Jungkook doesn't visit the library often.

It used to be his favourite hide out spot, back in the days that Jimin still tried to drag him out to socialize, but that became pointless once Jimin realized he never hid anywhere else. After that he stopped taking the extra effort to visit, since the building is so far from his daily route. He loves the place - it's one of his favourite spots on campus - but in general he dreads the walk back and stays away.

Today, though, with all the pent up energy he has from doing absolutely nothing, a long walk is welcome. So after wandering through the empty streets a bit, marvelling at how bored he is, he decides to go to the library and be bored in a different location.

It's a good idea, because the quiet in the library doesn't strike him as odd. It's normal. There is a distinct lack of breathing people, but it doesn't bother him because he never sits at the tables with the breathing people anyway. He leaves his backpack outside, takes in his laptop, and looks for the best spot to curl up in. From past experience he knows that it's the biology section that's least frequented, though he isn't sure why yet. Probably has something to do with how outdated the books there are.

He sets his laptop up between two shelves and settles in the corner. It's compact, hidden, and free from distractions. The laptop is for show - to make it look like he's working on something. In honesty Jungkook has zero plans.

A part of him just wants to go home already. Another part of him wants to pull out a bunch of textbooks and build a fort.

He traces the embossed titles, fascinated by the feel of the words against his finger. A lot of the titles are old and faded - his university may be well known, but it isn't well stocked. Research materials are outdated, lab equipment falling apart. The elevator in his dorm hasn't been fixed in years, and the new cafeteria has been under construction for so long that people have decided it's a cover for a drug cartel.

He pulls out a thick volume, just because he likes the feel of it in his hands. He doesn't even know what the title means. Freaking biology students and their obsession with naming everything in languages no one can decipher. He holds the book, flips through it. Closes it. Puts it on his lap.

"Jungkook?"

A figure appears at the end of the shelf, watching him curiously. It's like they're fated to always meet this way - with Namjoon standing tall and Jungkook on the ground. It's as awkward as it was the last time.

"Hyung, you didn't go home?"

Namjoon shakes his head. He joins him on the ground, a foot away from Jungkook, resting his back against a shelf. It's a terrible idea, because he instantly knocks three textbooks out of their arrangement and curses. Jungkook reaches to help him upright them but Namjoon does it easily, like he's far too used to this sort of thing.

"My parents travel a lot," he explains. "I don't go home often."

"Oh." He doesn't talk to Namjoon much - their interactions generally consist of hi and bye and look, it's a sunny day. He always thought they shared the kind of acquaintanceship where, if they met in the library, they'd smile at each other and then ignore each other, but here Namjoon is. Like they're friends or something.

It strikes him that Namjoon must have been lonely too.

"Hoseok told me you were staying," Namjoon says. "I didn't think I'd see you though."

"It's only for a few more days. I won't be here for new year's. Yoongi hyung will be, though."

"Ah, yes, he's always here. But he's been ignoring all my text. Says he's too busy."

Jungkook thinks briefly to this morning, when he'd gone over to Yoongi's room to return his jacket. Yoongi had been at his computer, yes, all red eyed like he hadn't slept, but he'd been playing solitaire with full concentration and told Jungkook that he only needed to win ninety three more times to undo the damage Hoseok had done to his score.

"He is, I guess," Jungkook says, doubtful.

"He's the one who'd asked me if I was staying this week," Namjoon complains, and he actually looks disappointed. And wronged. Jungkook doesn't even know if he and Yoongi are friends - from what he's seen they only ever snap at each other. "And then suddenly he's too busy. Ahhh, he gets on my nerves so much."

Jungkook blinks. Thinks, yours too?

Namjoon shakes his head. "Sorry, I'm ranting. How have your holidays been?"

"Good," Jungkook says. He searches for something to follow it up with, comes up with nothing. The seconds tick by, and by the time he realizes he could have just said what about yours the silence has been to long for the conversation to continue. It turns a bit awkward, for him, but Namjoon doesn't seem to mind. He's scanning the titles on the shelf opposite to him, so fast that Jungkook can't tell if he's actually reading them. He's a biology major, he remembers. For some reason he keeps pinning him as a chemistry student. Probably because of all the stories of him burning up the lab.

"You're interested in plants?" Namjoon asks at last.

"Eh...a bit? Not really?

Namjoon looks pointedly at the book in Jungkook's lap, which has a picture of a pine forest on it. Jungkook looks at it too.

"I'm just looking around," he explains.

"If you want to pass the time you're best off in the humanities section. Or history. Plenty of cool stuff. But what do you like? Personally?"

Jungkook can tell why Taehyung likes him so much - Namjoon has all the right conversation starters, and Taehyung is always itching for an audience. Jungkook, however - his mind goes blank the moment Namjoon says what do you like and he can't think of a single thing he's ever been interested in, ever.

"I...don't read much of anything," he admits, and his stomach sinks at Namjoon's slight frown. He's the class topper, university legend, with a one hundred percent scholarship - and Jungkook just told him he doesn't read. Why does Jungkook even say things.

He's saved when his phone pings. It's Yoongi.

Where the heck are you.

Someday, someday, Jungkook will meet someone who doesn't feel the need to know where he is at every instant of his life. He'd always thought that Yoongi would be that person, but this vacation has ruined any hopes of that. In Yoongi's defence, it's Hoseok's fault, but still.

Library, he texts back.

It's lunch time. Get back here.

Jungkook scowls.

"Something wrong?" Namjoon asks.

"Nah," Jungkook says. "It's Yoongi hyung. He, uh, wants to get lunch."

There's a pause that's even more awkward than the one they'd had previously.

"Yoongi wants to get lunch," Namjoon repeats, sounding so done with his life.

"...yeah."

"I wanted to get lunch," Namjoon says. "I told him this an hour ago. And yet, my messages say he's busy."

"...uh."

His phone pings again.

Are you on the way?

"In his defence," Jungkook tries, when Namjoon's frown turns deeper, "Hoseok hyung made us promise to eat together."

"He made us promise, too," Namjoon says, a bit indignant. "It never worked."

Jungkook...doesn't have an argument for that. But it is, sort of, proving his theory right - that Yoongi doesn't like Namjoon, though Jungkook can't understand why not. Then again, Jungkook can't understand anything about Yoongi, so his opinion doesn't mean much.

"Are you...friends?" Jungkook asks slowly, hesitant. Another ping from his phone reminds him that he still hasn't replied to Yoongi.

Namjoon tilts his head. Considering. "It's hard to say. Depends on how you look at it. Like, he buys me coffee sometimes, but he also insults me every time we meet and sort of destroys my will to live." He says it jokingly, but Jungkook knows first hand how literal the words could be. "Are you friends?"

Jungkook shrugs. A few days ago, eating pizza on the roof, he would have been sure. Positive. But now...

He thinks back to when Yoongi brought him a jacket in the cold. When he'd helped him after Jungkook lost himself in the rain. All the times he'd walked him home from Jin's house, and given him food, and let him escape conversations that he wasn't comfortable with.

And then he thinks back to the complete hatred written across his face when Jungkook asked him if he needed help.

"He helps me out a lot," Jungkook says. "A lot. But he also doesn't like me."

Namjoon gives him a hard look. Like he's looking into the depths of Jungkook's brain and further, like he knows everything that's ever happened to him. "They're the same thing when it comes to Yoongi," he says. "He doesn't help unless he likes you."

Jungkook shakes his head. Namjoon won't get it. First of all, Jungkook hasn't given Yoongi any reason to like him. But then, Jungkook doesn't give anyone much reason to like him, and yet here he is after his second semester counting his list of friends on an entire hand instead of just two fingers.

The thought is enough to give him an identity crisis of its own. There...really is no reason for his friends to like him. And yet, and yet...

His phone pings again. Jungkook glances down, but his screen has locked automatically, and all it says is 4 new messages.

"I - I wanted to do music," he blurts out. Without meaning to. Namjoon doesn't look surprised - he was there during that dreadful dinner after the concert Yoongi had given him tickets for. He'd heard the whole thing. "But I didn't, and so...he thinks I'm stupid."

"And he's wrong," Namjoon says. He doesn't say it with any particular emotion, not like Jimin, who'd been desperately trying to convince him, or Hoseok, who'd been so mad at Yoongi that he couldn't keep it out of his voice. Namjoon states it like a fact, like something that Jungkook is just supposed to know. "Yoongi has his own twisted ideas of passion and dreams, but they're wrong. And if he really thought you were stupid, he wouldn't bother with you at all."

Jungkook gives him a doubtful look.

"I wanted to do music," Namjoon says. "And here I am, doing anything but. Yoongi knows this. He's seen my work, he even liked some of my old tracks." He continues in a rush, as if he isn't leaving Jungkook reeling from the fact that Kim Namjoon isn't just a freaking genius but a freaking genius who can do anything. "And yet, that day at dinner, he didn't call me out for it. He didn't say a word against me, but he picked on you. Why do you think that is?"

"...I'm easier to pick on?"

Namjoon snorts. "That was...admittedly there, but no. That's not it."

Jungkook can't think of any other reason except that the world is freaking unfair, and he's pretty sure that's not it either.

"It wasn't just at the dinner," he feels the need to explain. "Like, two days ago, he was -" he pauses. He doesn't know Namjoon well - he doesn't know if he even knows about Yoongi's weird breakdowns. He knows that Hoseok knows, and Jin knows, but Namjoon... "He was in a bad mood," he says at last. "And he told me that I, I especially, would have no idea of what he was feeling because I was...too scared to sing."

Namjoon tilts his head. He doesn't seem surprised by this information, but he does seem mildly interested. Jungkook's phone pings again, and he continues to ignore it. Yoongi is going to be pissed, but he can't really pause the conversation to reply right now.

"He doesn't dislike you," Namjoon says at last. "Trust me, I've seen some of the worst of him and if he disliked you, you wouldn't have any doubts about it at all. But getting back to my point, there's a reason he picked on you. And not me."

"Yeah?"

"It's because he thinks you can still change." Namjoon smiles a bit, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "He gave up on me a long while ago."

The knocking on Yoongi's door is insistent.

Only Jeon Jungkook would spend so much time knocking on an open door.

"You can come in," Yoongi mutters, eyes glued to his screen. There are crumpled papers and lyrics all around him, abandoned. He's given up on them all. For now, music be damned - he's content to try and salvage his high score at solitaire.

Everything would have been fine if Hoseok hadn't sneakily played on his computer that day - or rather, everything would have been fine if Hoseok hadn't sneakily lost so many games on his computer that day. He thought the damage was irreversible at first, but then he realized all he had to do was win an insane number of times so that Hoseok's losses stood forgotten.

The saner, logical part of his brain reminds him that he could just reset the freaking game, but that's erasing years of hard work and history and Yoongi can't have that.

Jungkook has stopped knocking, but he doesn't enter.

"Jungkook?" he prompts, still staring at his screen. He needs an eight of hearts. If he has an eight of hearts his entire shitty life will be worth it.

"Hyung, could you...come here a second?"

Yoongi pauses. He sounds...nervous. Jungkook almost always sounds nervous around him - it's something he realized during those days they both hung out in Hoseok's room. The way Jungkook talked to Jin was easy, not awkward at all. But once he turned to Yoongi he became so cautious. Hesitant. Yoongi wants a bit of Jin's magic.

Now, though, Jungkook sounds more nervous than usual.

He glances at the door. Jungkook has a backpack hung over his shoulder, a cylindrical package wrapped in newspaper in his arms. He's tapping his fingers anxiously against it.

Curious, Yoongi goes over to meet him. "Something wrong?"

Jungkook shakes his head, though he doesn't seem to agree with himself. "This is for you," he manages to force out. He pushes the package into Yoongi's hands - it weighs nothing at all, Yoongi thinks it's just paper - and takes a step back.

This is new. They've given each other small gifts before, but those are always things that they can slide under each other's doors. This seems so much more personal. So much more terrifying.

"Don't open it until I leave the building," Jungkook says.

Yoongi gives the package a long look. "It doesn't look like it'll explode."

"It won't," Jungkook assures him, too wound up to even realize it was a joke. He's staring straight ahead, eyes fixed a few inches to the left of where they should be meeting Yoongi's gaze. "And, uh, if you don't like it...just forget it ever happened."

He takes another few steps away, so Yoongi has to lean out of the door to see him.

"Happy new year in advance. See you, hyung!"

Yoongi starts. "Where are you going?"

Jungkook's eyes widen, like he's only just realized that he hasn't explained anything at all. "Home," he says, and Yoongi's stomach sinks to the floor. He'd known, of course, that Jungkook wasn't going to stay for too long, but he hadn't realized - had it been a week already? So soon?

"Oh," he manages to get out. "Have a safe trip." There are so many things running through his head, like where is home, how will you get to the station, do you know how to get to the station. "Are you going alone?" he asks, in the end.

"Yeah," Jungkook says. "I've gone before, I know the way."

"Call me if you need help," Yoongi says anyway, because he's the slightest bit responsible still.

Jungkook nods hastily, waves as an afterthought, and sprints away before Yoongi can even think of waving back. He stands, hand half raised, wishing he didn't suddenly feel so much more alone.

He looks back to the package in his hands. He's terribly curious about what's inside it, but at the same time, he's a bit wary. A bit...unsure. If it's something incredible Yoongi is going to have to return something to match it, and that's not something he's good at at all. Jungkook won't expect anything in return, of course, but that's all the more reason to give him something.

He goes over the window, glancing outside to see if Jungkook has left yet. The kid is standing on the front steps, reading something carefully on his phone. Yoongi hopes it isn't a map. He hopes Jungkook has the slightest idea as to where he's going. But then he starts moving, still staring at the screen in that slightly confused, slightly fascinated way that anyone he knows stares at their moving location on a map, and Yoongi sighs.

The package has been wrapped easily - just a roll of newspaper and three bits of tape. He undoes it carefully, setting it on his desk, and the rolled paper inside falls open.

Yoongi freezes.

It's...a painting. He's always known of Jungkook's love for art - it's hard to miss when he's covered in paint splatters half the time - but he's never actually seen his work before. And this...

Carefully, slowly, he traces one of the brush strokes.

It's mostly black. Thick, deadened strokes of black, thrown together so hastily and messily with no pattern whatsoever. Then streaks of red, more subtle but sharp and cutting. Like blood. The colours swerve and spiral together in an endless maze that has no beginning or end, the black moving from the centre, growing outwards. Taking over everything around it, while the red cuts jagged edges through it.

And outside it all , where the black's pull is starting to loosen and fade into grey, is the thinnest sliver of silver. Almost white. It's out of reach of the black and red maze, safe out of its grasp, although the black is reaching for it. Or is it...pulling away?

He picks it up carefully, heart beating fast. If this is what he thinks it is, if it means what he thinks it means...

The paper is thicker than the average sheet, and Yoongi can tell how many layers it's been covered with. Can tell just how much effort Jungkook has poured into this. He turns it over, so careful, too aware of how he's been handed what he'd thought of as his life's work.

There are words on the back. Small, in pencil, a bit smudged - clearly not meant for Yoongi to see.

Black that throws everything else out, one line says, and Yoongi is thrown back to their conversation months ago, when he first showed Jungkook his project. The line has been scratched out, rewritten, and scratched out again.

Black that thinks colour is fraud and grows to destroy it, the next line says, similarly mutilated.

And the third, written more hastily, more frantic: black that throws all colours out, but can't throw them far enough??

It's surrounded by question marks, and a random angry scribble. Yoongi stares at it. Just stares. He flips the painting back over, gets lost in the black for a moment, and then flips it back.

Can't throw them far enough.

His eyes burn a bit, and he can't accept why.

Yoongi doesn't often go up to the roof.

It has a great view, yes, but it's always too full of people. The cell phone reception may be good, but it's not like he ever calls anyone. The few, rare calls he gets from his mother are never longer than a minute, and any important calls from his professor, he takes after dashing downstairs and out of the building.

He goes up to the roof today.

He fiddles with his phone in hand for a full minute, not yet sure of what he wants to do. What he should be doing is...is giving Jungkook a call, but he'll be on a train right now. Not the best place for a conversation like this.

A conversation like what?

When Yoongi first decided he wanted to do music, he'd sent in his applications in secret, paying for them with the pitiful amount he'd scraped together from all the part time jobs he took up. His parents weren't happy about it. His mom wasn't happy, at least. Yoongi doubts his dad even knows what he's doing in college right now.

He'd never had friends, back then. There were kids he crashed into regularly on the streets, who were okay with him borrowing their bikes and hanging out with them in shady corners, who understood what it was like to never want to go home. They were all just like him, but they weren't his friends. When they got too rowdy and adults caught them at it, they were always quick to throw each other under the bus.

Hoseok was his first friend. They met backstage during a concert, when Yoongi was messing with the sound and light systems and Hoseok was panicking over his performance. After Hoseok was Jin, because the two of them went together. For some reason they accepted him. They dealt with his mood swings and his violence and his sudden urges to destroy, and...they didn't understand, not really, but they didn't hate him for it. And that was all Yoongi could ask for.

That was all he thought he could ever ask for.

Black that throws all colours out, but can't throw them far enough.

His eyes burn again, and he rubs at them quickly. What the hell, he's acting like a third grader. He should have more control than this. Yes, Jungkook painted everything that Yoongi has been trying to say all this time; yes, he slaved over something that he didn't have to do. He tried to understand Yoongi's work when there was really no need, freaking gave him the final result when he could have kept it for himself...

Before he met Hoseok, Yoongi would have never considered that someone could go so far to help someone out - that they could wear their hearts on their sleeves and see good in people like Yoongi. But while Hoseok supports him, he could never make head or tail of Yoongi's music. He can't stomach the Project.

But Jungkook.

He remembers shouting at him just a couple days ago - you, especially, would never understand - and the guilt hits him all over again in a completely different way.

He could text him. The train noises wouldn't get in the way of that - Yoongi could still text him.

He opens his messaging app, and stops. There's too much to say and he doesn't know how.

He hangs out with Namjoon on New Year's eve, if only because it's slightly less depressing then hanging out by himself.

There aren't enough people on campus for a proper celebration, but the cafeteria gives them what the cooks truly believe passes for cake. Yoongi, as a rule, doesn't go to the cafeteria even if he's dying, but Namjoon insists. Something about how the cakes are supposed to be blue and have drawings of balloons and smiley faces.

Yoongi's slice looks like it's been torn off a dirty sponge and been used to mop the floor.

"I came all this way," he says, deadpan, as the piece slides off his fork and lands back in his unappetizing plate. "For this."

Namjoon shrugs. He's eating his cake just fine, without pausing to make any miserable faces. "It's better than last year's," he says, in between bites. "That was the only time I've ever seen grey cake."

"It's in front of you right now," Yoongi points out.

"Nah, this is more...dead green."

"And that's better?"

Namjoon shrugs. "It's colour."

"The colour of mould. It could kill us."

"It was made with love," Namjoon insists, but he sounds doubtful. Yoongi sighs. When Namjoon is done, Yoongi scrapes his own cake onto his empty plate. Namjoon doesn't argue or hesitate, just goes straight to eating it up as well.

When he's all done, they wander the streets, aimless. It's too cold to be doing this - the thick jacket Yoongi is wearing helps little against the cold. He watches his breath frost before his eyes, keeps his gloved hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Not for the first time, he wishes he was built more like Namjoon. Much more cold resistant.

There's music coming from somewhere off campus - the loud, obnoxious kind that marks the coming of the new year. It's muffled and far away, and makes their current situation a bit more drab.

The first of the fireworks catch them off guard.

Yoongi only flinches a bit. Namjoon stumbles and nearly face plants.

"Shit," he says, which isn't the best thing to say about the coming of a new year.

The fireworks are far away as well, the sound of them spectacularly delayed, but they light the sky up so bright, so beautiful, that they can only stare in awe. Namjoon tilts his head at them, like he's thinking too much as per usual. Yoongi stares and doesn't think much of anything at all.

He pulls out his phone, raises it to take a video.

"You're taking a video," Namjoon says, the moment he presses record, making sure his obviousness is forever planted in the audio.

"...yes," Yoongi mutters, so that future generations watching it don't think he doesn't reply to people.

It's hard to keep the fireworks on his screen, because he keeps getting distracted and staring at them in the real sky, and by the time he looks back at the screen his hand has shifted to the side. But overall, the recording is decent and somewhat presentable.

He opens his camera roll. Selects the video. Takes a breath.

It might be the worst idea he's had in years, but he's sends it to Jungkook. The fireworks are awesome and Jungkook's painting was amazing, and Yoongi still doesn't know how to put it all into words, so instead, he sends him a short message.

thank you.

He doesn't get a reply for a long time. He checks his screen frequently, too frequently, if the strange looks Namjoon is giving him are anything to go by, but he gets no new notifications.

And then, at last:

what, no, dont thank me!! Cool fireworks!

Yoongi snorts at his screen.

thank you, he repeats, because he means it much more than Jungkook can understand. Jungkook starts typing, deletes, types, and deletes, and Yoongi finally decides to save him the trouble.

Any new year resolutions? He asks.

There's a pause. to pass the next semester, Jungkook sends back.

aiming low so you won't be disappointed?

thats me aiming high, hyung.

Yoongi smiles a bit.

"Who're you talking to?" Namjoon asks, curious.

"No one."

"It's Jungkook, isn't it."

Yoongi looks up at him, thrown.

"I was right," Namjoon says, and he sounds almost surprised. A bit amused. "Must be nice to be texted first. Or to, you know, get a reply to a message."

"You're a creep," Yoongi says.

"I've been looking at my empty inbox for two weeks," Namjoon says. "I'm entitled."

Yoongi ignores him.

It's almost midnight. The music from off campus is growing steadily louder, playing the most popular tracks of the year and all that, and the fireworks show is building up to its climax.

Yoongi's phone rings, blaring the annoying ring tone that Hoseok has set for himself. He tells Yoongi to put him on speaker and connects Seokjin as well, until the four of them are standing together in a nice, content silence that isn't quiet at all, but isn't full of much of anything either.

As the minutes tick by, the excitement starts to peak.

"What was the best part of the year?" Jin asks.

"Semester ending," Hoseok says immediately.

"Worst part?"

"...semester starting?"

"Oh, come on."

"The year starting?" Yoongi tries.

"I don't even know why I try," Jin says flatly.

"Try a different question."

Jin is quiet for a while. "Most memorable moment," he says at last.

"Ah," Hoseok says. "When they read my name wrong at that showcase and called me J-Happy."

"When I broke the acid bottle in the lab and sort of killed a frog," Namjoon says.

"You what?" Jin asks, horrified.

"I'm sorry."

"Apologize to the frog, not me."

"...it's dead."

"Yoongi?" Hoseok prompts.

"Getting kicked out of the fundraiser," Yoongi says, if only because he thinks that's what everyone wants to hear.

"Jin?"

He doesn't respond for a long while. It's usually Namjoon's job to overthink things, but sometimes Jin can give him a run for his money. He's always too sentimental at the end of the year.

"All of it," he says, which isn't an answer at all. "All of it. Ah, shit, I only have one semester left. I don't want to graduate."

"Maybe you won't," Yoongi says, optimistically. "Maybe you'll fail."

Namjoon smacks him on the head because Jin can't do it himself.

The minutes tick by, one by one, until there are only seconds left. The pointless chatter continues, on and on. Hoseok starts screaming something about the world is young and so am I.

His phone pings. He drags down the notification, reading the message preview. It's from Jungkook.

Happy new year, hyung!

"Five," Hoseok is counting. "Four. Three."

Yoongi thinks of the colour silver, of what Jungkook might have meant by it. Of can't throw far enough. He thinks about how for some reason he has someone to hang out with on new year's eve, and has two other friends laughing on the phone. He thinks of the painting in his room, testament to the fact that there's still hope for his music. That someone understands.

"Two."

This won't last. He knows it won't last, good things never do. In a few days he's going to be locked up in the same room, obsessing over the same problems. Dealing with the same sort of emptiness he seems to have been born with.

"One."

But at the moment, he can't bring himself to care.