts he's sent, chooses to ignore them and do something else.

except he can't do much else because he's linked a lot of the things that used to make him happy with taehyung. playing video games, listening to certain artists, watching the office, even the act of laying on his couch with bomi hurts him. 

the cat snuggling on his chest reminds him of times when taehyung would snuggle into his chest, press his nose into the crook of neck and it was all happiness and vanilla. he's trying so hard to move on, trying to be normal again, but it's getting hard. 

he can only play the blond album by frank ocean so many times till it starts to sound like white noise. the lyrics don't give him as much of a pang as it used to, jungkook is numb. sometimes the loneliness would get to him and the desire to just hold someone (taehyung) in his arms gets insatiable.

jungkook was just itching for something, even when he knows he should continue healing at a snail's pace. he's a mess right now, obviously, and he looks awful. his hair grows into a rats nest from his lack of care, his clothes have food stains from all of the instant meals he's been eating,  his poor diet lead to some acne spots forming on on his cheeks and jawline, and he's sure he's gained fifty pounds. 

"honey? do you wanna talk about it?" his father calls from the kitchen. they look strikingly similar, doe eyes and bunny grin, jungkook almost smiles when they look at each other.

he shakes his head. "no. maybe later." jungkook keeps it all in, pushes it down till he's more comfortable to think about it.

jungkook feels bad for sitting here again, sharing the bed with his father because the couch was getting dents in it, eating his food, taking up his time. he could be with his real family instead of you. "m'sorry for staying here. i know it's probably annoying."