[ just a little warning but there's a fair bit of self-hate in this chapter so if you're not comfortable with that please feel free to skip this chapter. i want my readers to be as comfortable as possible. :) ]

[ chapter 40 ]
a chopping board of hate

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

THE shed is well-bathed in moonlight when jeongguk steps over the platformed cement skirting that evening. a heavy silence blankets the garage, sodden and groaning at its ageing shoulders.

if he closes his eyes, he can almost see the other's hunched form behind the mountain of cardboard boxes strewn across the centre of the room, it's content throttled beneath layers and layers of duct tape. and then if he thinks a little harder, he could see his calloused fingers tucked beneath the crooks and cranks of silver bodies, soot soiling his signature mustard shirt.

the thought coils at his stomach, painfully nostalgic. swallowing thickly, jeongguk pockets his fingers within his jeans, sneaker-smothered feet tentatively rounding the corner of the boxes.

"jackson?"

the voice is muffled beneath steel, swaying feet twisted in his direction as jeongguk stands a few metres from a bisected frame tucked beneath a volkswagen's hood.

"hey, can you pass me the screw? on your left."

his voice is all that resonates through his mind, familiar and playful. his friend. best friend. there, in the flesh, tan fingers webbed at his thigh adorned with sets of flashing silver.

"fuck you too then." he hears a curse before the sound of grumbling shuffles unhinge below him, a mop of charcoal ruffling into view.

the same uneven eyes. the large nose they'd both jokingly conspire was a sign of their matchmaking in heaven. features, he'd grown up with since he was swabbed in diapers.

"jeongguk?"

his name tears him from his daze, teeth pinching at his lips at the stiff title. a statement. far from any hearty welcome he'd dreamed off.

skin hot, jeongguk finds himself deftly nodding, offering a meek smile with a slight raise of his shoulders, "hey."

"get out."

his throat seems to compress at those words, tightening until he found it hard to breathe. and his stomach, hot, hot.  wrenching and tussling from side to side.

he's not going to cry here. he doesn't have the right to.

"yug-"

but the stony glass of his eyes and firmness of his cheeks says it all, lips pursed and gaze piercing, "get out jeongguk. i don't want to see you."

"please," he pleads, fingers wringing the air before him as if it would haul him up from the morbid water squeezing at his throat, "can we talk?"

"you had that chance two years ago." the man says wryly, lips thinned, "forget it."

and something seems to snap within him at those words. coiled and wringing, pummelling his skin until he'd crumble to the floor in a snotty mess of sweaty nostalgia and teary penitence.

"i'm sorry, okay?"

sorry. sorry. all he's ever been is sorry. screwing everything up, wrenching the colour from their smiles and pulling, pulling until it's morphed into some sick slate of a heart, a chopping board for his father's games. or maybe it was him, maybe jeongguk was the chopping board, ever so pliant and blind-sighted to the meat brought to his palms.

"i didn't want to leave you."

that's it. a meek mumble that he wishes would cradle all his wrongs, polish the scars across his board. it's not that easy though. it's never been that easy for him.

yugyeom's lips are pinched so tight that they flake at the thinness of white, eyes bullets at his skin, carving his lies from his own lips until he'd buckle to the floor, a broken record of commands.

his eyes fall and jeongguk finally thinks he can breathe once again, despite the unrelenting fist curved at the edges of his ribs, waiting.

"let me guess," he sneers and jeongguk winces at the wry mockery that heaves from his lips, "mr - oh so mighty - daddy jeon, himself?"

his bowed head and sagged shoulders are an answer enough, a sharp scoff ripping from his throat as he throws his head back in a derisive snort.

"my God, you're a fucking coward."

his words, truthful as they are, pull at the corners of his lips, chest restricting as he keeps his gaze low.

"you'd think, that twenty-four years of some gold-veined bastard bossing you around would piss a man off? Jesus, i've got to give it to you that patience is fucking insane."

"he's my father."

the words sound hollow across his tongue. like his own name across the others. a statement. a mere word to shelve his presence, to staple a title to the millions of faces swivelling before his eyes.

"was he?" yugyeom taunts, and jeongguk's suddenly aware of how the man had risen from the floor, fingers sooted as black as the locks across his forehead, "sure as hell doesn't sound like one. not by the way he treats you like his fucking secretary."

"he's a busy man," he says quietly.

a scoff.

then there's silence. humid and pressing.

he keeps his gaze low, eyes grazing the familiar tan, chunky shoes cladded around the younger's ankles.

they'd bought their first timberlands together, giggly and flushed, ankles adorned in heavy leather and two-tone cord laces. jeongguk wonders if yugyeom remembered that, whether he'd think of their acne-scarred cheeks sore from grinning and their parent's cards briefly slashed.

"i don't hate you jeongguk," yugyeom says slowly, the bravest of the two to break the silence, "i don't."

"oh," he breathes, blinking back the warmth at his lashes as he repeats his words as if to validate the thought, "you don't hate me."

he's briefly aware of yugyeom's peering oddly down at him, concerned. but there, in the shed of the tiny repair shop, those words are nothing but bitter shame at his tongue. hate, hate, hate.

"does he still treat you like before?" he hears yugyeom ask, timid and careful, "or is he still the same asshol-"

"i hate me."

the words are like ice at his tongue, frigid and baneful. swelling and swelling until the burn of the cold caught at his throat, shoved down into the writhing tissues of his belly, and it's burning, burning, blistering his insides. and jeongguk just wants to cry. cry till his eyes would fill no more and his lips would crack beneath his shame until he'd crumble and wither away just like he deserved.

for jeongguk doesn't deserve yugyeom's forgiveness.

yugyeom should hate him. want his skin ripped from his bones and scorched at the stake because God that's what jeongguk deserves. for his wrongs, for the hearts that he'd torn and the tears that he'd shed. 

hate. taehyung should hate him. did hate him. in fact, he bets the man lay curled in his sheets with sodden skin and cardinal lips from cursing his name, teeth sharpened from the wishes of his demise. and jimin hates him too. and maybe seokjin. he'd torn their friend's heart, shattered it in doubt and left him with strings of insecurities and broken promises.

yoongi too. and maybe hoseok and namjoon. maybe when they'd realise the true evil carved in his soul, they'd hate him like the others.

they should hate him. he's a horrible, dreadful excuse of a human. he'd betrayed, hurt and laid hands on an innocent. he deserves every ounce of hate they'd spear at him.

hate. hate. hate.

he doesn't realise he's crying until there are arms winding across his back and his face is gently cradled into the crook of the other's neck, gentle murmurs and consoling rubs rippling across his skin. and he wants to run, rip himself from yugyeom's hold because no, he didn't deserve this. he didn't deserve to be held with such tenderness when the younger too had unravelled from his own fingers and sobbed as he had, but then there had been no one to love him.

jeongguk doesn't deserve this. he doesn't deserve yugyeom's pale fingers across the ebony of his back.

he doesn't deserve taehyung who likes him.

~

[a/n]

i feel like all i'm doing is apologising. i'm really sorry for not updating frequently. my exams ended a week ago and i just really needed some time to relax and read, i've been obsessed with reading from ao3 recently. the writing there is so unbelievably beautiful, it has me literally squirming with envy.

summer holidays are coming up so i'll get some more time to write and read, so hopefully, we'll get a few more frequent updates!

i hope you all are having an amazing day. if you're not, i believe that whatever happened will resolve itself soon. one day or event doesn't define you, so don't beat yourself up too much, okay? we are made from our mistakes. i hope you all are eating and sleeping well! take care of yourself! ♡