There was a letter.
Nothing more than a thin, pure white square envelope that had been pushed through the crack beneath his door sometime in the hours between this moment and the one where Jungkook had left. And for a moment he wondered if he truly had entered some other reality where things like this suddenly happened to him. Where he was delivered ransom notes from some crime boss and they were going to claim to have his best friend.
He really needed to stop falling asleep while watching dramas.
There was nothing on the outer shell, no handwriting or message indicated who it was intended for or who it had come from. But there were only two possibilities, and there were less than a handful of people who even knew that this was where to find one of them. So it seemed relatively safe to assume that it was meant for him.
Fingers gently slipped beneath the seal, prying it apart and lifting up the flap, until a single, neatly folded sheet of paper came into view. But it was covered in small, neat flowing script, and as those crooked fingers slipped it out, he realized they were shaking. That his heart was beating rapid fire within his chest. Because honestly, he'd had enough dramatic revelations to last an entire life time. He wasn't prepared for another.
But as the lines came into view he began to realize it for what it was. Took a deep breath and held it and forced himself to actually read.
"Seokjin -
I'm sorry for doing things this way. I wanted to come see you before I left but, well, you were right. I need to save my voice. What's left of it, anyway. Guess from now on I'm pretty much always going to sound like a whispering mouse. Consequences for my own choices.
I wanted to apologize. I said so many terrible things about you, and none of them were true. Honestly, I was just so jealous. I wasted so much time trying to figure out someway to get Jungkook to love me the way I did him. But nothing ever worked. And I realize now that's because you can't force someone to love you. It has to happen on it's own. And it was never going to happen for us. So, really, I'm grateful to you for breaking that cycle, because I was never going to be strong enough to do it myself.
I don't know if he really loves you. I don't think he's actually capable of it. Maybe those are just my own negative feelings influencing my thoughts. I hope he does. I hope he really does love you with all of his heart. I hope he doesn't do these same things to you. I hope that, in five years, you're not where I am, writing a letter to someone else. I hope that you'll be the last one.
By the time you get this I'll be gone. Taehyung tried to convince me to stay. But it's better this way. The only way to rid myself of the infection is to cut it out completely. And I can't do that if I'm there.
Please be happy. And I know it's going to sound strange, and maybe it's just my own foolish heart talking, but please take care of him.
- Jimin"
There was a truth that had settled into his brain that he could not rid himself of, no matter how hard he tried.
That Jungkook was like a drug, and all it took was one single hit for you to become hopeless addicted.
That Jungkook was like an infection, and all it ever took was coming into contact with it a single time to have it take hold.
Loving Jungkook was like being an addict. It brought you close to the source of your own pain and suffering, while also allowing you to have complete access to it whenever you wanted. You could never feel the symptoms of withdraw if you were constantly high.
Loving Jungkook was like having the cure right there. An antidote that would ease your pain, would alleviate the suffering. Would make you think that you were healing, that you were going to fine. But it was never quite strong enough to completely rid you of the source.
Because Jungkook was both. The source and the cure. The drug and the addict. The spider that had formulated a web and had caught them both in it.
Seokjin wasn't naive enough to think that he was the lucky one in this scenario. No, if anything, that title went to Jimin. Because he had been given a single chance to escape. Had been brought nearly to ruin but had managed to survive. While Seokjin was still trapped helplessly in that tangled web, and he was becoming so tightly wrapped and bound that there was never going to be any chance of freedom.
He didn't want it anyway. Because if he had to chose between freedom and entanglement, he would chose the latter.
Because it had already long since been established that he would always chose Jungkook. And nothing was ever going to change that.
...
He burnt the letter.
Turned on the gas burner as high as the flame would go and caught the corner on fire. Stood over the sink with the water running until the paper ignited so fast that he nearly singed his own fingers. Dropped it onto a dry portion and watched as the paper turned to ash before extinguishing it and washing the evidence away.
And maybe he should question why that had been his action. Why he hadn't just tucked it away somewhere. Probably because he was entirely og how fragile Jimin's freedom truly was.
Jungkook wouldn't care if he hadn't gone to Busan. Surely he knew by now that he hadn't actually done what he was told. But chances were, so long as Jimin left him alone, he wouldn't pursue the blatant misbehavior. That letter had definitely been against the silent, unspoken rules that had been laid out.
And so he had gotten rid of it. Hadn't even questioned himself until he was turning off the stove and walking away. Maybe it was just another sign of his own sanity slowly slipping away. But the truth was, he had never been all that mentally stable to begin with.
Washed the memory of incident down the drain like the remnants of burnt paper and moved on.
