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[CW: Some suicidal ideation]

Year 20, 5 September

My father told me once that he kept a journal when he was in school. In hindsight, I think he must not have actually meant to tell me that. I think he wants me to know as little about him as possible. My own father. Imagine.

I’ve decided to keep a journal too. Maybe, at last, with no one to read this, then I can start being honest.

I bought this notebook from the school bookstore. The cover is an artwork by an artist I don’t know. Jean-Michel Basquiat. It looks like graffiti and poetry all in one. I think Taehyung ~~and Namjoon~~ would have really liked it. Maybe I’ll get another one and mail it back for Tae. I’ll make a whole care package for everyone.

I promised Jungkook I’d video chat with him after I finished unpacking. I thought I could stay up in time but my eyes were so heavy I slept right through our promised time. He said it’s okay but it doesn’t feel okay. How many times have I let him down now?

I could have had more time with them. Student housing isn’t actually supposed to open for incoming ~~first years~~ freshmen until 20 September. The condition for moving in early is that I have to help with the orientation for international students because I speak Korean and English. I could have stayed in Seoul a little longer. Softened the blow, maybe.

But I don’t belong anymore.

I haven’t belonged with them since the principal made me give up the classroom. “Made me.” One threat about my father and I crumbled. There were so many chances for me to be honest and tell the others. When I saw Yoongi’s expulsion letter, I thought my heart was going to stop and I’d just die right there. ~~I can’t help but think maybe it’d be better if I had.~~

I decided to leave early because I thought it would do less damage.

No, that’s a lie. I decided to run away.

Even on paper, with no one to read, I try to cover up the wrongs I did. Make them sound better than they do.

In California, I can’t do anymore damage.

This apartment once came so very close to being home. Now Seokjin sits on the floor in front of his suitcase and wonders how this hollow place could ever have felt full? Almost everything has been picked up and taken away already, either to the thrift store or to be mailed to America. All that's left now is a foldable yo bed and his essentials: clothes, phone, computer, some toiletries. Tomorrow, he'll board a plane.

He has no idea when he'll ever see Seoul again.

Their group of friends, the ones that remain, aren't exactly thrilled with him. Telling Jungkook had probably broken both of their hearts at the same time. Telling Hoseok and Jimin hadn't been much better. Taehyung had been the worst because even now, weeks later, Seokjin still can't tell what his reaction really meant.

They're better off without him. Kim Seokjin, goalless, passionless, useless, never deserved them and they loved him anyway. And what did he do with that love but ruin in?

A chime goes off from his phone, telling him that he can check in and get his boarding pass on his phone now to skip the line. Sighing, he doesn't reach out for his phone. He'll do it in a minute.

It takes no effort at all to go from his spot on the floor to his mattress. Resting on a his pillow are the few personal items he couldn't be parted from. A little stack of polaroids and a small stuffed bear. Months and tender affection later and it's still as woebegone-looking as the day Namjoon stole it from the hospital. Probably worse, honestly, because he's been clinging to it in his sleep like a child.

Even now, he can't help drawing the bear to his chest, curling around it. With his height and build, it's impossible to make himself as small as he currently feels, but he can try.

Current Music: Everyone Says Hi - David Bowie

Seokjin keeps staring at the noticeboard, his head buzzing emptily. 25 June. This is his fault. This is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the result of him giving away their classroom. This is the result of his cowardice. On and on in his head, he keeps reading that list to himself, going in order of his failures. He should have been brave enough not to inform to the principal. He should have been moral enough to refuse to be intimidated. Barring those, he should have at least had the courage not to hide from his friends.

If he’d warned them, he’s almost certain they would have hated him, cast him out of the group, no matter what defense Namjoon might have had. Namjoon’s gone now anyway. In his place, as the eldest, shouldn’t Seokjin have stepped up instead of hidden? Instead, he’d been so afraid of losing them that he kept his secret, delaying the explanation again and again until it was too late.

Namjoon’s gone. No one has heard from Yoongi either. He can see from the deadening in Jungkook’s eyes that Yoongi hasn’t replied to even him. If he’d been brave enough, they’d still have Yoongi, wouldn’t they? Seokjin wouldn’t have been anyone’s loss but without Yoongi…

He should have been so much better than this. Instead, he’d ratted them out, made two people’s lives hell in the process.

They don’t need him and Seokjin doesn’t deserve to be their friend after what he’s done.

For months now, he’s had four envelopes stashed away in a drawer. Three of them are written in Hangul, welcoming to universities in and around Seoul. None of them are SKY but they’re good schools. He thinks his father might even have given him a faint nod of something like approval for the achievement.

The last envelope has embossed type in English and then a hastily added sticker in Hangul for the local post. It welcomes him to a prestigious university in California, practically falling over itself to offer him incentives to come to the States. It must look very good to have international students like him if they’re trying so hard.

When the envelope had arrived in March, he hadn’t thought much of it. At the time, he’d been riding high with six people that he loved more than he thought he’d ever loved before. He’d had Namjoon. It’s only been three months since he felt so sure of himself but it’s also another lifetime that belongs to a better, more courageous man than Kim Seokjin.

They won’t forgive him for leaving like this but they already won’t forgive him for the classroom, for ruining Yoongi’s life.

Reading off the temporary login pin, Seokjin opens up the university website. It’s almost disheartening how quick and mundane it is to turn in his confirmation that he will be starting at Stanford University this fall.

It’s for the best, he tries to tell himself. He never deserved them.

Current Music: Happy Ending - MIKA

Tonight, Jungkook died and Yoongi lived to hate him. Before that, Taehyung was arrested. And before that, they all died in a traffic crash, no idea where Yoongi had gone. Seokjin is too late every single time and every time the world fractures and realigns itself around him and he wakes up again and it's April 11.

He wonders what his neighbors must think when, some mornings, Seokjin is still screaming when he wakes up, hands grasping for people who aren't there anymore or his body curled protectively over someone as they're hit by a truck. Again and again and again, Seokjin never gets it right and the whole things starts once more.

Now, every morning, he begins by going to his wall and drawing a new map, triangulating the motels where he's found Yoongi in each loop. His time is limited. He's stuck waiting for the right moment to approach Namjoon, to act like it doesn't hurt him all the way into the corners of his soul when Namjoon sees him for the first time in two years, every time. Seokjin acts casual but he wonders if there are any timelines where Namjoon can see the heartbreak on his face.

It doesn't matter as long as Namjoon's okay.

He has to act at the right moment to stop Namjoon and then race to find Jungkook. Most tries he makes it. Some, he doesn't. The only benefit to the way he keeps looping back in time is that he doesn't have time to sleep, which means he can't have nightmares about Jungkook's crumpled body cradled by the spiderweb cracks of his windshield or hideously broken on the pavement or thrown nearly into the dashboard from the back seat because he didn't buckle up. He's seen them die so many times now, so many ways, and he just wants it all to stop.

Instead, he gets it wrong somehow every time, and it all shatters and forms again. Today, he wakes up curled around nothing on his narrow bed. His hands grasp for someone who's not there. His shoulders ache. When he gets to the mirror, Seokjin checks himself for bruises and finds none. Is it possible to carry back the bruises from car crashes or intercepting punches or bodies falling onto him? So far, he's looked the same every time, as far as he can tell. Except maybe, today, the circles under his eyes are dark and bruiselike.

Hunting in the suitcase that goes back to being half unpacked every single morning, Seokjin finds eye de-puffer in his cosmetics. He'd say a thankful prayer but none of them are being answered anyway. Gently, he taps it under his eyes and then gets up, finding his marker and paper so he can tape them to the wall and start again.

He's not pouting about it, really. People are still coming over, mostly, and there will still be sweets, even if it's not birthday cake. Seokjin tries to keep Namjoon's suggestion in mind that they've asked for hotteok so that he doesn't have to cook all by himself (never mind that he wouldn't have to cook at all if he bought a birthday cake). He's almost finished getting everything ready too. The hotteok batter is proofing. The miyeok guk is simmering on the stove.

A text went off an hour ago with a generous birthday gift from his father. The number still makes Seokjin's stomach twist to think about.

And maybe he should have just reminded the others that today is his birthday. It's just that he'd sort of hoped they'd remember without him saying but maybe that's just a selfish expectation.

He really shouldn't pout. But he does have the face for it.

There's a knock on the door and a buzz from his phone and Seokjin smiles his biggest smile. At least someone's come. That should be enough.

He doesn't actually know what to say to Yoongi, isn't exactly sure how to even say it to himself. It's scary to talk about but of the six of them, he think Yoongi has a better idea of who he is than most. They're the closest in age and, Seokjin thinks, Yoongi is one of the most observant of them all. Seokjin, though intensely private, isn't a stone.

He has his giveaways, just like anyone else. He just wishes they weren't tells to such big, uncomfortable secrets. If he could just conform, it would be easier, but he stupidly has to inject hope where it doesn't belong. Sometimes he sees the way Jimin's eyes linger on Hoseok, his mouth pursing when they talk about their noona at their studio. He shouldn't encourage that. He also shouldn't talk about his future and leave the gender of his partner undecided. It's just that not doing that feels like too much of a lie, when he can't even talk about it.

Waiting for Yoongi to arrive, Seokjin fidgets. He makes hot water for tea, peruses the fridge, gets out a bag of crackers and then puts it back and takes it out again. He should offer a snack, after all.

He just waits, uncomfortably, for that knock on the door.

He lingers at school with his friends for as long as he can. Everyone has work or other obligations tonight that no amount of food-based bribery seems to be able to persuade them to abandon. It means that coming home is a miserable thing. The apartment is a shell when it's just him, a Le Corbusier machine for living without any soul. Seokjin comes home and sets his keys aside, gravitates to the exact same spot on the couch he always does. Without his friends, it all seems a little shabby, even though the couch is brand new. His father may despair of him but he still won't have Seokjin stoop to used furniture.

It's on his mind more than ever tonight because he knows that any moment now his phone will light up. Seokjin isn't sure how his father manages it–he suspects one of the teachers is reporting on him–but every time there's an important exam or due date in school, an email from his father appears shortly after. It's nearing the end of the month too, which means he's expected to report back on his month, telling his father that he's been a dutiful second son. He has, of course, achieved good grades and done nothing to make trouble or draw attention to himself, much less his family.

In exchange for sending in testimony to his upright behavior like a questionable intern, his father will send that month's allowance. It will cover his rent, his bills, his car, and all the petty luxuries someone his age is expected to enjoy. Except that he doesn't. Most of the money gets spent on food. His friends have never asked how it is that he can constantly afford to 'mix up' the measurements and proportions of dishes so that he 'accidentally' cooks enough to feed six other people. Probably they have some inclination but Seokjin is pretty sure most of them have no idea the extent of his money. He prefers it that way.

Not once in his life has Seokjin done a thing to deserve that money. He has no head for business, lacks the temperament for hard negotiations, and is pretty sure his father wrote him off as a total loss before he left primary school. No matter how much he studies abroad or scores perfectly on his tests, Seokjin will never be a worthwhile heir to his company. He will never equal his brother. He will never put on smart ties and attend Christmas parties with his parents and brother. He will do what's best for the reputation of the company, which is not make trouble.

Sitting on the couch, Seokjin zones out, looking at nothing in particular. The shadows through his window seem to creep longer and longer as the sun begins to set. It must be nearly dinner time, which seems unpleasant to think about, because it means he's wasted so much time sitting here, doing nothing. Seokjin closes his eyes and lets his head drop back against the edge of the couch. Just a second, just one second, and he'll get up.

More than a second passes but eventually, Jin sits up and sighs out, leaning against his knees. His phone lights up with a message from his father but, somehow, the room doesn't seem as dark as it did a second ago. Checking the time, it's not even that late.