inspired by this

title: imprints
pairing: namjoon/jungkook
warnings: character death, some profanity
word count: ~1600 words
summary: namjoon and jeongguk have a talk at the table, only one of them gets up.

-

‘Whoa!’ Jeongguk says, hurrying over to the table Namjoon purchased a while back. He studies it for a moment, looking hesitant to touch it. ‘Is this the table that changes colour with temperature?’ he asks, and Namjoon nods.

‘The correct name is a thermo-chromic table, actually,’ he half-heartedly chuckles, and he stares at the table for a moment too. 

Jeongguk reaches out to touch it, and he holds his hand above it for a while, like he thinks it’s going to burn him or something. ‘Don’t be afraid to touch it,’ Namjoon says gently, and Jeongguk shakes his head.

‘I’m not scared,’ he chuckles, and he sits down quickly, as if to prove his words. Namjoon knows he’s not scared.

Namjoon joins him in sitting at the table, and Jeongguk keeps his hands in his lap.

Namjoon only figured he would do that.  

Namjoon puts a hand out and drags it across the table slowly, watching as the black morphs into a wooden colour under the pads of his fingers. Jeongguk watches closely, his eyes filled with desire and amazement. He wants Jeongguk to touch it. He wants to grab Jeongguk’s hand and force him to touch it, but he knows he won’t, because Jeongguk isn’t the only hesitant one here.

They sit in silence, it feels like an hour to Namjoon, but it probably wasn’t much longer than a minute. Namjoon makes eye contact with Jeongguk, noting that he looks quite similar to how he did the last time he saw him. He has messy bangs hanging over his forehead and dark circles framing the lower half of his eyes. His shoulders are small and look brittle. He’s really not the same as he was a year ago.

Jeongguk smiles gently; he knows this won’t go well.

‘It’s been a while since we’ve just hung out,’ he says, and Namjoon nods slowly.

‘Yeah, it has.’ Jeongguk shuffles uncomfortably.

‘Sorry,’ he mutters.

‘Are you really?’ Namjoon asks, a lot louder than he intended, ‘Because I really don’t think you are.’

Jeongguk looks hurt, and Namjoon wants to say sorry for getting so angry but he can’t bring it to his lips because there’s a point where anger takes control of your tongue and doesn’t release it for a while, which is what’s happening to Namjoon right now. He couldn’t say sorry if he were desperate to, but he kind of isn’t desperate at all.

‘I am, I’m sorry for a lot of stuff,’ he says, looking down into his lap. ‘I understand that you’re angry, and you have every right to be.’

‘I know I do,’ he says, and he finds himself harshly swiping his index finger across a small section of the table. ‘I don’t get why you’d come back now.’

‘Well, why wouldn’t I? We’ve been friends for a long time, Namjoon,’ he says, and Namjoon just laughs. ‘Haven’t we?’ Jeongguk asks, as though he really expects Namjoon to deny the fact that they’ve been within the same close group of friends for over ten years. Namjoon looks away.

‘We have. But you hurt me, you hurt all of us,’ he says through clenched teeth. Jeongguk’s shoulders slouch.

‘Did I? I didn’t think I would….’

Namjoon looks up at the dark haired boy in front of him, unable to believe such a statement. Jeongguk was so loved by everyone within the group; there was no denying that everyone had a soft spot for the ‘youngest brother’.

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘There’s no joke, Namjoon. I didn’t know. I haven’t seen anyone yet so no one told me. I chose to visit you first, and I still haven’t gotten around to seeing anyone else. I chose you because you were my best friend out of the group, you made me the happiest.’

‘Shove that up your ass, Jeongguk,’ Namjoon almost growls, ‘Even if I did, I know that’s not why you chose to see me first.’

He’s so angry, so angry that Jeongguk is trying to play the innocent one here. Namjoon knows he’s not. Namjoon knows Jeongguk is using the trick of trying to make Namjoon feel like he committed the wrong doing in this situation, that’s Jeongguk’s ‘thing’. Jeongguk always used to do it, and he knows that it always worked on Namjoon.

Today, Namjoon has a trick of his own though.

‘What do you mean? Namjoon, I missed you!’ Jeongguk says, his soft features beginning to harden with so-called frustration.

‘Don’t use those words with me. Don’t play them like they can just be thrown around. Don’t degrade words that come out of my mouth every single fucking day for you, Jeongguk. I say it every day. I miss him. I miss Jeongguk. I still miss you!’

‘But I’m here!’ Jeongguk says, he reaches out to bang his fists on the table, a habit he used to have when he was frustrated, but he’s quick to shove them back into his lap.

‘Are you?’ Namjoon screams, smacking his hands onto the table as he stands up, ‘Are you really here?’ he screams again, and Jeongguk seems to lose all the anger he just held. It seems to fade into emptiness, into worry.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ he says calmly, and Namjoon shakes his head. His heart is pounding because this is what he’s been waiting for. He’s waited to do this for months now, and he can’t believe it’s finally happening.

His eyes are also tearing up though because he never wanted to have to do this. His heart is pounding but it kind of feels like an empty tin can, clanging against his ribcage. He wants to say he feels nothing, but this sort of nothing is nothing in the worst way. He doesn’t feel happy like he used to when he’d see Jeongguk smile, he doesn’t feel proud of the ‘youngest brother’ like before. He only feels sadness creeping through his body in dull thuds. He feels it in his hands, his head, and he can hear it in his ears.

He hates this so much.

‘T-Then stand up,’ Namjoon says, and Jeongguk looks confused for a moment.

‘What?’

‘Stand up, Jeongguk, prove to me that you’re here.’

His hands are shaking against the tabletop and he’s trying to hold himself together but he knows this is like a bandage that he has to rip off right now. He needs to spare himself the pain of dragging this out any longer; he can’t keep pulling it slowly.

Jeongguk looks down, and Namjoon can see realization hit him as though realization were more than a feeling, as if it were someone with thick arms and heavy fists that took swings at Jeongguk’s small frame.

‘You’re not going to do it?’ Namjoon asks, and Jeongguk keeps his gaze down. He sees a tear fall down onto his pants, and Namjoon finds himself crying too, crying through eyes that are crinkled by anger. ‘I knew you wouldn’t. Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think that I would buy such an expensive table for no reason?’ he asks.

‘I’m here,’ he whispers, and Namjoon shakes his head.

‘You’re not here. You’re in my mind. I know you are Jeongguk, and I want you to get out now,’ he says. Jeongguk looks up at him with teary eyes and Namjoon kind of wants to cup Jeongguk’s face in his hands and tell him everything’s going to be okay, but it’s not.

‘I know you would come to me because none of the others would believe you. I know you chose me because I was always gullible when it came to you,’ Namjoon says.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jeongguk sobs, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Why’d you leave us?’ Namjoon asks, ‘Why didn’t you come to us when you were upset? Why did you leave without a goodbye? Did we not at least deserve a goodbye?’

‘Goodbyes hurt, Namjoon. You know I’ve never been good with goodbyes.’

Jeongguk steps away from the table. He looks worried and regretful, like maybe he shouldn’t have come to Namjoon first after all. No one else would see him though; no one else would buy a table just to prove to themselves that he wasn’t here.

‘I’m not good with goodbyes,’ he says, and then he’s gone when Namjoon blinks an opens his eyes again. Namjoon wants to scream out to him and hug him and hold him and tell him he’s sorry for not noticing that something was wrong.

But it’s too late.

His imprints aren’t there. The table is black where he was sitting and Namjoon finds himself collapsing into his seat, resting his head on the table and letting out a loud cry because Jeongguk is gone. Even Namjoon’s mind won’t place his imprints on the table as an illusion, like how Jeongguk was just now, because he knows now, it has finally sunk in fully.

There’s no more imprints in his mattress, Namjoon knows his mattress evened out a long time ago. There’s no more imprints in the couch he loved to sit on, because the couch was new and Jeongguk hadn’t even broken it in yet. They took his furniture out of his house. New people moved in. His house has no more imprints of him.

Jeongguk is gone. The only imprints left are those left on the hearts of Namjoon and their friends and Jeongguk’s family but having an imprint on his heart isn’t good enough because he wants Jeongguk here. He wants to pat Jeongguk’s head and wrap his arm around Jeongguk’s shoulders but he can’t.

The imprints are gone. Jeongguk is gone.

-

hm i don’t know… i hope someone likes this??? ah i’m embarrassed a little.