JUNGKOOK

Days on trial: 49

We counted at least four people who gave us dirty looks on our walk back to mine.

Initially, at Annie's insistence, we had sprinted - but that was cut short after about a minute, also at Annie's insistence.

Out of breath, obviously a little behind on her cardio regime, she keeled over to take some deep breaths, and it would have been kind of cute, had it not been for the black moustache and mono brow I'd painted on her.

She'd foregone a coat, like an idiot, having left it in the office. A dark baggy sweatshirt with her alma mater printed on it was tucked into the front of her equally colourless jeans. A pair of beat up sneakers kept her feet cosy, but a tangle of gold necklaces and half a dozen rings kept her feeling pretty. I'd never seen her look so dressed down, especially not for work.

Hell, she still looked cute. Monobrow n'all.

"C'mon, it's not far," I laughed, turning my back to her, opening my arms out and squatting my knees slightly. "Get on."

"Jungkook, I'm no-"

"Don't make this harder than it has to be," I cautioned her, though only mildly. "Just get on."

She didn't really need all that much convincing, her dainty hands clasping my shoulders as she propelled herself upwards. Catching her legs, I held her tight as her arms squeezed around the bottom of my throat.

"Hold tight," I shouted over her yelps as I began to run, tanking down the street .

There was mist in the air, low clouds settling in for the night. It stuck to our skin like glue, holding us together through the back roads of the city.

Annie clung to me for dear life as I weaved my way past familiar shops and sporadic market stalls, closing up for the evening as nightfall was drawing in. Gentle wind whipped her hair against my cheek, the scent of her shampoo and perfume getting tangled in my senses. Everyone once in a while, I'd pause to catch my breath and she'd demand to be put down but the giggle that echoed in my ear whenever I started back up again let me know that she didn't really want to be put down.

We didn't stop laughing the entire time.

Even once we tumbled into my apartment, hair wet and cheeks sore from smiling, neither one of us could stop.

"You're bringing out the weird in him, Annie," Hobi observed from the sofa with a hand over his heart.

"What are you on about?" She beamed. "He's always been weird."

"Is that Annie?!" Jimin ran out from his room, skidding his socks against the smooth wooden floor in a panic. Arms flailing as he came to a stop, he'd grabbed onto her wrist before either of us could even say hello. "Sorry Kook, need her help with something, you can have her back in a minute!"

Annie turned to me with wide eyes and a whimsical grin, continuing to giggle as he dragged her into her room, closing the door shut behind him.

"Chloe problems," Hobi sighed with an eye-roll, though there was no mallice in his gesture. "You've got a little something..." he pointed to his own upper lip reigon, causing me to purse my lips with a curt nod.

"You weren't wrong," I conceded merrily. "She's bringing out the weird."

"Maybe... but weird is good," he gave me a knowing smile, before turning his attention back to the gardening show he had been engrossed in before we interrupted.

Kicking my shoes off, I clambered up the spiral staircase on all fours to the mezzanine, stopping sharply as soon as I got to the top. My bed was unmade, clothes strewn across the floor and I suddenly realised why my mother had nagged me so much as a teenager.

"Shit, shit, shit," I muttered under my breath, frantically straightening out my sheets. Given the nature of of the mezzanine, there wasn't quite enough room for me to stand without bending my neck awkwardly, so I moved around on my knees like a frenzied mess, chucking clothes into drawers and slamming them shut.

"You alright up there?" Hobi called, hearing the commotion, his shit-eating grin audible. You could hear it even clearer when he laughed after I told him to fuck off.

Sitting at the end of my bed, which wasn't really a bed, just a mattress on the floor elevated by tattered old magazines, I sighed. The window above my pillows was letting the last of the wintery sunlight peer into my room, hitting the mirror that leant against the wall opposite my bed. Taking in my reflection, only now did I realise quite how stupid I looked.

With a spindly black moustache to rival Captain Hook, Annie had really done me dirty.

Yet all I could do was smile like an idiot at my own reflection. I almost didn't want to take it off.

I reached over to the bottle down by the mirror, kept there for late nights when I come home with enough paint on my hands to rival Picasso's palette, and set to work on gently removing Annie's handiwork. The movements of my hands were languid, not wanting to erase the feeling of her tenderly clutching my chin with the tips of her dainty fingers, nor the gaze that she'd burned into my skin.

"You missed a bit," Annie teased once she finally made her way up to the mezzanine, pausing as she reached the top, leaning against the railings.

"Fuck off, Annie," I mumbled with a smile, knowing that I'd inspected my face a dozen times over before I'd retired to sitting on bed, leaving the space in front of it free for her to do the same.

Like me, she crawled to the designated observation spot, but I knew her short ass would have been able to stand unaffected up here.

"Was Jimin alright?" I asked curiously, secretly thankful that I'd been given me a minute to compose myself - and my room - away from her.

"He's planning a surprise trip away for Clo," Annie mused as she began to soak a cotton pad with white spirit. "Wanted my advice on where to take her."

"And?"

"They're spending three nights on Jeju," she spoke, cheeks swelling as she cheesed like the cat who had gotten the cream... and the salmon, and all the catnip a cat could ever need. It was abundantly clear that she adored Chloe, finding such joy in helping to plan something she knew would make her happy.

It was an enviable trait; a selfless nature that wasn't seen too often these days.

As she began to rattle off the plans, I couldn't help but ignore quite literally everything she was saying. It's not because I wanted to, God, no, I loved hearing her talk - it was because I was too fixated on her reflection, and the way her eyes were alight with the glory of adoration.

The low sun that sank in through my window was growing hazy, but it still managed to light Annie like she was the only thing in the room.

Freckles dappled her cheeks like kisses from the Gods who had sculpted her, and I couldn't help but wonder if the skin beneath her clothes had been blessed in the same way. I wanted to preserve her, this moment, us.

The 35mm camera that was next to my bed was practically begging for me to pick it up and just take the damn picture.

"Hey, Annie?" I cut her off softly. "The light's falling on you obscurely and it looks sick. Am I cool to take a picture of it?"

"Just as long as you don't get my monobrow in it," she laughed. "Want me to stay still?"

I told her it was fine, and that she could carry on, for the simple fact that I wanted to remember her exactly as she was. When I was old and grey, flicking through pictures of my youth, I wanted to be able to imagine her laugh and the way her wrists delicately tried to take the stubborn paint off of her face.

The camera was in my hands as soon as she gave me approval, though it took me a second to settle on whether or not I should flick the switch that changed it's exposure. I'd always had it set to Multi, so that I could see my pictures once I finally developed colours.

Looking at Annie, the most colourful human in my monochrome life, I flicked the switch over to Mono. I wanted to be able to see her just as clearly when the trials were over and the drugs were gone as I did right now.

We chatted inconsequentially about my room, Annie's journalistic prowess wanting answers for all of her curious musings; Why did I have no bed frame? Where did I hide all my clothes? How had I managed to kill the cacti on the window ledge?

So enthralled in her company, I didn't even bother to move when there was a knock at the door.

"Hobi, can you get that?" I called down and was met with no response, but the sound of the television pausing and his sliders clicking against the floor.

I thought nothing of it, until the tone of Hobi's voice made my blood run cold.

"He doesn't want to see you."

Annie noticed it too, her startled eyes flicking to look at me in the reflection.

Hobi was right, I didn't want to see her - but I also didn't want her to storm into the flat uninvited and find Annie in my room, either.

Holding my finger to my lips to indicate a need for silence, Annie nodded, as I trundled down the stairs, taking over from Hobi. He muttered explietives under his breath as I relieved him of door duty.

Everyone felt uneasy.

"What do you want, Tiff?"

She looked like shit, to put it frankly. Uncharacteristically, her makeup was minimal, if there at all, heavy bags resting beneath her murky eyes.

"Can I come in?" She tried to bargain.

"No," I stated plainly, and I was almost positive Hobi chorused with me.

"Look, I just want to talk," her eyes were on the floor, avoiding holding my gaze for too long. Perhaps she was ashamed of what she'd done, or perhaps she just didn't want to look in my eyes, knowing that I could see things she couldn't. Her hickies were healed, now. If only I'd gained Multivision a week or so later... It was an unpleasant thought. "Things have been hard."

"You're not coming in," I sighed, rubbing my palms over my face and down towards my neck. "But I can walk you back to yours."

The offer was out of my mouth before I'd had a chance to assess the implications. Regardless of what she'd done, I couldn't send her back out on the streets, alone in the dark, in the middle of winter. I'd been taught better.

Tiff met my gaze and I felt sick. She couldn't have looked happier.

"Wait here, I just need to finish something quickly," I instructed, as she nodded eagerly. I pushed the door to, and headed back towards the stairs, ignoring Hobi as he mumbled something about wanting to castrate me.

Annie had been waiting for my return, having intently listened in to the conversation. She was a reporter, it was in her nature. I wasn't naive to that.

"You're leaving now?" She spoke with a pout that she was desperately trying to not let show.

Her eyes bore into mine, and I'd never felt more seen. She didn't look at me the way that other people did. Even in her casual glances, her pupils were large and encapsulating, confirmation that she wasn't just seeing me - she was looking for me. And she found me each and every time.

"I won't be long," I spoke my words like a promise.

Turning to face the mirror, Annie restarted the dabbing motion she had been making against the skin of her forehead. Her pats seemed a little harsher than before, quicker - impatient, even.

"Hey Annie?"

"Mhmm?" Her eyes were avoiding me. She didn't want to give me the luxury of her attention, and it hurt.

It really fucking hurt.

"Please don't leave."

Well aware of the pathetic nature of my request, I couldn't look away from her. I needed to know she'd still be here when I got back.

"Leave?" her voice was airy and soft, but I knew it was just covering the venom that she wanted to spit. "Isn't that what you're doing?"

Finally, those eyes glanced my way and it felt like I could breathe again.

"You know it's not like that."

I could understand her frustrations and I didn't want to make things difficult, but at the same time, I'd spent nearly a year with Tiff. Whether any of us liked it or not, I still had to treat her with the dignity and respect that I would have wanted someone to treat my future daughter with.

I was trying to do the right thing, but the only that felt right in that moment would have been to stay in the presence of Annie.

Annie, who's phone, nestled in my sheets, was set to Mono.

Annie, who's all-black outfits conveyed exactly that I needed to pay attention to.

Annie, who looked at me in grey, when I was seeing her in as close to full-colour as I had ever gotten.

Get a grip, man. She doesn't care like you think she does.

"The bucket list is over there," I nodded towards the back of mezzanine, where my notepad rested, on a stack of old photography magazines that I should have thrown out months ago. "Pick something for us to do this evening."

The pause in her movements as she looked towards it settled my stomach. She was, at least, considering it.

And then, there was a sigh.

Surrender.

"If you're not home in an hour, I'm sending out a search party."

"I'll be home within half an hour," I swore, which was inevitably met by a quick remark from Annie.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Jungkook," she was scolding me, but there was a twitch to her lips; a smile she was trying to conceal.

"You're impossible, Annie."

"I know," she nodded, smiling at me for real this time. "Now go, before I change my mind about staying."

With each step I took down my staircase and towards my front door, I was shedding a piece of the armour Annie had helped me build up. It clunked around my ankles, leaving a trail of the man who I wanted to be behind, exposing the boy that I truly was. By the time I reached my front door, I was a shadow of myself.

Hardly a surprise, really, when you considered that, like a fool, I'd left my heart up on the mezzanine, cleaning her skin of the mess I'd made.