Discovering exactly what bus number was needed to get to the beach was something that none of them were even aware of. It had seemed like a rather simple thing, a straightforward jump on the vehicle for several minutes for a couple of hundred won. They all had change in their pockets in preparation but there was one fault in their plan. None of them knew the street names of Taean County. All Jungkook saw were a random assortment of numbers and letters on the glass and metal board in front of him: complete nonsense. Jimin was attempting to recall the names of the streets around the market for he had walked along them a few times, yet one look at his furrowed brow showed that he was as hopelessly clueless as they were. Hoseok was perched on the edge of the bus stop bench with his phone out, trying to search online for a map of the bus routes but seeming to struggle with the simple task. Lastly Taehyung was just standing on the edge of the curb staring across the wide street at the playground just opposite them, hands shoved into his jacket pockets and occasionally rocking back on his heels to show a slight hint of impatience.

Today the sun had taken quite a while to show, and even now it prone to getting lost behind thick banks of rather miserable-looking grey clouds. The sky wasn't that vibrant deep blue that Jungkook had gotten used to seeing over the last week or so, but actually a little faded and dour right now. The weather looked like it might just get brighter, might go from the mild heat that they were currently experiencing to a heavy humid one again. He hoped that it would by the time that they reached the beach, just because he knew that the wind coming in from the sea would be cold. He didn't really have much of a plan and he had a feeling that his friends didn't either. Today they were just going with the ebb and flow of the waves and the only thing he did know was that they were going to the beach to see the old lighthouse.

Right now Seokjin, Yoongi and Namjoon were back at the house. Jungkook didn't really know why exactly, he assumed that they were tired and they wanted a single day without stress. But he also thought that there was a chance that they might just have wanted a little privacy to talk. There was a great many things that they needed to talk about and yet when they were together in a group it seemed that none of them were really able to do that. It wasn't that they were avoiding the topic of conversation but it just seemed to...happen.

There had been no mention of Taehyung and his father, the nightmares and tears that were unpredictable and rather frightening. No one talked about how he had had a yelling match with his mother that had resulted in a broken phone, spilled secrets and battered knuckles. Only Namjoon had lightly broached the subject, and perhaps sensing hostility of some sort, he had backed out again. It wasn't that Jungkook didn't want to talk about what had happened, it was more that he was uncertain what exactly he could say on the matter. All he knew, like with all of his aggressive episodes, was that he had been fine one minute and then not the next. When he got mad Jungkook literally lost control, something he was not certain that his friends really understood. Telling him to calm down was like telling a dog to not bite: useless. He didn't want to lose control but it just happened. He had seen red - more aptly heard red - and the only way to deal with it was to apparently to see more. Red in the form of his bloody knuckles.

Jungkook's hand still hurt. When he flexed his fingers or rubbed his hand against something, when shower water landed on his skin. The wound was starting to scab over in that annoyingly itchy way that demanded that he pick at his skin, that he keep opening the wound up and making it bleed again. It would sting when he did, but it would also ensure that the healing process took a very long time; that it might even scar. Jungkook didn't know why he wanted that to happen but he just did. He supposed like his other scars, the faintly scuffed knuckles of his other hand, the slight line under his lower lip, he wanted to remember what had happened. His shattered phone screen - the device hidden away in his backpack across the city, would go away in time and be replaced with a new model. Maybe his memories would fade too at one point, but with an unmistakable scar on his skin he wouldn't ever forget. Not truly. The day would stick with him, whether or not he wanted it to. Just like Yoongi and the mass of scar tissue on his inner elbow, Jimin's slight pucker on his throat.

All because he hadn't taken his fucking Ritalin.

"Shit," Jimin whined as he reached up to mess at the back of his hair."Why's there so many streets here man?

"Taean County is actually kind of small," Hoseok said from his perch on the bench, thumb slowly moving over the screen of his phone. "Way more streets in Seoul."

"Doesn't feel that way..." Jimin muttered to himself as he turned back to look at the board. He was currently wearing Yoongi's jacket, the black bomber that smelled like cigarettes and faded shower wash. In one pocket there was the Polaroid camera, bulking out the polyester material considerably. The other had the battered remains of a cigarette packet with three sticks left in it. None of them had the camcorder. Jungkook had thought about bringing it with him but he had also been scared of accidentally breaking it. They hadn't had a chance to even load up any of the videos yet, the ones on the handful of cards that Seokjin had packed. He had looked over them one night and had wondered what treasures were hidden away inside the thin plastic body, on the little metal chips that ran along the edge of the chips. Hopefully they would get to see some soon, and that meant not dropping the camcorder over the side of the lighthouse into the sea. That would seriously fuck up the plan.

"Why is the WiFi so bad here?" Hoseok asked before sighing heavily. "I've been waiting for this page to load for like...ten goddamn minutes now."

"Most of the people that live here are old," Jungkook retorted. "They don't give a shit about WiFi so long as there's plenty of fucking buses."

"You guys think it's going to rain?" their eldest friend asked, lowering his phone to look over them. He and Jimin shrugged because they didn't know and Taehyung didn't reply. "I think it will." Jungkook told him to not jinx it, just knowing that if the day could go bad for them it would. They had that shitty kind of luck.

"We should hit that playground one night," Taehyung said, almost as if he was talking to himself. He didn't look back over his shoulder at them but just kept his gaze trained on the small playground instead. "Try and break the sound barrier again, huh Kookie?"

"Yeah, so long as you're the one pushing me," he retorted with a wide grin as he turned to look at his back."I skinned my knees last time." Taehyung asked if he remember the father that had stopped them, the one that had tried to threaten them with the police. "Yeah he was hilarious. Call the fucking police, you know he wouldn't have done that."

"And 'cos we left you ended up getting hit by that car..."

"Damn, I actually forgot about that," Jungkook said in a surprised tone, making his friends laugh at him. Hoseok asked him if he was being serious and he nodded and explained that he couldn't really remember getting hit, that it was all a little fuzzy. Probably from slamming his head off the hood of the car so fucking hard. After he said this the air fell silent for a minute or so, friends staring at the bus board or the road rather than look at each other.

"Fuck it, forget the buses, let's just walk," Taehyung declared suddenly as he turned on his heel to look over them all. "It's early, the beach has gotta be like...what, an hour walk from here?" Jimin said that he was sure it was longer than that, maybe closer to two."OK two, that's still not even noon yet. We can save the fare and buy snacks instead, yeah?"

Jungkook studied his face for a moment before turning to look at the others. Jimin looked like he was weighing it up but that he was leaning towards agreeing with Taehyung, glancing up at the sky as if he could gauge the weather. Hoseok looked tired, so very tired in a way that Jungkook thought he might just have not gotten a lot of sleep last night. But despite looking weary and ragged around the edges he had still agreed to tag along with them. Maybe because he wanted to keep an eye on Taehyung? Maybe their other friends had asked him to do so, being the oldest in their current grouping and therefore almost like a guardian to keep an eye on them? Or maybe Hoseok didn't want to be left with their friends in case he became a topic of a discussion and he wanted to avoid talking to them? If the weather went bad on them by the time they reached the coast it would mean trying to find shelter or having to trek all the way back across the city in soaking wet clothes using jackets as umbrellas. Yet it still seemed appealing to Jungkook regardless of this fact.

"C'mon, it'll be fun," Taehyung said as he cocked his head in the direction of the coast.

As Hoseok had rather glumly predicted the weather did take a sudden turn, forcing them to take shelter under the canopy of another bus stop just twenty minutes into their grand adventure. It was a sudden downpour of rain that lasted for only a few minutes, a quick deluge that nearly flooded the gutters and then disappeared in favour of a brighter sky. It still stayed cool but Jungkook thought that it was a pleasant temperature, one more suited for an hour long walk to the coast than the sweltering heat of the last few days. It was probably for the best that they decided to walk rather than jump a bus, for they risked getting stuck halfway across Taean County without a clue where they were. Walking down sidewalks that they vaguely recognised was actually more fun than he had thought it would be, for every now and again they would end up recognising a storefront or two that they had seen out of the windows of Seokjin's car.

Jungkook timed them using his watch, seeing the fingers move round and round so that by the time they reached the market it had been near fifty minutes or so of solid wandering. They pooled their fare together and used most of it to buy light snacks, sweet potato skewers and cartons of milk. They had enough left to maybe be afford to afford a shared large serving of something else later, on the way back home, though Jimin told him that he did have his card with him, hinting that if he and Taehyung behaved he might just buy them food.

Eventually they started to get closer to the coast for the roads started to widen out and get less packed with traffic, the paving slabs turning into hard packed sandy soil instead. The scent of the sea also got stronger, that coarse briny scent that just seemed cleaner than the air of the inner city. It clocked in at nearly an hour and a half by the time they were stepping foot on the sand. Likely because of the uncertain weather Jungkook couldn't see a single person along the long stretch of sand along the coast, not even a couple of people walking together or playing with dogs. He had expected to see a few at least but at least that meant that they wouldn't attract any unwanted attention; after all they would be breaking into the lighthouse...

Jimin wandered along the sand which was damp and left fully formed boot prints in his wake, taking a few wandering steps before stopping to take a photograph of the trail. Quaint. Jungkook stared out across the choppy waves, most of the tide thick with white foam, and he tracked a large grouping of gulls floating above the water. He didn't think it could be called a formation for the birds just weaved back and forth, up and down in lazy swoops. Hoseok and Taehyung walked a couple of feet across the sands and that was when Hoseok asked how exactly were they going to get to the lighthouse. It was hidden away along the other section of beach, seemingly on the other side of a massive rocky bluff that they would have to try and get over. Taehyung said that he didn't have a clue because he hadn't tried to get to the lighthouse before. When he had last visited he had been just a child, therefore he hadn't been able to get close. It looked like they would be able to get there, but it would be a challenge.

The rocky hillock was pretty difficult to get up, Jungkook quickly discovered. At the bottom it had looked rather easy to climb because it had been a series of boulders all jutting out in which he had believed that he could slip the toes of his boots and fingers into, yet he was incorrect in that assumption. The boulders were actually rather unsteady from the loose soil and so he had to test them before stepping on them just in case they shifted and spilled him right back to the bottom again. The bluff that they had fallen asleep on just a few nights ago was a lot easier to get up and though he enjoyed a good challenge he was unsure about this one. Mostly because he was scared of a certain someone by the name of Park Jimin tripping a breaking an arm or even a leg.

Yet his friend seemed to get up the hill with very little trouble for once, arms out at his sides and his feet skipping along the rocks deftly. He wasn't the first to breach the top of course, that was Taehyung, but Jimin still climbed over to the other side without anything more than a slight graze on the palm of his hand which they all had as a result of grabbing onto the sharp edges of the rocks. When Jungkook reached the top, helping Hoseok up the last foot or so in the form of a hard tug of his hand, he saw that they were on a slight dirt hill. From his vantage point he could look back over at the beach and the bluffs, but once they went down it a wall of towering rocks would cut them off.

"Getting back up this will be fun," Hoseok said as he wiped his hands roughly on his jeans and left chalky dust on the denim. Jimin retorted that they could just swim around the wall of rocks to get back to the beach, mischievous smile on his face as he did. The camera was out again and he had already snapped a shot because it was slipping through the slot on the front. "Yes, that's the obvious solution."

"You ever been in a lighthouse before?" Jungkook asked his friends, glancing over them all in turn. He got a resounding no, it seemed that none of them had a clue all. He dusted his own hands off as he studied the sight in front of them.

The dirt hill ran down a couple of feet back down to flat ground again, and that ground slowly turned into a wooden walkway that was wide and rather weathered. He could see barnacles clinging to the thick balusters that supported the walkway into the depths of the sea. Eventually the wide wooden path became a massive square deck with small building, the lighthouse standing on an outcropping chunk of stone right beside it. He knew that it was abandoned for it had all been closed off and boarded shut, the old guard station doors and windows behind plywood and nails, and he could see that the lighthouse was too. At some point it had been hit presumably by kids or teens for there was graffiti sprayed on the boards; the usual childish shit that they were used to seeing. It was an impressive view even though it was somewhat melancholy, the cold slate rocks and solitary tower of the lighthouse reaching out into the sea, but it was still impressive nonetheless. The lighthouse itself was massive, a column of red and white stone that had a thick base that got thinner as it grew in height, little slits like windows up the length until his eyes reached the deck built on the top. That was where the bulb would be, and the canopy on top of it had a sharp jutting lightning rod just in case.

"No lighthouses in Seoul," Jimin said, a fair point to make. He shoved the Polaroid shot into Yoongi's jacket pocket along with the camera so that he wouldn't accidentally drop it. With the exception of photographs and distant glances across horizons Jungkook had never been this close to a lighthouse before either. It was strange looking at the building and realising that there were many simple things that he had never seen before: like lighthouses and deer, like the inside of an aeroplane cabin and the interior of a church.

"You think we can even get inside?" he asked curiously, and Taehyung let out a sudden laugh.

"I don't fucking know, but we're gonna try anyway." Then he was bounding down the hill in big strides to stop him from slipping, boots pounding on the hard soil.

They all followed him down without incident and then they were walking along the wooden walkway in the direction of the lighthouse. The boards were thick old wood that was the colour of tree bark, dark and lusterless. The years had caused it to get pitted so that there were deep cracks in it. He could see that the nails that held it all in place were inches thick and rusted to a deep copper from the sea salt and exposure to the weather. He should have been frightened by the deep groaning of the boards under his weight but he wasn't at all. This walkway was decades old and it had lasted all of this time, he wasn't going to make it collapse from standing on the wrong board like a game of hopscotch. There were wooden fences along the length but they weren't that high at all, barely reaching his ribs. He supposed one would have to very unfortunate to manage to fall or be blown over the side. Jimin headed off across the walkway to get to the deck, going over to the guard house first to try and gauge how secure the boards were on the windows. Judging from the near squeal of the wood and he tugged on the corner the answer was: not very.

"We should move in here," he joked as he stopped pulling on the board and glanced over at them all. Hoseok told him to not encourage their friend, eyes shifting to look at Taehyung as he said this.

"What if a ship actually crashed into the bluffs one night," Jungkook said as he eyed the building. "Imagine being in the building and hearing the ship horn booming before it crashed right into the lighthouse..."

"I'd rather not imagine that," Jimin replied with a faux shudder.

"Hey guys, stop jerking off and help me out, huh?" Taehyung called from the lighthouse, sticking his fingers behind the board and trying to wrench it free as hard as he could. It looked to be a lot more secure than the guard house and so it took quite a lot of effort between the four of them to get the first board off. Jungkook muttered that they should have brought the crowbar with them, getting a few mumbled agreements. The plywood boards came free in splinters and chunks, but eventually enough of the door underneath was exposed to allow Taehyung to cock his leg up and kick it hard. Three solid kicks later, the impact like the bang of an engine misfiring, Taehyung managed to break the lock and the door swung inwards with a rather unpleasant creaking sound. A scent wafted out from inside and to Jungkook's nose it smelled like damp, dust and maybe a little wood rot.

"It looks creepy," Hoseok said after a few seconds, peering through the gap into the darkness within. "Like really creepy."

"We walked like...an hour to get here, are you seriously not gonna come inside 'cos it's spooky?" Jungkook asked in disbelief. His older friend muttered that he didn't say he wasn't going to go in, just that it looked a little creepy to him. Taehyung had already beaten them to it, stepping over the remains of a plywood board that reached near his knees to get inside the lighthouse. Jimin climbed in after him and then called out that they should have brought the torch too because it was hard to see a single thing. "Ladies first," Jungkook said as he swept an arm out, and Hoseok elbowed him rather hard in the ribs as he entered, so he followed after him so that they were all inside the lighthouse.

The interior was a very strange sight to behold. The ground floor was a rounded area and it was just a couple of feet in width before a set of wooden stairs appeared. Jungkook looked at them and wondered how steady they were before following them up the spiral of the wall. He could track the staircase round and round until he had his head cocked all the way back to stare at the open section of ceiling above them. It appeared that the stairs ran all of the way up to the canopy and there must have been hundreds of steps curved around the walls of the lighthouse. At least there was a banister rail in place so that they couldn't fall, but whether or not it was actually sturdy was something that they would have to discover. Jungkook couldn't help but let out a soft whistle as he looked up above them.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Taehyung asked, also staring up at the patch of blue visible over their heads.

"The fun part's getting up..." Hoseok said, moving over to step on one of the stairs, no doubt wanting to check that they could hold weight and not splinter and plunge them a hundred feet down or so.

"You had no trouble getting it up last night," Taehyung retorted with that old boxy grin that Jungkook had missed terribly this last week or so. Hoseok sighed heavily and rolled his eyes, but he was pretty certain that he saw a blush on his cheeks even in the dim lighting. Then their friend was bounding off up the stairs even if it wasn't safe, turning sideways to slink past Hoseok and ascend.

Jungkook had no fear of heights and therefore taking the staircase up didn't bother him in the slightest. The wooden steps creaked every now and again as they were apt to do. He knew that old and new wood would always creak and groan as a mixture of warping from damp or just from constant use. Studying them as they went up he saw that there were deep burrows in the wooden rails from what looked like wood louse, deep tunnels that the bugs had gnawed through them and left their trails behind. The brick walls on the side were dusty and running his hand over both sides resulted in various sensations; the dry and pitted wood on one palm, and the cold and dusty brick power and cement on the other.

Jimin had beaten him to the steps, right behind Taehyung, as so he was walking just two steps behind the other young man and when his friend decided to glance over the side of the banister he saw that he regretted it. Jimin made a little noise at the back of his throat, a noise that sounded scared and Jungkook wasn't surprised. Looking down over the side and seeing the ground-floor getting further and further away with every slight spiral until it looked miles away. He supposed that a lot of people would feel an unsettling tingle run down their spine looking down but he knew that it wasn't exactly the height that had Jimin whimpering: it was because it was a little like looking over the fencing around a bridge.

Just like the one back in Dangjin.

"Christ," Taehyung groaned after perhaps a solid minute of walking without a pause. "How many fucking stairs are there?"

"The lighthouse looked about one hundred and twenty feet," Hoseok explained from the back. "That's a lot of stairs Tae."

"Must've been fun having to replace the bulb," he muttered as he picked up speed and carried on ascending. "Talk about a shitty job..."

If Jungkook had to gauge how long it took them to get to the top he would have guessed at perhaps two minutes. That was walking at a rather quick pace, so descending it would probably take longer, none of them wanting to walk too fast and end up missing a step and plummeting down a few feet until they slammed into a curving brick wall to break their fall. If it could happen it would, it wasn't even something to joke about anymore. The higher they got the brighter the interior started to get and eventually he felt himself squinting as he stepped up the last step and onto the canopy, lifting a hand to shield his eyes. Now they weren't down on the coast the sunlight was surprisingly more vivid but the breeze was just as cool, if not cooler. It brought a stronger scent of brine with it, the kind of bracing air that people always longer to breathe in the cities. He had to admit that it did feel strangely cleansing even though he knew that it wasn't.

The canopy wasn't rounded like the pillar of the lighthouse but rather a octagonal shaped, each side fringed with a metal railing that reached roughly his ribs. No spikes on the top, just a barricade that served very little use now. Right at the centre and just to the side of the staircase was the old bulb, a massive structure of glass and metal easily a few feet taller than he was. The shape reminded him a little of an egg but with a flat top, and the glass and metal casing around the filaments had rippled surfaces. It looked very strange to his eyes for he had rather childishly assumed that it would look just like a normal bulb. It was a lot more interesting however and he wasn't at all surprised to see Jimin snapping a photograph of it. Hoseok moved over to touch it, running his fingers along it before pulling them free with a disgusted noise because they got coated in dust.

"That's kinda cool," Jungkook said after a moment of study, hands shoved in his jacket pockets. For some reason this made his friends laugh at him, likely because of the rather flat tone he had said it in. But he did find it pretty cool, in its own way.

Jimin might not have liked glancing over the side of the banisters but he didn't at all seem to mind going right over to the edge of the canopy and staring off across the view of the sea. The water way out was far from calm, choppy waves breaking the surface and rising and falling to roar across the distance. At the base of the bluff Jungkook could hear it slamming against the rocks hard, so hard in fact that he was surprised that the lighthouse wasn't rocking like a building caught in the middle of an earthquake. With his eyes open it didn't sound that loud at all but when he closed them he found that it really did reach a roar, an animalistic pounding against the bluffs like a beast against metal cage bars, trying to break through and destroy everything in its path.

"This would be a cool place to go on a date, huh? What'd you think Badass, think Yoongi would like this place?" Taehyung asked as he also eyed the dead bulb with interest.

"Dunno," Jimin replied with a soft shrug, one eye squeezed shut as he held the camera up and cocked his head slightly. "He hates heights so probably not."

"Shove him against the railings and blow him and I'm sure that he wouldn't complain," Taehyung retorted, making their friend snort as he did. Ah yes, here was the usual smutty talk that Jungkook had not even noticed had gone away. Strange but true, for their friend had often made crude remarks in an attempt to humour them in the past. Like that day just last year in the hotel room, the one with his obnoxious impressions of Yoongi in bed. "Hey, does Yoongi like-"

"I'm not telling you anything that Yoongi likes," Jimin interrupted as he hit the camera button, shutter clicking and the shot coming free with a whirring sound. "Nice try Tae."

"OK, what about a deal? I'll tell you something lover boy likes if you spill something about Yoongi." Hoseok shifted at this to stare at Taehyung, the slightest lift of one eyebrow telling him that that was a bad idea and that he shouldn't even joke about it. But Taehyung looked adamant and he held a hand out to Jimin, pinky finger waiting to be curled around his. Jimin pulled the shot out of the camera and eyed him with a hard to read expression. "Look I'll go first."

"Tae..." his lover said in a low voice.

"Lover boy likes it deep, like I'm talking right to the fucking base," Taehyung announced, causing Hoseok to burst out into laughter rather than yell at him to shut up. Clearly he found this more funny than embarrassing, a sign that their friend was likely lying. "He just really, really wants my cock up his ass and I've gotta say I don't blame him. It's pretty amazing."

"Eat shit Tae," Hoseok waved a hand at him and turned his attention back to the horizon, arms folded on the railing. Jungkook eyed the crashing surface of the water before turning to look back at the bulb, attention not exactly gripped by this current conversation.

"It's true, don't deny it lover boy."

"OK, let's see you deny this," Hoseok retorted. "Guess what Tae likes?" Jimin started laughing and said that he didn't have a clue. "He likes being called 'baby boy' during sex."

"Honestly, that's probably the tamest thing I won't deny it. C'mon there's so much more shit you could've gone for."

"OK OK, I'll say something but it's nothing smutty, so don't get your hopes up," Jimin said as he glanced between them both. "Yoongi...Yoongi's the type that likes cuddling. Like, I don't mean an arm around the waist or anything like that I mean that he can't sleep without being all tangled up." Jungkook glanced over his shoulder at his friend as he spoke, studying the back of his head. "Sometimes he'll press our foreheads together and just lie like that for an hour without saying a word."

It seemed strangely like something he could picture in his head, after seeing the way that Yoongi had slept beside Jimin in the open bed truck. For all of their older friend's curses and blunt words, his "I don't give a shit" nature, he could be surprisingly sensitive to things.

"OK, that's cute and all but that's not the shit I wanted to hear Badass."

"Fuck you Tae."

"What about you, huh Kookie?"

"Me?" Jungkook asked in confusion, dragging his eyes away from the dead bulb to look back over at his friends. Taehyung nodded at him and repeated the question: what did he like? "I dunno."

"Wait, so lemme get this straight," Taehyung shifted, leaning back on his elbows on the metal railings. "Yesterday you said that you ain't got any friends in class, or in school now Jimin's left, yeah?" Jungkook confirmed this with a nod. "Not even a single buddy?"

"Nope."

"Don't you talk to anyone?" He shook his head at Taehyung's question. Jimin remarked that he sounded like a massive nerd and this made them all snort laughter. "So like...no girls? You ain't spoken to a single girl?"

"What part about no aren't you getting here Tae?"

"If you ain't talked to a girl then you ain't kissed a girl." Taehyung said as he cocked his head, studying his expression before smirking. "Kookie ain't had his first kiss yet!"

"What?" Jimin asked in surprise as he turned away from the sea, camera temporarily forgotten. "Seriously Kookie you've never kissed someone before?" Jungkook balked at this and tried to think of something to say but he couldn't; Taehyung had trapped him perfectly. He hadn't kissed anyone before and it wasn't even something that he had really thought about. Yet now his friends were all looking at him and he felt like he was the awkward centre of attention.

"Seriously Kookie you're missing out on prime action right now," Taehyung said with that same wide smirk. "You're still young enough to fuck around for fun, y'know before commitments and all of that shit." Jungkook retorted that that didn't really matter because he didn't really care, rubbing at the back of his neck as he avoided his gaze. "Y'know...I just got hit by the craziest idea and I think that- get him!"

Jungkook didn't even have enough time to turn his head before he felt Taehyung slamming into his side. His friend tackled him with enough force to make him stagger sideways and trip over his feet. He felt his body hitting the metallic flooring and then Taehyung's weight landing right on top of him, winding him instantly. Then Jimin and Hoseok joined in, helping wrestle him into a seating position by grabbing his arms whilst Taehyung pinned his legs in place. Jungkook asked them what the fuck they were doing, laughing in surprise as well as confusion. Taehyung explained that he had thought of a game, a wonderful game that would see him finally getting his first kiss. For a few seconds Jungkook just stared at him dumbly and then he tried to shrug his friends off.

"OK OK, Rock Paper Scissors," Taehyung said as he let go of his thigh with one hand. "Best of three. You win a round you get to hit us, you lose and you get a kiss." Jungkook carried on complaining about this, wriggling in Jimin and Hoseok's grip as he did even when he was laughing at the situation. "That's the rules, yeah?

"Yeah, fine! he agreed, hoping that he could just get it over with and be released from their tight grips.

"Ah I forgot to mention, tongues are allowed too!"

"What no I-"

But Taehyung was already talking over him, telling him on the count of three. Hoseok let go of his arm so that he could hold his hand up. One, two, three, they flashed hands. His scissors against his friend's paper. Jungkook let out a happy cry and then cuffed him on the side of the head rather hard, making his friends burst out laughing. Round two: one, two, three, rock against paper again. That meant that Taehyung won and before he could even even react to it all his friend was nearly headbutting him in his eagerness to get his reward. An open kiss on his lips, wet and warm and making him splutter in surprise.

"Final round!" Taehyung declared as they shook their hands. Would he go for paper again, or would he switch it up? Jungkook had just three seconds to try and figure it out. He decided that he would try and trick him and make him think that he would pick paper again so he could pull rock on his scissors and win. So Jungkook decided that he would pull out paper instead, to catch his rock. Yet when they opened their fingers he saw that Taehyung's were wide open in the unmistakable shape of scissors.

"Oh god no-" Jungkook managed to moan before Taehyung was grabbing his cheeks and delivering another kiss. It was no longer than three seconds at most but his friend made sure to jab his tongue into his mouth as he did so, the sensation of his hot wet tongue making Jungkook cringe."No tongue!" he cried when Taehyung let go of his face. "It's gross!"

"Then why didn't you close your mouth?" he retorted before quickly trading places with Jimin, Jungkook now held in place by his firm hands.

"If I can't win a single round I'll be so mad," his other friend said with a wide smile. Jimin kissed his fist for luck and then settled onto his knees. "On the count of three..." A quick shake of the fists, paper against scissors. Jimin let out an excited noise. "A kiss on the cheek first!" He declared before leaning forward and planting a kiss on his cheek. Jungkook grumbled and prepared himself for the next round.

One, two, three: his rock against Jimin's paper. Ah, Jimin was so hard to read! The second kiss was a peck on the lips, soft and sweet. The final round he once again lost with paper against scissors again. Jimin's last winning kiss was nicer than Taehyung's for sure, an open kiss that didn't have any tongue at all. Jungkook might just have returned it ever so slightly but if his friend said that he did he would loudly argue against it.

"Watch me lose every round now," Hoseok joked, no doubt also finding Jimin's uncharacteristically good luck rather strange. Round one, one two three: rock against scissors. Jungkook cuffed him on the side of the head, albeit more softer than he had hit Taehyung. Round two, one, two, three: paper against rock. He rolled his fist up and lightly punched his bicep. The final round, Jungkook brought out scissors and was defeated by his rock. "I'll give you a butterfly kiss," Hoseok said with a laugh as he leaned forward and pecked his nose instead of his lips.

"There, are we finished?" Jungkook asked as he wriggled again and this time was allowed to free himself from their hands. He made a show of wiping at his lips to annoy them all. He was pretty certain that his cheeks were red enough for them to joke about more however. "Tell the other guys about this and I'll kill every single one of you."

"Should have gotten a photo," Hoseok said with a grin. "Couldn't deny it then."

"Ah Kookie!" Jimin declared suddenly, shoulders going up as he did. "Let's take a snap! Right here, for the memory." Jungkook told him that he wasn't getting another kiss. "One with each of us, no kisses. Right guys?"

So he relented, still seated on the floor of the canopy with Jimin beside him as he lifted the Polaroid up and pressed the sides of their head together, camera out at arm's length and his other hand up to make a peace sign right beside his eyes. Jungkook copied the position, pulling his usual smile that made Taehyung snort laughter and tell him he looked like he was in pain. He ignored him and looked at the camera to hear the shutter snapping close. Then came Hoseok, who hunkered down beside him and settled on just placing an arm around his neck rather than strike a pose. Yet Taehyung broke the rules when it came to his turn and waited until he was just about to press the shutter, turning his face and planting a kiss right on his cheek as he did. His friend managed to pull it out the slot before he could try and get it, handing it over to Jimin so he couldn't pull it out of his hands and possibly tear it up. Jimin quickly shook his wrist and then checked it out, grinning and saying that it was really cute as he moved to lean back against the railing. The shots went into Yoongi's jacket pocket with the rest.

"Hey Badass, remember that joke about going for a swim?" Taehyung asked as he moved to stand by the railings too. There was a considerable distance in their positions but Jungkook still felt a slight unease in the pit of his stomach as he looked between them both. He didn't think that Taehyung would repeat the joke after the fallout it had caused last year, but it was hard to tell with his friend a lot of the time. What made sense to most people, what seemed like the obvious, did not always apply to Taehyung. Jimin confirmed that he did with a soft noise, camera held in his hands. "Well, I kinda feel a swim right now."

That was when Taehyung dragged himself up and swung one leg right over the side of the railing.

For a moment they were all too shocked to even react to this, staring at him as he got both legs over the side and only when he was hanging on by just his fingers, boots propped up against the railings like a monkey against a zoo cage, did it truly hit them what he was doing.

"Tae! What the fuck?!" Hoseok shouted and Jungkook wasn't at all surprised when Taehyung burst out laughing at their horrified exclamations. "Climb back over! Don't do that!"

"You're gonna fall!" Jimin cried out in horror, voice reaching a rather high-pitched squeak that should have been funny but wasn't at all. "Tae!" Jungkook darted over and grabbed hold of his wrists first, the first things he could possibly think to seize hold of. Yet Taehyung was still laughing as if this was the funniest thing that had ever happened, head thrown back so far that he could look up at the sky. He moved his hands to grab hold of his upper arms instead and a moment later Hoseok also darted over and got a handful of his hoodie, the pair of them trying to pull him back over the railings.

Everyone knew that Taehyung was agile and sure, was just as good on his toes as he was. Their friend could climb trees and scale the sides of buildings with nothing more than a pipe or a few gaps in the brick exterior. He didn't fall but this wasn't a tree, wasn't a couple of feet down to solid earth. This was over a hundred foot drop down to the crashing waves and sharp rocks below and all it took was a slight slip; his palms coming loose from sweat, the railings shifting from his weight. After a momentary struggle they managed to mostly drag him back over the railings and so he had no choice but stop fucking around and climb back, boots pounding down on the lighthouse flooring.

"Holy shit..." Jimin breathed out, doing so in a voice that sounded seconds from fainting. His face was considerably paler than usual and he wouldn't at all be surprised if he leaned over the railing to vomit.

"Tae you stupid asshole!" Hoseok shouted, the first time that Jungkook had heard him yell at him in so long. It could have been years, for even at his worst Hoseok had always loudly voiced disapproval and had never shouted, and it was clear from Taehyung's expression that he was equally as shocked as they were, eyes going wide. "What the fuck did you do that for?!"

"It was a joke I didn't-"

"You don't joke about shit like that Tae, don't you ever!" Hoseok's shoulder were shaking and though it could have been from anger he knew that it wasn't, it was from trying to control himself from bursting out into tears. "Do you have any idea how far that drop is?! Do you?! You could've fallen and-"

"I wasn't gonna fall!" Taehyung nearly shouted, voice a lot louder than it needed to be and making Hoseok flinch in response. For a few seconds the air went silent, save for the crashing waves against the bluffs below them, and then he let his breath out in an uneven sigh. "I wasn't gonna fall I was just...just playing around."

"Tae, you can't just joke around like that man," Jungkook argued, knowing that he should keep his tongue but unable to do so. He had scared them, scared all three of them but mostly Jimin, and Taehyung needed to know that what he had done was wrong. Jimin was also nearly in tears though he tried his hardest to hide it; hand up by his mouth so that he could gnaw on his thumb rather than his lip, fingers visibly unsteady. "After everything that's happened, don't joke about that shit."

"Joke about what shit?" Taehyung asked, lips pouted out in a rather petulant manner. He looked pissed off and he wanted to be annoyed by this but he couldn't. It was Taehyung after all, and he just didn't seem to get it ever. No, their friend no doubt saw this as an attack on him like he always did when they told him that he had done something wrong. It briefly crossed Jungkook's mind that they hadn't even addressed the actual murder yet, and he wondered how Taehyung would react when they finally did.

"Death," Jungkook said in a soft voice. "You don't joke about death Tae."

The ceiling of their temporary home wasn't the most interesting thing to stare at at 4am in the morning, Jungkook was to find. No, with the scant light coming in through the broken door and the sound of his friends breathing and snoring softly in their sleep it was rather irritating being left wide awake but he couldn't help it. Right now sleep felt like the last thing on his mind and so staring off across the blackness of the room or up at the ceiling just seemed to be a better alternative than closing his eyes. They weren't even remotely heavy, he wouldn't fall asleep by chance even when he so desperately wanted to.

It was because of Taehyung. It was because of that fucking lighthouse and everything that had happened after their friend had pulled that rather crash attempt at a joke on them. The walk back to the home had been rather unpleasant, one spent in near silence save for a few muttered things here and there; mostly Taehyung trying to apologise to Hoseok though his words didn't seem to get through. Jungkook must have heard five different variations and yet Hoseok said nothing in return, didn't seem to acknowledge his words. He understood why and a part of him couldn't blame his friend. Taehyung had really scared and upset him, and Hoseok had every reason to be mad at him for his actions.

When he had last laid eyes on them they had looked a little more friendlier, seated together on the car backseat they were sharing for the night; Taehyung's arm slung over his shoulders and their legs loosely tangled together. But there had been no running off to look at the stars, a euphemism Jungkook was taking to mean "fuck in the back of Seokjin's car". He supposed that the closeness was a sign that Hoseok had finally started to let go his anger but he couldn't help but feel that he was missing something. Something important. There just seemed to be something nestled away in Hoseok's eyes when he looked at his lover, something that he could have sworn hadn't been there a few days ago. What exactly that was he wasn't sure, he just knew that it was new and he didn't like it. It made Hoseok's expressions look hollow.

Jimin was another matter entirely, for he had went straight to the others upon returning and had acted as if there had been nothing wrong at all. Oh he had pulled those Polaroids out and had shown them all off with a wide smile, a story for every single one. "This is the lighthouse, which looked cool from outside but had so many fucking stairs you wouldn't believe." "This is the sea, the waves were so loud it was like listening to a lion roar." "This is Kookie and us, we played a little game it was pretty funny." How their friends had laughed at Jimin's reenactment of his reactions to getting kissed; no idea at all that Jimin had been moved to tears by Taehyung's antics once more. He was a great pretender, just like last year, carrying all of their dirty little secrets without even a hint that he knew a thing: Taehyung's prostitution, Yoongi's self-harming, Hoseok's missing pills, and now this. Yes, Jimin was an extraordinary actor and looking at his performance had almost caused Jungkook to believe that nothing had happened too.

But then Jimin had gotten him in the shower a few hours ago and had made him swear to not say a word to the others, and of course he had came back to reality once more.

Right now Jungkook was lying on the shared broken settee with Seokjin, his usual bed of choice now. Namjoon had one of the single seats, Yoongi and Jimin shared the other, and Hoseok and Taehyung had the car backseat, which left him and his eldest friend the settee. At some point he had been mostly seated on one end but upon getting restless and his friend falling asleep Jungkook had shifted to lie on it too, more or less using him as a pillow. Seokjin didn't seem to mind, being deeply asleep, and it was much more comfortable lying like this. With his legs tucked up and over his friend's and his head placed on his chest he could listen to his heartbeat and feel his breath on the top of his head. Yet the slow and sure beat of his pulse didn't help send him to sleep like a metronome.

Jungkook sighed and unfolded one arm so that he could fiddle with a crease in his friend's tee, playing with the soft cotton. Seokjin stirred only slightly, turning his head in his sleep and nothing more. There was a strange feeling in his chest that he couldn't figure out. It felt like that hollowness he had observed on Hoseok's face earlier, an emptiness. He hadn't felt something like this in quite some time, since he had been doped up on Ritalin and seated in a classroom on his own. There was a part of him telling him that what he was feeling was loneliness but that was a very silly thought. Jungkook wasn't alone, he was with his friends and he wasn't at all alone. It was something else of course, probably something stupid like guilt towards his mother for his actions. Yes, that was it of course, it made perfect sense and-

Jungkook heard a rustling sound coming from across the room and so he lifted his head off Seokjin's ribs to look over, not having to squint at all in the darkness because his vision had adjusted perfectly well. He watched someone getting off the one of the broken car seats, awkwardly disentangling themselves from arms and legs, and a study revealed it to be Yoongi. It made perfect sense, his older friend was stepping out for a cigarette. Perhaps he had just woken up, or perhaps he too had been staring at the ceiling or the gap in the doorway for hours now. Either way, Jungkook tracked his staggering steps across the room to the door and decided it was the former.

He settled back down on Seokjin's ribs and considered getting up and leaving too. That would mean leaving the warmth of his friend's body and the blankets for the cold night air however. But he could share a cigarette with him and maybe talk, maybe not. Jungkook had a feeling that that was what was keeping him awake right now; that stupid pact with Jimin in the shower earlier to not say a word about what Taehyung had done. He had agreed of course, stupidly thinking that it was best to not make trouble out of it all. Taehyung had sworn that it had been a joke over and over, that he hadn't meant a thing by it, but Jungkook couldn't rid himself of the sensation that it really hadn't been.

Jokes were funny, what he had done hadn't even elicited a slight chuckle from them.

That was what was keeping him wide awake of course, his conscience refusing to let him rest until he did something about it. Not his mother, not guilty feelings. Why not just...just tell Yoongi about it all? After all he had told him about his Ritalin before blurting it out to the rest, so why not this? Jungkook lifted his head again to study Seokjin's sleeping face, or at least the curve of his jaw that he could see from his angle. Should he tell him instead, tell him tomorrow somehow by getting him alone and just saying everything; about how he had joked about jumping off, of Hoseok shouting at him? But telling Seokjin everything was akin to telling his own mother. He felt that telling their oldest friend was the ultimatum, and it didn't seem right to do so...just in case Taehyung really hadn't meant a thing and had been joking.

Jungkook let his breath out in a heavy sigh and that was when he heard the thumping sound from outside.

He turned his head to stare at the open doorway, catching a slight flash of white passing the open gap: Yoongi's tee. Before he could stop himself he got to his feet, trying his hardest to not disturb Seokjin, and he quickly crossed the room to step out. The first thing that hit him was the cool night air, making his arms ripple with goosebumps, the second was the pungent scent of gasoline. Jungkook furrowed his brow and glanced across the slight grassy area just in time to catch Yoongi finishing the task of unscrewing and pulling the lid off one of the gasoline containers. The ones that Seokjin had bought back at the gas station and had only used one of; stored in the back of the truck. Then he saw him lift the red plastic container up with both hands.

"Yoongi?" he asked in a low hiss. "Hey Yoongi, what're you doin-"

Yoongi splashed a great splurt of gasoline over the side of the building. Jungkook watched the dark liquid, thick caramel coloured, splash against the bricks and bounce back to hit his jeans. Then his friend was shifting to splash even more.

"Yoongi, what the fuck are you doing?!" But he could see that Yoongi wasn't even awake right now; he was sleepwalking and his words weren't at all getting through to him. Jungkook darted out of the doorway and grabbed hold of the container just as he was in the act of splashing more gasoline on the building. When he pulled his arms back quite a lot of it managed to land on them, on the ends of their tees and their bare lower arms. He wrenched the container out of his rather slick hands and dropped it aside, not at all caring that it puddled out on the dirt. Then he grabbed hold of Yoongi's upper arms and shook him hard.

"Hey Yoongi, hey wake up." His friend's eyes weren't open exactly, more half-lidded, and when he shook him hard his eyes rolled up and then back down again as his eyelids flickered. "Shit, wake up man!"

"Huh! Wuh-" Yoongi stiffened in his grip, shoulders going up and muscles tightening in shock as his eyes opened fully. For a moment his friend just stared at him, gaze empty, then he slowly started to figure out was going on. His eyes shifted to glance around, seeing that they were outside rather than inside the building, and then they dropped to study his hands wrapped around his arms. "...Kookie wuh...what's guh...going on?"

"You were sleepwalking," Jungkook explained, not wanting to let go of him just yet because he didn't at all look sturdy on his feet. "I followed you out and I had to wake up you up. What the fuck were you dreaming about Yoongi?"

"I dunno I was...shit I was..." Yoongi stopped talking and he saw his nose twitching. He must have detected the scent of gasoline for his eyes widened.

"Yoongi?"

"...I was dreaming about setting Taehyung's house on fire," Yoongi said in a voice barely above a whisper. He followed his eyes to see the gasoline container still spilling on the floor so Jungkook let go of him to right it, and then he grabbed hold of him again. His elbows this time, just to make sure that he didn't collapse. Yoongi didn't seem to mind, he was still staring at the gasoline puddle. Jungkook asked him why he had dreamt that and for a moment he stayed still and silent. Then his breath left his lungs in a soft wheeze. "I dunno, to get rid of evidence maybe? Or to...to burn the dead body? I dunno, I was just burning it down."

"The body's buried in the garden remember?" Jungkook reassured him. "Buried in the garden, me and Seokjin and Namjoon buried it." Yet he felt a horrible sensation in the pit of his stomach telling him that he wasn't in the garden at all, that he had been found by a forensic team or maybe just crawled right back out of the grave again. He wouldn't at all be surprised at the second thing happening at all.

"I just...I was scared and I think I was trying to get rid of something, something bad." Yoongi let out another uneven sigh. "But I nearly got rid of us instead." Jungkook told him that he didn't know that, that he might just have woken up on his own without him but judging by his friend's expression he didn't believe him. "Shit, my jacket's inside and I need a smoke." Perhaps it wasn't a smart idea after everything that had happened but Jungkook let go of him and went back inside the building to retrieve his jacket for him, having to gently pry it off Jimin as he did. When he stepped back outside Yoongi had shifted to sit on the back of the flatbed, so he moved to climb up beside him. He handed it to him and his friend muttered his thanks.

"What the fuck just happened Yoongi?" Jungkook asked as he watched him pulling the cigarette pack free and slipping a stick between his lips. Once he had done that he collected his lighter from his jeans pocket and he set the end alight, letting the first drag out in an uneven breath. "If I hadn't been awake then..."

"I know," he replied as he pulled the stick few and wet his lips. "Shit, I know."

If Jungkook hadn't been awake then Yoongi would have likely emptied the entire gasoline container out over the house and then what? What if he hadn't woken up by that point; what if he had pulled his lighter out nice and easy like he just had and he had flicked the wheel to turn it on? And what if he had then thrown it at the soaked grass? What would have happened then exactly? Jungkook didn't know exactly, but the idea of the fire raging out of hand in the dried grass and spreading was not a pleasant one; of it filling the house with toxic smoke and poisoning them all in their sleep.

Yoongi's fingers weren't entirely steady around the cigarette and he could see that they were shaking. It wasn't obvious but he couldn't miss it, the gentlest twitch of his middle and ring finger that made the ash fall free and land on the knee of his jeans. So Jungkook reached over and brushed it free for him before it burnt through the denim and right onto his skin. He saw yet another tiny hole in the material, for Yoongi's jeans were always covered in them; tiny little holes like termites had eaten away the denim.

"Shit man," Yoongi breathed the lungful of smoke out his nose and he reached up with his free hand to rub at his eyes. "What's fucking happening to us right now?"

"...Dunno," Jungkook replied as he watched him roughly rubbing at his eyelids with the knuckles of his fingers. "I dunno."

"What're we even doing here? What's the point? What the fuck's gonna happen?"

Jungkook stared across at the grassy path and didn't say anything in response because he had no answers. He didn't know what was going to happen, what they were doing, what the point of it all was, he just knew that he had no answers. He wondered what Yoongi would think if he told him about Taehyung, about how he had very much tried jumping off the lighthouse just a few hours ago as if it was nothing more than a silly joke. Out of the corner of his eyes he caught sight of movement and he turned his head just in time to see Yoongi moving the cigarette from his lips right in the direction of his inner elbow.

"Whoa, what the-" Jungkook grabbed hold of his wrist, "fuck Yoongi?!"

"Just lemme do it-"

"No stop it!" He had his fingers around his wrist, tight as a vice, and only then did he realise just how thin his friend was. It was like holding his mother's wrist, frail and slight. When he tried to pull the stick free with his free hand Yoongi seized hold of him with his other hand, getting hold of his fingers so that he couldn't get the stick. They were stuck in a deadlock; Jungkook holding his wrist but unable to grab the stick, Yoongi with the stick and his hand right around his wrist. Jungkook tried to wrestle his hand free but his friend held on tight. He would only let go when he let go of his wrist and if he did that he would stub the cigarette out.

"Just this one time I promise I won't-"

"Yoongi!"

"I won't do it again I promise!" Yoongi was struggling to hold on, strength not as great as his, but Jungkook still couldn't snatch the cigarette. After another hard tug he dragged his friend sideways and they both landed on the flatbed. He felt his head bouncing off the metallic flooring hard enough to make stars explode behind his eyes and make him moan in pain. All this over a fucking cigarette!

Jungkook's grip slipped on his wrist for a second but he managed to recover and snag hold again, using the sudden shift in position to lean over and mostly pin him onto the carriage flooring. He pressed Yoongi's free arm down under his weight and managed to pull his other hand away, up in the air like some strange pro-wrestling move. Yoongi didn't even try to struggle free and just lay there, knowing that he couldn't possibly push him off with their differing strengths. Jungkook was probably hurting him, probably putting way too much weight on his ribs and shoulder, but if it kept him still then he didn't care.

He looked down at Yoongi to see that he wasn't even looking at him right now, even when he was pinning him down to the truck flooring. His gaze had shifted away instead, looking away from him in a manner that suggested he was embarrassed and ashamed. Jungkook stared at him before glancing over at his hand, still tight in his grip. The cigarette was in his fingers, of course it was. Why couldn't it have been knocked free during their struggle; knocked free and stubbed out on the floor?

"Think about Jimin," Jungkook hissed at him, trying to not disturb their sleeping friends. "Think about him and stop being a selfish fucker Yoongi." His friend's eyes widened at this and he knew that he had touched a nerve but he didn't give a fuck. "Every time you stub one of those fucking cigarettes out on your skin you're doing it to him, so stop doing it." Yoongi let his breath out in a shaky sigh. "...Asshole."

"Shit I know I just..." Yoongi blinked thrice rapidly and he saw his eyes welling with tears before they spilled free. His friend didn't cry exactly, no sobbing or bawling, just those silent tears steadily running down his cheeks to land in his hairline. "I just needed something."

"No, no you don't need that shit. It's been a year Yoongi and-"

"I never stopped doing it Kookie, never," Yoongi argued, expression shifting to one of disgust. "I just stopped for a month or two and then I did it again I never fucking stopped."

"Then you're stopping now," Jungkook argued, shifting slightly to lessen the pressure on his shoulder. His own arm was starting to ache from holding his friend's hand up in the air but he couldn't let go just yet. "I'm gonna make you stop."

"Minnie couldn't make me stop, you really think you can?"

"'Course I can, I can do everything."

"You cocky fucker." Yoongi finally moved his eyes back to look at him and yet he wouldn't loosen his grip on the cigarette.

"It's true Yoongi," Jungkook said in a quiet voice as he held his gaze. "Every time you do it it hurts Jimin. It hurts all of us and I know I'm fucking guilt-tripping you right now but I don't give a shit. You wanna hurt something, hurt me."

Yoongi stared at him in dumb confusion, lips going slack and that was when Jungkook let go of his wrist and instead reached up to grab hold of the neckline of his tee. He wrenched down hard on it, exposing his clavicle and most of his shoulder. His friend's arm didn't stay up in the air fully, rather lowered slightly now he wasn't holding it up, yet Yoongi made no move to do anything. It wasn't like he could stub the cigarette out on his other inner elbow, not when Jungkook was pinning that side of his body down on the flatbed.

"Might as well stub it out me, it'll hurt the same."

"Kookie, don't."

"Then drop the stick."

But he didn't, and so Jungkook snagged hold of his wrist again and forcibly dragged it close to him. The cigarette stick was a mere inch from his neck when Yoongi tried to pull himself free. He relented however, playing this stupid game of chicken until his friend finally let go of the stick. Jungkook freed his wrist and grabbed it, stubbing it out of the carriage right beside his head.

"Don't," his friend repeated.

"Don't what?" Jungkook asked as he tossed the dead butt away and looked at him.

"Don't you ever tell me to do shit like that," Yoongi said in a low voice. "Don't even fucking suggest it." Then he shoved him off hard and Jungkook was too surprised by this to be able to recover, instead falling back to hit his shoulder on the side of the flatbed hard, hard enough to likely bruise.

Yoongi jumped off the back and stormed across the grassy patch to go back into the building and he watched him go and wondered if he should go back inside too and try and sleep, or if it would be a better idea to just stay out here. Jungkook had really touched a nerve with Yoongi, something that he had never managed to do before even after all of the shit that he had caused with Taehyung in the past. He had pissed him off because he had suggested that he hurt him, that he hurt a friend, which was clearly crossing a line.

He was so conflicted about what he should do, for he felt the most pressing urge to apologise now. But it would mean nothing and he knew it. It would sound fake and childish and though Yoongi might accept it he wouldn't really mean it. And was he even sorry in the first place? After all, he had stopped him from hurting himself...even if his words had been harsh. Jungkook started gnawing on his lower lip and he reached over to pick the cigarette up, turning the crumpled butt over in his fingers as he did. Shit, what was he supposed to do?

This was what happened when he tried to sort things out with words rather than his fists. He fucked it all up, every single time he tried. He might as well have slapped Yoongi across the face because it would have been a lot easier.

Jungkook groaned under his breath and then he tossed the butt away in disgust, not even tracking where it landed. Then he shifted to lie back against the flatbed flooring, cold metal seeping through his thin tee to chill his skin. The sky overhead was no longer dark, much closer to a deep blue that signaled the sun would start to appear soon, navy at first until it was the usual soft summer pastel blue of the morning. No stars out tonight, not that he had expected any. His friends might have joked about how he could do absolutely anything, that he was a real whiz with things, but he had discovered one thing that he couldn't do.

Jungkook couldn't fix the broken cracks in their friendship no matter how hard he tried.