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Seokjin glares at his phone. Considering it’s six in the morning, he’s trying to figure out who in the hell would be texting him at this undead hour.
Sleepily, he reaches for his phone and frowns further when he sees it’s Taehyung.
Taehyung
hey, way to duck out early, jin
Seokjin huffs, awake enough to be annoyed, and starts his response.
jin
Shouldn’t you be asleep in your coffin right now?
Taehyung
a little racist, but ill give you a pass this time
what gives?
jin
Nothing, leave me alone, it’s fucking six in the morning.
Taehyung
i guess ill have to baby you now since yoongi has jimin
tell me what the hell is wrong
Seokjin stops responding there, if only for now.
What the hell is wrong?
He’s asexual. He thinks. Namjoon’s not asexual. That’s fine.
Namjoon’s not even interested in him. So it doesn’t matter.
Taehyung
im outside, let me in
Seokjin widens his eyes and gets out of bed, stretching his limbs, gangly and probably more skin and bone than anything else, and goes towards his front door, opening it and squinting at the brightness of the barely rising sun.
Taehyung is standing there with a full coverage of clothes and his umbrella to block the sun’s soon-to-show rays, and a fanged smile on his lips.
“Taehyung, what the fuck,” he frowns, and Taehyung doesn’t answer, just pushes past Seokjin and shuts the door, closing his umbrella.
“Talk or I’ll make you,” is all Taehyung says, and Seokjin rolls his eyes, makes his way to his kitchen to get some meat from the fridge. He’s already awake. Might as well have breakfast. Whatever.
“What the fuck is there to talk about?” he asks around a mouthful of imitation flesh, leaning on his kitchen island. “I was tired, I left early. Sue me. Jimin and his new boytoy left early, too.”
“Yeah, together, to go fuck,” Taehyung corrects. “Which left me to Namjoon and him crying about how much you hate him.”
“...I don’t hate him.”
“Well, he thinks you do, so your silence doesn’t help.” A silence. “Why don’t you just tell him you like him?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Seokjin bites back, swallowing and opening his fridge again, throwing the package into the near-emptiness and slamming the door shut.
“How can I? I’m literally the only one who actually fucking does something about my problems, while you just walk on eggshells because it’s too scary to step on toes.”
“And about Jungkook-”
Taehyung holds up a hand.
“Hey. That’s different.” He drops his hand and says quietly, “...At least he knows.”
Seokjin rounds his kitchen island and starts to head towards his bedroom, hoping that if he just goes back to bed, Taehyung will leave all by himself. It’s a fruitless motion, because Taehyung stops him with a strong hand against his shoulder.
“Jin,” he says firmly. “You need to fucking speak up about what’s going on in your life. You never talk to us anymore. You’re either working or at home sleeping. You only came out to The Creature with us because it was Halloween Turnover. And any other weekend, I know you wouldn’t have come.” He waits for Seokjin to turn around and face him. Seokjin barely looks over his shoulder. “Talk to me.”
“...No.”
And Seokjin goes back to his room, back to sleep. Back to nothing.
---
Seokjin never gets what he wants.
Other than The Creature, there’s also a coffee shop called The Underground that’s creature-friendly. Not that the town they live in isn’t, but it’s always nice to have places to go, places to feel welcome.
Seokjin does not feel welcome right now.
He’s in the corner cradling a fresh flesh-brew, cursing himself for not applying any ash-resistant cream because he keeps flaking into his mug.
“Sitting alone, are you?”
Seokjin looks up to see the only thing that could make his day worse, which is Namjoon, followed closely by Jimin and his new boytoy, Yoongi.
“Um.” Seokjin’s frozen and he belatedly realises he’d picked a booth to sit at, only because it was in the corner. Damn.
“Mind if we join, or...are you too busy avoiding us?” Jimin asks, and before Seokjin can even think of telling them to fuck off, he pulls Yoongi to sit down, and Namjoon hesitantly takes the open spot to Seokjin’s right.
“Gee, thanks so much for your consideration,” he mumbles, sipping his drink.
“You’re one to talk,” Jimin bites back. “You didn’t even say goodbye the other night.”
“I just went home. Like you did with...
human-boy
over here.” Seokjin nods to Yoongi and Yoongi flushes pink, curling in on himself. “Besides, I was tired.”
“You’re always tired,” Namjoon huffs, resting his chin on his hand over the table. He’s missing a couple of his fingers and his wrist is cut straight through. He eyes Seokjin through grey, dead pupils. “I mean, what even happened? Why’re you avoiding everyone?”
“What business is it to you?” Seokjin asks, and Namjoon shrugs, scoffing.
“I don’t know. We’re friends? I worry about you? I mean. I just- I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Where does Seokjin begin?
Leave him alone. Go have zombie-ghost sex with Jazz and forget about him. Give him a reason to stop liking him so he doesn’t feel even more numb than usual.
Stop worrying about him, stop thinking about him, just leave him alone.
“Seokjin,” Jimin brings him away from his thoughts, speaking softly. “It’s been months. If something’s bothering you, you need to tell us. Or someone. Go to someone.”
“Ooh, fascinating, I’m sure someone’s going to want to solve a depressed ghoul's fucking problems, thanks,” Seokjin says sarcastically. He leans in, raising his eyebrows as he speaks, “Want to bet that they’ll just tell me this is normal behaviour for me? That they’ll just write it off as part of my biology?” Jimin furrows his brows, sputtering.
“I didn’t even say th-” Seokjin cuts him off with a wave of his hand, leaning back.
“Oh, shut the fuck up, you know it’s what they would say.” He sighs and his next words are out before he can stop them, “You and your fucking human were made for each other, I’m sure. You’re unfinished and he’s made the wrong way, so I’m sure you’ll make a whole person by the end of it.”
There’s a silence.
Yoongi is quiet. Jimin’s single eye is red. Namjoon is frozen in place.
Jimin doesn’t say anything when he slowly stands, leading himself and Yoongi outside.
“Seokjin,” Namjoon growls, voice tense.. “What the fuck was that?”
“Fuck off.” Seokjin brings his mug closer to himself. Nothing matters anymore. “Go fuck someone who cares, you whore.”
Namjoon’s face hardens as he stands up. But not before grabbing Seokjin’s mug and throwing his drink in his face, breaking it on the floor and calmly walking out of the café.
---
Taehyung
jimin told me what happened
what the fuck is wrong with you?
Seokjin ignores the text.
Taehyung
seriously
why would you even say that, thats so fucked up
you dont have any right to say anything about jimin being part skeleton or yoongi being trans like that, when you know better
and whatever the fuck you said to namjoon, i dont care
you need to fucking watch your mouth and not take out your bullshit on other people
work your shit out
The messages stop there and Seokjin feels his gut coil.
He didn’t mean any of it. He doesn’t think.
His mom’s always told him that his first thought is what he’s been conditioned to think, and his second is what he actually thinks.
Growing up, he’s always learned that creatures were horrible. Had gotten called a monster and a killer in school, berated for his looks, his diet of flesh, even though it was all substitutes and from the fucking supermarket.
As he got older, from there, he’s always tried to turn away from that mindset. Teach himself that he was normal, that everyone was normal. Learned not to use the word ‘monster’ when referring to creatures, learned not to think of himself as any less. That he deserved just as much respect and love and care as the next human or creature.
He must not, though. He shouldn’t. Not anymore. Maybe when he was younger, before all of his stupid bullshit happened. Before he met Namjoon, before he got so confused and started putting up wall after wall until he became practically immobile. Unable to move in one direction or the other.
It’s just. Unfair. It’s stupid. He’s stupid. He doesn’t deserve any of this, this. This stupid emotional bullshit. All he should deserve is living the rest of his life alone and hurt.
---
Don’t Answer Is Calling...
Fuck.
Seokjin waits for it to go to voicemail.
Don’t Answer Is Calling...
No.
Don’t Answer Is Calling...
“Fuck off!” Seokjin shouts, picking up his phone and throwing it against the wall. There’s a loud crunch sound and he just sighs, standing up to assess the damage.
One New Voicemail
The words glare back at him through a cracked screen. He frowns further and debates whether or not he should even listen to it. Whether or not it even matters.
“Jin,” Jungkook’s familiar voice speaks. “I know you’re ignoring me on purpose. I know- I know you’re fucking ignoring me. Which is, oh, wow, so fucking surprising considering all the shit you’ve said recently. But Taehyung is really fucking pissed at you and Yoongi and Jimin and Namjoon are fucking hurt. And that bullshit you did on Halloween Turnover before you left was also fucking bad. You do realise you’re not allowed to push me around anymore, right? I’m not your fuck-buddy anymore. But- No, y’know what? This is fucking bullshit, I want you to fucking fig-”
The voicemail cuts off there and Seokjin doesn’t realise he’s nearly on the verge of crying until he sniffs and shakes his head, putting his phone down carefully despite its brokenness.
Isn’t this what he deserves? Isn’t this what he’d been asking for?
There’s a knock at his door and he looks up.
He knows who’s probably behind it.
“Seokjin, you motherfucker,” Jimin grits out once the door opens. Seokjin has no time to say any words when Jimin takes his hand and hits him across the face with his bones. “Let me in.”
“Fuck!” Seokjin yells, holding his face as Jimin pushes past Seokjin and sits down on his ragged couch, crossing his arms. His one eye is furrowed into anger and his body language is steaming mad. “What the fuck, Jimin-”
“No, what the fuck, Seokjin?” Jimin yells back. “I should be asking you what the fuck. You, pulling all this bullshit for the past month and a half, and it suddenly explodes when one person asks you what’s wrong? And I-I can’t believe you would- I mean. Fucking Christ-” Jimin cuts himself off as he starts to cry out of his anger. “What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Seokjin screams, spit flying out of his mouth and skin stretching against his face. He breathes out. “I don’t fucking know! But everyone cornering me isn’t going to help!”
“Oh, so you were planning to tell us at some point?” Jimin says, standing up. “Or were you just pushing us all out until we would eventually think you were some lost fucking cause and you could go off and kill yourself?” Seokjin stares in disbelief. “I know it’s why you left early on Halloween Turnover, and I know it’s why you’ve been distancing yourself. Why you’ve been skipping work, skipping meals. Just fucking talk to me!”
“Get out of my fucking house!”
“Why don’t you fucking make me?”
Seokjin breathes out harshly once more, still holding his face where Jimin had hit it, feeling the ash of his skin flake away as tears finally fall. Jimin walks towards him.
“When you’re ready to talk,” he says, lowering his voice to a normal level, “you come talk. But don’t take it out on us. On anyone. Not Jungkook, and not Namjoon. Especially Namjoon.”
Jimin doesn’t say more, though he looks as if he wants to. Just wipes his one eye before stomping and swinging open the front door, leaving as he slams it shut behind him.
---
“...We can’t keep doing this.”
Seokjin looked over to Jungkook on the other side of the bed. His eyes were soulless, as usual, but his expression was soulless on top of it. Not his normal elation.
“What?” Seokjin replied.
“This. It’s wrong, we can’t do this anymore,” Jungkook reiterated.
“What d’you mean- Why not?”
Seokjin thought he sounded reasonably concerned at the time. Thinking about it now, it sounds more like a selfish dick’s move.
“You don’t even like the sex. And I don’t like you romantically. I don’t want to just be your stress reliever, Jin.”
“I didn’t say you were my-”
“You didn’t have to.” Jungkook sat up in bed, and belatedly, Seokjin realised he was leaving. “I’m going to go. Bye.”
And that was it.
A year ago.
Seokjin doesn’t often think about it. About the time that they agreed to have sex, no strings. It was only once Jungkook gained interest in someone else that it ended.
He wasn’t even fucking legal, and he still isn’t . People creature-dominant under twenty-one are minors, not legal to do anything someone human-dominant at eighteen can.
Seokjin thought, and still thinks, it’s discriminatory. That creatures should have the same rights as humans. So he said fuck it and asked Jungkook if he wanted to fuck around.
But laws are laws. And nineteen is still underage for creatures. Jazz only lets Jungkook into The Creature because she knows he’ll only order non-alcoholic.
It’s just. Bullshit. It’s all bullshit and Seokjin is alone on Christmas Eve and he really wants to just go to the main bridge, close his eyes, and walk off the edge. Everyone else had spent Thanksgiving together, even if it’s a bullshit holiday in his opinion. Namjoon calls it Treatsgiving instead, because they all get to eat the food they never get to on a normal basis.
Namjoon. Fucking Namjoon.
His phone rings, the tone sad and glitched from when he chucked it at the wall before.
-ne N-w V--cemai-
He plays it.
“Hey, Jin. It’s me, Jimin,” it starts off, the voice sounding far away. “Look, I’m sorry. For hitting you, I mean. It was really out of line, even if...what you said was out of line. And not to immediately just keep bringing it up, but what you said was really fucked up. But I shouldn’t have hit you. And I’m sorry we didn’t invite you to Treatsgiving. Namjoon wouldn’t really let us...” A long sigh. “Look, come to The Creature tomorrow, at eight. We’ll order some Christmas drinks and hang out, like old times. Forget about all of this for at least a day. Then we can talk later.”
The message cuts off and Seokjin feels tears in his eyes running down his ashy skin. He hasn’t eaten anything in days, and his skin is cracking and peeling, showing the dead blackness of his insides. His eyes are sullen more than usual, his limbs gangly and thin.
He’s seen what happens to ghouls if they go too long without flesh. Ferals get put down before they can hurt someone.
Seokjin would rather die before that happens.
---
It’s New Year’s.
Seokjin sits on the edge of the bridge.
His eyes are sunken in and his skin is taught. He feels close to losing himself. Every time the wind blows, it sends another pillow of ash off his skin.
“You better not be thinking about jumping.”
He nearly falls over the edge in surprise.
He doesn’t move as he feels the presence of someone sitting next to him, both of them now precariously close to plummeting off.
“You never showed up to The Creature,” Namjoon says. Seokjin doesn’t bother to look over at him.
“Why do you care?” he retorts. “You didn’t invite me to Treatsgiving.” Namjoon sighs, his breath sounding hollow.
“If I was going to jump, would you stop me?”
A silence falls and Seokjin looks over at Namjoon.
He looks concerned, but even more so expectant. Seokjin glances, noticing his ear is falling off again. He doesn’t say anything about it.
“You’re dead already, it wouldn’t matter,” Seokjin says, and Namjoon scoffs.
“Wow, you really don’t know your history, do you?” he says. Seokjin rolls his eyes. “I’m undead and controlled by a brainial discourse that runs my system and decays my body throughout the rest of my life.”
“So you have a virus in your head that controls you.”
“Do you ever think about what you say?” Seokjin opens his mouth, but Namjoon stops him, holding up a hand, “Stop- No. Don’t.” Seokjin throws his hands in the air, defeated.
“Christ, I don’t know what everyone’s fucking... sensitivities are, okay?” Seokjin bites. “I got called a monster for years and told I was going to kill other people’s children.”
“Just because you’re not sensitive, doesn’t mean other people aren't, too.”
It hurts Seokjin to know that Namjoon is right. It hurts to realise that he’s wrong.
“Here,” Namjoon says, reaching into his pocket and passing over something in white wrapping paper. A packet of imitation flesh sits on top. “Just open it.”
There's hesitance in the air. If everything Seokjin believes is wrong, then Namjoon must not hate him. Seokjin must not be asexual. Namjooon must not like Jazz.
Seokjin takes the gift out of Namjoon’s decayed grip and gently opens it, setting the flesh in his lap. Before he can react, the wrapping paper flies away from him in the wind, fluttering sadly down to the river below where it floats away. He looks back down.
“...A Creature’s Guide To Love: Knowing That You’re Worth Every Piece,” Seokjin reads the title aloud.
“Look at the dedication,” Namjoon says quietly, nerves in his voice as it wavers. He twiddles his fingers back and forth, bending the stretchy stitches.
Seokjin opens the book to the first page.
“‘ Dedicated to a ghoul. We all deserve to be loved, you most of all.’” Seokjin sniffs. “Who wrote this?”
“I did.”
A silence.
“...You wrote this?” Seokjin chokes out. He just stares at the dedication as it sinks in all the way.
“It’s what I’ve been working on since last year. This is the first copy before it ships for sale in stores.” He gulps, “The first chapter is for you specifically.”
“I-It is?”
“Yeah.” Namjoon adjusts on the railing for a moment before he swings himself back to the sidewalk. “You don’t have to read it. You can do whatever you want with that copy. Toss it in the river if you want to.” He starts walking away, but not before turning back around and adding, “Happy New Year’s.”
It’s silent once Namjoon’s footsteps fade away. The book sits in his lax grip as he stares down at the river.
For once, he would rather not jump.