↳ ❝🍓 [chapter 11] ¡! ❞🚬

DARKNESS OVERTOOK THE LIGHT OF DAY and the world was drowned darkness with only the pale face of the moon to guide them through this scary world. Crime ran rampant through the city. Deals were occuring on nearly every corner, shifty gazes exchanged through the thinly veiled distrust between buyer and seller like the police would roll up any second now to take them away. Gangs roam the streets with the only goal being to protect their territory. They aren't afraid to let shots fire at first sign of opposition.

Yoongi sat on a wooden park bench sectioned away from the others while they drank and did their copious amounts of various drugs to numb whatever unique brand of pain happened to be. He wanted to be alone. His cigarette perched between the long, pale fingers of his right hand and a bottle of whiskey in his left.

He felt numb. A toxic combination of alcohol and nicotine in his veins. He no longer felt the pain in his limbs, just dazed and buzzed.

Yoongi coddled his bottle like a baby and drank whole mouthfuls at a time. Self-destruction wasn't an unfamiliar emotion to him. It came with the wind for a fleeting moment and suddenly the idea of getting hammered and absolutely obliterating any sense of consciousness he had left was utterly and entirely appealing to him. Life was hard. His life was even harder.

It's not that Yoongi wanted to be dead, no he wasn't suicidal (yet). It was more that he'd rather he not have been born in the first place. And if he could go back and time and tell his mother of all the pain he and their family would go through and that they were better off just never having children in the first place, they could save everyone the pain.

Yoongi rolled his head back against the cold metal of the bench, eyes gazing up at the glittering stars surrounding the moon which was partially covered by the shadow of the Earth. They were all up there, together, friends. He wondered if even with so many of them up there if they ever felt alone. They were millions of lightyears away from each other, so far that by the time they saw each other, they'd only be able to see the past of the other, never in their current form. For all they know, their friend could be dead, one of those stars that flickered out and died in some cataclysmic burst which triggered a whole new galaxy to be created out of stardust and dying wishes.

They were watching someone who was already dead and could only see what they once were as if it were the current moment.

The thought made Yoongi depressed.

He felt that way sometimes. Seen yet unseen, heard yet silenced. Already dead and yet, people interacted with him like he was still alive. Yoongi was a recluse, that was the whole reason he wasn't with the others like Hoseok was.

The only time he didn't feel alone was when he was with Eva. They hadn't known each other long, but he felt seen, heard. He was alive near her.

But what if it wasn't him who was being gazed upon millions of lightyears away? What if he was gazing at her? She was the start who has already gone out in glory and created something breathtakingly gorgous from her dramatic death.

He had to protect that at all costs.

"Aye, Suga."

Fuck.

Yoongi let out a sigh and lifted his head away from his intergalactic friends to look at him. "What, Trey?" He grumbled lowly. He was a little woozy, slurring his words just slightly, but he was good at holding his liquor. Yoongi liked to call himself a functioning alcoholic.

His poor liver, not to mention his fucking lungs.

"You got my money?" He stood beside Yoongi, looming over him with his hands shoved into his pocket with the obvious outline of a gun against the fabric of his jacket.

Yoongi was unimpressed and unintimidated.

"Yeah." He sighed, letting go of his bottle to grab the wad of cash he had in his pocket. "Got rid of everything. That's all of it." Every sale he made, a portion of it went to Trey while Yoongi got to keep a cut. Yoongi lifted his cigarette with shaky hands and took a long drag.

Trey sat there and checked, making sure everything was in order like Yoongi has ever come up short before. He hasn't, never. Not because he was a good, honest person or respected Trey or something like that. He just didn't have the energy to get into it with him. Upon confirming it was all there, Trey nodded. "Watch yourself, Suga, and that girl of yours." He pointed before turning on his heels and walking away.

Yoongi rolled his eyes. Trey was a coward, through and through. He couldn't do shit without those dirtbags who followed him around like loyal dogs ready to follow every command with the idea that they'd get special treatment for it. They were ass-kissers, boot-lickers, simply leeching on to whoever was in power. He couldn't even beat Yoongi's ass by himself. That's why he came with his gun so obviously displayed.

He was trying to use Eva as a threat over Yoongi's head. If he couldn't make him submit on his own, he'd use a helpless girl who couldn't protect herself to do it. That's why he was a coward, because he had to use other people to fight his battles.

Once Trey was away, Yoongi got up from the bench, alcohol and cigarette in hand, and began to make his way through the park to get to Eva's house. He had no intention of intruding on her night. He just wanted to make sure she was doing okay.

Yoongi was able to walk straight for the most part, stumbling ever so slightly when his foot would hit a part of the uneven and broken sidewalk. He regained his footing and continued down the sidewalk towards heaven where his angel was housed.

Eva was slowly beginning to make her house a home. She was beginning to decorate her front porch with lawn chairs and a small table between them. Two chairs, one for her and one for Yoongi. They could sit out on a sunny day with a pitcher of lemonade and maybe a batch of lemon squares.

Through the large window which peered into her living room, he could see the lights were on through the blinds, but not much more. She had those curtains where she could see out of them, but no one could see inside. Smart.

Yoongi slowly climbed the stairs and sat at the top, leaning against the cold, metal guardrail. He lifted his whiskey bottle to his lips and gulped down the liquid which seemed to leave a trail of fire down his esophagus. Pain was welcomed with open arms in these self-destructive phases that came and went. Just a part of the process.

He liked how silent and empty it became at night, especially down this street. There was no one out in the street with the threat that tonight may be their last looming over their shoulder. Everyone was safe in their homes. Little kids tucked into bed, adults enjoying a nice glass of wine, maybe a night of much awaited fun.

Up on the powerlines were old, worn shoes dangling by the pair from the shoelaces. There were there by the hundreds, thrown up there by the families of those who had lost their lives in this godforsaken neighborhood, Yoongi included.

Yoongi could identify which one belonged to his brother, Yeonsoo. They were a very old, red pair of Converse-like shoes hanging next to the western entrance to the park. They belonged to him, his precious, battered-up shoes. Yeonsoo use to say they were his lucky shoes and nothing would happen to him when he was wearing them. It always brought Yoongi comfort when he left the house with them on.

He wasn't wearing them that day when he was shot. Yoongi use to believe it was because he wasn't wearing his lucky shoes. With age, he's come to realize that Yeonsoo was simply in a bad situation and found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yoongi clutched his bottle to his chest and let his cigarette hang from his lips. He hadn't noticed Eva had come to the window. She meant to open it so the living room wouldn't be so hot at night. The air conditioning still wasn't working and the maintenance man still hasn't come to fix it.

Gazing out the window, she caught a glimpse of a silhouette sitting on her steps and for a moment felt her heart fall into her stomach. Then she saw his hair, as pure and white as the clouds in the sky, and the all smoke surrounds him and relaxed. He made he made her feel secure.

Why hasn't he knocked on the door yet?

Yoongi perked up and turned around at the sound of the door cracking open, looking at her delicate figure with a soft, drunken gaze. He was delirious, even more so than usual. He saw an angel, a real angel, sent to bring him mercy.

"Yoon, what are you doing out here?" Eva stepped out into her smooth, concrete porch with only her socked feet protecting her from the dirty ground which didn't deserve even in the slightest to know what the skin of a divine being felt like. Slowly, she pulled the door closed behind herself.

Yoongi sighed and turned his head back ahead to look at the hundreds of shoes dangling. He lifted his shoulders to shrug. "Dunno."

Eva made her way over to the stairs and came to sit down beside him. Their knees touched, briskly brushing against each other. Yoongi didn't react, he felt too numb. His eyes found shoes very similar to the ones he threw up for his brother, battered and worn, but small, a child. Poor thing.

Eva looked over at him. A frown drew on her lips when she saw his usual cigarette was accompanied by a bottle of whiskey. He probably wasn't in a good state. She shook her head and before she could even realize what she was doing, she reached out and plucked his cigarette from between his lips.

"Hey!" Yoongi exclaimed. His brows came to furrow with frustration as she tossed the cigarette over the guardrail. Smoke quite literally flew from his nose like those cartoons of angry bulls. It was kinda funny.

"I don't like those." She said to him as if he wasn't already well aware. "And you shouldn't be drinking and smoking at the same time. You're gonna die with black lungs and a destroyed liver."

Yoongi just clutched his bottle tighter. If she threw that away, they'd have to throw hands.

The two sat in silence, unsure of what to say to each other. Eva looked at the shoes as well. She always saw them when she left out of her house, all over the neighborhood, but she never knew what they meant. She just assumed it had something to do with gangs.

"I always wondered why those shoes were up there." Eva finally spoke up. Her voice was soft and airy, like a chilly breeze in the night. Yoongi liked her voice. It was very...comforting. It soothed every anxiety, even sense of dread, everything. She was a warm blanket when it was fucking freezing out.

Yoongi glanced over at her with a raised brow of curiosity. "What did you think they meant?" He asked.

"I thought they were a way for gangs to mark their territory." She spoked sheepishly, scratching the back of her neck. She felt a little stupid by the way Yoongi was looking at her, but she knew nothing of this life. She grew up in the suburbs. There were no shoes on landlines, no gangs, no shooting, just quiet, kind people. Copy and paste the same person over and over.

Yoongi couldn't help but laugh, the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were of genuine nature. His smile was one so perfectly unique to him, pearly white teeth framed by pink gums. His laugh was low and deep and came from the chest. Genuine.

It was so odd yet charming. Eva wanted to take a picture and capture this image forever. She'd put it in a frame and forever remember the first smile of her friend.

He shook his head and raised a tattooed, ring-decorated hand to push back his hair. "Sometimes, but in this case each pair of shoes represents a person who lost their lives here," Yoongi explained to her, his smile all but disappearing from his lios. His amused expression was replaced with one of solemn.

"Children and adults alike. The shoes are meant to pay respects to those who have passed on."

Eva felt the sudden gravity of despair upon her chest as she gazes back at the shoes. There were so many. So, so many. And they were all meant to represent someone who had died. Then she was curious.

"Have you ever had to throw shoes up there?" She asked. Then she realized how harmful that may be to ask. If he had, it probably wasn't something she wanted to remember or linger on.

But Yoongi seemed unaffected. He had no more tears left to shed. He had mourned, but when morning came they still weren't there. All the friends lost, his brother...they would remain forever lost in the misty veil of grief. The only thing he could do was live on for them.

"Yeah, a few old friends..." He hesitated a bit, pressing his tongue against the inner flesh of his cheek. "...and my brother."

That caught Eva's attention. A mix of pity and sympathy took a swim in the melted chocolate of her eyes. He had lost his brother? That must have been deviating. She could see Yoongi's eyes gloss over, but he wasn't going to cry. They became mirrors into his soul and all they reflected was pain. His expression was stoic, unyielding and his lip turned upward into into a scowl. He refused to shed a tear.

"If you don't mind...what was his name?" Eva shouldn't have asked but she wanted to know more. Yoongi picked up his bottle and drank once more. A mess was what he was, a slowly crumbling mess. Yet, Yoongi still scrambles to hold his pieces together.

"Yeonsoo." He still answered. "He was my older brother, 21 when he died." Yoongi's look became distant, dreary. "I threw his shoes up on the powerline near the west side of the park where he was shot." A weak smile tugged at his lips. "He would kick my ass if he found out that I joined a gang. Would kill me before the streets do." That's maybe the worst part. Yoongi's older than even his older brother was when he died. He didn't even get to have a fully developed brain.

Yeonsoo was a star, lightyears away. And everything Yoongi remembers him doing meant nothing because his date was already sealed. He was already dead and gone. Everyone was just interacting with something that isn't even there anymore.

Eva felt like crying. Her throat felt like it was burning, a lump growing there which makes it unbearably difficult to breathe. She didn't have siblings, she always wanted one. To have a close family member and then have them stripped away from you must be soul-crushing.

Yoongi was caught off guard when Eva slid her arms around him in a tight hug with her head against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Yoongi." She whispered. He smelled like his cigarette smoke, whiskey, and cologne. It was a mix that went oddly well together and even though even hated the smell of cigarettes, she wouldn't trade it for the world. It was Yoongi's smell, one she would only associate with him.

"I'm here for you always. Even if we haven't known each other for every long...I still consider you a friend." Eva wanted him to know that there was always someone he could turn to if he needed a vulnerable moment.

Yoongi looked down at her. He chewed softly on his quivering bottom lip as he fought back the tears. He placed his head upon Eva's shoulder. "I consider you a friend as well."

*.✧ Kᴀʏs Eɴᴅɪɴɢ Nᴏᴛᴇs

Ik ik, this chapter was oddly sad and poetic but at the time of writing this I was in a very melodramatic, gothic mood so I decided to write this.

But yes, Yoongi has an older brother who died. For the most part, he will be an important character but only in the way that he's mentioned a lot. So don't forget him.

As you're reading this, I just finished the epilogue of this book yesterday. I won't give any spoilers but I'm really proud of this book. It's definitely one of my favorites.

I'm taking a flight to Philly tonight by myself for the first time so wish me luck!

Thank you all for reading. I hope you guys enjoyed and I wish you all an amazing day/night

사랑해

~Kay<(￣︶￣)>