It's winter—Jungkook knows it, the chill in the wind as it cards through his hair and the crispness it leaves on his tongue all bespoke of it. And he wonders at how he'd always associated the sharp, brilliant, clear weather with numbness, with lack of inconvenient, unwanted feeling. But then, everything of before he's had Yoongi by his side, with the cold only making his body heat more pressing in contrast—with the pitch of Jungkook's palette only serving to make the pastel of Yoongi's more striking in juxtaposition—has faded into sepia. The memories and the associations of earlier—and the chasm in his life of beforeYoongi and after him is almost frightening—he's slowly finding with each second Yoongi spends distilling new ones into him, are changing in ownership from so acutely his to something of the distant and the obsolete.

It's disturbing, it is really, but—and Jungkook thinks that if his life was a book its scattered readership would be heartily tired of this thought—Yoongi is a powerful, powerful obliterator. What with the stars burning like little points of lamplight in their velveteen brackets of frosty night and the siren whistle of the wind through the skeletal branches of leafless trees, it's a night of the kind under the quiet fall of which Jungkook thought he'd never bring another person. And yet it doesn't feel like there's more than one on the hood of his car—Yoongi melds so perfectly into the panorama, outlines vignetting away into the soft, crumbled-charcoal dark, that every bit of the peace and none of the desolation that comes with this ritual hangs in the air around them like a heady perfume.

"What is this place?" Yoongi's voice is low, husky like the rustle of undergrowth and no louder. It's a filler question, and Jungkook knows that too, that Yoongi couldn't possibly have missed the slow reverence of each one of his actions. The drive out, this little forest clearing, even the extinguishing of the headlamps that had left only starlight to bathe them, they're all steeped in ceremony. And with the faint fragrant mist of flora and the silent, watchful fauna their only chaperones, Jungkook feels like he could pour his heart into Yoongi's cup of moonshine, whisper away the seclusion and the bitterness into the forested alcoves, the edge of which they're at.

"We're at my compromise with running away," he answers anyway, voice just as soft as Yoongi's. It's true, but—again—the rush of the thousand and one instances of desperation, or fear and hatred and acrid envy all soothed by the deadness of this lull like an eternity in fractured time are browning at the edges in that sepia creep. And he knows that none of them—not the worst, best, most profound—will be the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks of this place ever again. It, like so many other classrooms, literatures, colors, has been forever and ever emblazoned across with the indelible stamp of Yoongi.

Yoongi looks at him, then, with something inscrutable in his expression—looking for all the world like he's groping for words like pearls in murky water, and Jungkook can't suppress the satisfaction at having Yoongi be on his side of things, for once.

"This place, this—everything was kind of mine too," he finally says, waving a vague hand around. "A compromise."

Jungkook's I know goes unsaid, secreted somewhere within the confines of the moment and the viscous silence of the world asleep around them. Because hasn't it been voiceless fact since the first words they spoke to each other and the first time Jungkook discovered that Yoongi and the raised abrasions on his skin weren't something he could capture on paper, that neither of them signed up for this when they fell through the looking-glass? That it would've been nothing like this—not in Yoongi's too-alive gestures and his brilliant eyes—if he'd been even a little bit content with whatever the spitting image of life had thrown at him.

And Jungkook is a liar and a hypocrite if he thinks he'd have it any other way.

There's mystery in what Yoongi's not telling him—smokescreen and enigma and a little bit of maverick, like nothing Jungkook can ever draw will quite fit. And it's frustrating, that if Yoongi was a color, Jungkook would never be able to pin him down on the spectrum, but nothing else would've possessed him to bring him along like this, bring him here. It's beyond figuring out—and every bit of Jungkook's nature revolts at the inexactness—but it also means that Jungkook can be a long, long while about unraveling him.

"I never—just never thought." Yoongi ducks his head now, picking at the hem of his sweater, and Jungkook is struck by how tiny he looks, the swathe of wool huge on his delicate frame, seeming to swallow him up. When he puts an arm around him, it's not like it comes any easier than it did the first time—everything, the inertia of his own rusted joints, the brittleness of Yoongi's form and the lightness of his body when he leans into the touch all hit him with as much intensity as they ever did.

Yoongi's going to say something, Jungkook can feel it in the suddenly tense air around them, in the inhale he makes as if to brace himself. And he's suddenly unsure if he wants to hear it, wants another bolt shot through what is so undeniably inextricable for both of them now. He's scared of that confidence, he's realizing—scared of uncharted water where anything more Yoongi says will propel them off the cliff-edge they've built up of, yes, compromiseand tacit understanding and stifled emotion.

"Neither of us ever thought, Yoongi."

Jungkook's trying to end it before it starts, the inundation of stories and figments of life he's not privy to, but the set of Yoongi's mouth is determined now in a way that Jungkook has learned to be in a sort of wary awe of. He can feel Yoongi's fists clench where they're holding Jungkook's hands in his lap, and the sudden pressure makes the younger turn his head to glance at Yoongi in surprise. He'd intended for it to be a cursory one, just a check of whether Yoongi was—though fine seems to Jungkook a stupid thing to say, something like that. But Yoongi's eyes, when he raises his head to meet them with Jungkook's, are fiery in a way that makes the contamination under his skin singe, and his insides knot in the way of why. He wants to know—discomfits himself for wanting to know—just what had made Yoongi look like that, especially when the scorching energy douses itself the next instant, giving way to a kind of resignation Jungkook wants to avert his eyes from.

Maybe that last is the reason he says nothing, doesn't break eye contact, though his chest constricts and his veins burn when Yoongi opens his mouth.

"Yeah, well, maybe I should've," Yoongi looks away, then, fidgets some more with his sleeve right over where Jungkook knows his skin runs rough and his pulse beats erratic. "Before I told my parents I liked guys and was going to a humanities college and to go fuck themselves."

Jungkook sucks in a sharp breath. Not because the idea itself is scandalous—he's seen it plenty of times in movies and the like—but because something he can't quite put his finger on is bubbling up in the pit of his stomach. Something which feels like green-eyed envy, like incredulous admiration is taking possession of him even where the irons of contamination weigh heavy, and he wonders just what it'd feel like to turn around and tell people exactly what he's thinking, let the shatter of chains give voice to every single spare thought and feeling he's stifled and stifled until their existences had become an anomaly. And casting a passing glance at a wayward idea from afar compared with having it mortal and breathing in front of oneself are very different, he's finding.

"I'd never fit in much, Jungkook. And being the black sheep of the family gets tiring right after the novelty wears off." Yoongi breathes this last out on a sigh, lets go of Jungkook's hands to inch the arm of his sweater up until the younger can just about see the trail of scars snaking up the length of his forearm if he looks hard enough. "That was around when this happened."

He motions with his chin, gaze darting away when, slow like with a startled animal and looking at him all the while, Jungkook moves his hand to run his thumb over them. The first thing he feels is the tautness of the muscle which seems to shrink away at first touch, but he keeps on. Slow, deferential, with excruciating gentleness, he touches them. They contain the worst of Yoongi, he knows, every tear and bruise and burn etched out into a story across his skin. Don't, he thinks he hears Yoongi say, but he lets it be carried away with the quiet breeze, lost in the whisperings of the trees. He could've imagined that, but there's a definite tremble in Yoongi's voice when he picks up the lost thread of the conversation.

"So I went to college, got the first job that'd take me far, far away when I passed. And now I'm here. The end."

The corner of Yoongi's mouth lifts in a humorless smile. Jungkook's still got his hand, and he instinctively squeezes it tighter. He doesn't know what to say—never does, but he's never felt the lack of words more acutely than he does now. He understands—he understands what Yoongi's not saying, has an idea of how much more there is, that nothing ordinary has ever gone into the making of Min Yoongi. And yet it's like he's grasping at something just out of his reach when he tries to mobilize his throat and finds his mouth dry, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Language eludes him, and Yoongi looks fixedly at him for a moment before giving a tiny shake of the head and breathing deep.

"Your turn."

It's a moment before Jungkook can speak, before he even registers what Yoongi has said, the seemingly innocuous threat of his words. All at once, the contamination rears up in his throat, his jaw clenching with too much. Everything in him seems to lock down on itself, around that repulsive knot of truth. He's never known its dimensions before—how big is was, how small, where to even start to tell it, or if he was possessed with all of it in the first place, but it's suddenly hardened into an indestructible cluster in the middle of his chest. And he knows wild horses won't drag it from him.

"Me?" he forces his voice to remain level as he leans their foreheads together to escape Yoongi's expectant gaze. "I've got nothing."