Chapter Text
Jungkook wouldn’t say he was poor.
Sure, he occasionally has to choose between breakfast and dinner, and don’t bother mentioning lunch because he’s working two (sometimes three) jobs and doesn’t have time for it anyway. His apartment is warm in the summer (and cold in the winter) and his landlord only occasionally demands an extra hundred or two in rent, and only when his favorite sports team loses. Which is most months, but really, who’s counting?
And if his clothes have some holes, and his sneakers are more water positive than waterproof, he just reminds himself that he’s lucky to have clothes and sneakers in the first place. It could always be worse.
He could be standing on a bridge at three in the morning contemplating whether he’ll die on impact or if he’ll feel his waterlogged lungs gasping their final, panicked breaths.
It isn’t because he’s poor.
If you ask him, he can’t really tell you the reason.
He’s just… tired. It isn’t the jobs where customers are more likely to spit on him than tip him. It isn’t the guys who showed up at his door to demand the neighborhood tax and broke his nose even when he paid it. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the flowers wilting in their shitty brown paper beside him.
Jungkook looks down at the river. There’s a slight layer of fog over the surface, the damp air clinging to his skin. He pokes at a hole in his jeans, tugging at it, until it unravels into a series of barely held together strings. Just like him.
Fraying at the edges.
He can’t tell you why he’s here today, instead of yesterday, or tomorrow. Just that he’s here, standing on a bridge, on the wrong side of the railing, barely hanging on.
He doesn’t have a reason to let go.
He doesn’t need one.
He just has to wait, his grip slowly slipping, loose from hunger and exhaustion and not having a reason to stay.
And if he’s full of shit… that’s between him and the rapidly approaching surface of the river.
Taehyung is contemplating what it means to be a bird.
He’d been contemplating this at home for the past few days, but his contemplating had annoyed Yoongi, so now he is contemplating it here, perched on the top of a bridge.
Honestly, he should thank Yoongi. This is a much better place to contemplate being a bird because there are so many more birds to contemplate.
He likes the word contemplate. It’s more concise than “to think about” and more accurate than “consider”. To consider something would indicate ‘making a decision’. He isn’t deciding whether or not to be a bird. He’s contemplating the existence of birds and how it might apply to himself, who is decidedly not a bird.
The issue, currently, is that there are not many birds to contemplate as it’s three in the morning and Yoongi told him he couldn’t return until he’d stopped contemplating, and he isn’t ready to be done contemplating, so he’s stuck contemplating where birds go in the darkness of not yet dawn.
He waits. When no birds appear, he concludes that he is, perhaps, becoming bored of contemplating.
He considers his options. That was a good use of ‘considers’, he decides. See, decisions? That’s what considering is for. He can go home (boring), remain here (also boring), or—
Movement.
A bird?
He looks down eagerly.
And is hit with a wave of disappointment.
Not a bird. Just a human.
So home and here are boring, which leaves going to Jackson’s, which could be interesting, but he’d have to call first, and he left his phone at home.
He sighs.
After considering the possibilities… home it is.
More movement. He tries not to get excited, but if it is a bird…
Taehyung tilts his head. It’s just the human… climbing over the railing and leaning out over the water, one trembling hand slowly losing its grip.
Maybe he is also contemplating being a bird?
Except humans aren’t birds. They are even less like birds than Taehyung because at least Taehyung can fly.
When the human’s grip slips, and he begins to fall, Taehyung doesn’t consider his options. Nor does he contemplate why a human would want to fall off of a bridge. He simply acts.
And that, maybe, should have been his first clue.
He dives off of the pilar two hundred feet above the bridge, three hundred and fifty-four feet above the river, and falls, but the human is falling too, faster than him, and he’s sure Namjoon could explain the physics of it, but Taehyung tends to fall asleep when Namjoon explains physics so all he knows is that he won’t reach the human before the human reaches the water.
Well. Hoseok had told him to get a hobby yesterday, when he’d been contemplating on the roof for two days without a break. He’d briefly contemplated thinking about hobbies but was distracted by a hawk diving into the forest, so hadn’t gotten very far.
The human hits the surface with a smack that’s dampened by the fog. Taehyung smells blood, sees wisps of soul beginning to leak from the human’s broken shell. Reaching the river, he slows down enough to scoop the dead human from the water before its body sinks more than a few inches, and grasps the shredded soul in the process, trailing it along behind him like a flag.
See, this is why he was contemplating birds. When he flies, he simply has to think about swooping and curving and diving—birds have to use wings and slipstreams and, yes, physics (probably) which is so much more interesting.
Magic makes things boring.
But as Taehyung lands on the bank, the body shifting sloppily in his arms because most of the bones are broken and the human is quite dead from what seems to be an internal decapitation, he decides that magic is exactly what this situation calls for.
He doesn’t stop to contemplate whether or not the magic is a good idea. It’s hard to know if an idea is good or bad—an idea is just a thing that you try, and if it makes Yoongi mad he does it again and if it makes Namjoon mad then he doesn’t.
Laying the human on the ground, he wrinkles his nose when its head lolls around at a weird angle and keeps the soul in one hand while pinching off a bit of flesh from his own arm. Shoving the soul under his knee to keep it from drifting away, Taehyung grasps the human’s slack jaw and props it open before dropping the bit of rapidly petrifying flesh into its mouth. He watches as it dissolves into dust and coats the human’s tongue, nodding in satisfaction. Then he shoves his fist (with the squirming, tattered soul) directly through the human’s sternum. Which isn’t very difficult, though that probably has more to do with the state of the human’s ribcage than Taehyung’s skill at punching.
He sits back on his heels, pulling his fist free with a squelch, and holds his breath.
One…
Two…
Three…
SNAP
The human’s neck cracks and pops, realigning itself with its head.
Taehyung smiles.
Hoseok is going to be so proud.