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As expected.
The moss is still damp from the rain and fuzzy around the edges. It's been pouring down three hours earlier, ruining most of your hopes for a short walk.
The tempest had rendered the entire place an overcast, dire swamp before the sun got its fair chance to resurface around noon.
With the right type of clothing, anything would be possible. A robust coat, a fleecy sweater. But you didn’t pack for such heavy intervals of almost November-like weather given that March was hailed as oh-so temperate and pristine. Yet what you’re looking at here is a literal mud puddle. Nothing pristine about that. But so be it. A typical and wayward vacation in the mountains where everything is out to test how many fucks you give.
Equipped with Wellingtons, a size too large but who cares, you sit down on the tree trunk at the campfire pit. It’s vastly overgrown. By now, your eyes are keen to spot forthcoming grasshoppers and dragonflies getting busy in the vicinity of your caravan. They're flirtatious, reminiscent of the warm and relaxing days you had hoped for. A cheerful sight after going pretty much stale inside the caravan just scowling at the pine trees sway and seeing clouds pass with snide.
There are plenty of insects, all headed to the river in a quest for wind, fresh water, and good company there. It really is a popular and industrious place. For them. You, on the other hand, plan to remain a fond observer. Even if that means the moss on the trunk is bound to wet the back pockets of your jeans. But you won't let it deprave you of the scarce sunny hours.
To your chagrin, the grasshoppers are soon gone. Counting twenty minutes, you've registered about five snaring dragonflies and one bumblebee that an agitated chirping noise drowns out the buzz around your ankles.
You look up and realize who it is.
Jungkook comes back trudging.
Stained white T-shirt and cropped baggy pants, chunky boots only half laced up because he’s either been too lazy or in a hurry. They're tinted in mud all around. He's squatting down at the river with his back turned to you, right in the direction where the chirps seem to come from. His arms are moving as in stirring something at the ground before him until the noise comes to an abrupt end. It’s his shoulders that block the way so you can’t see what is going on there.
By the time you stood up to go and check, he starts to rinse his arms in the light current of the river. The way Jungkook bends down makes his shorts slip up a little, revealing what the winter back in Busan had kept hidden from you more often than not.
So toned.
He catches you staring at his legs once he's finished, blinks through a petite smile without uttering a word, then comes strolling to the caravan. The open laces get under his soles, all muddy, but he doesn’t seem to care. Jungkook already sees your curious gaze.
"A sparrow,” he avows, eliciting another confused look from you. He rubs off his hands at the T-shirt ever so laxly.
"That was a sparrow?"
"Got caught in a branch round the corner. Where the bridge is. Was kind of tangled up with stuff."
"You freed it?"
"All back to normal. Just wanna towel-dry and change."
Jungkook would always use a somewhat languid and understated tone when he spoke, and today it was no different. The hours outside had made him a bit more hoarse since predicting to pack the right type of clothing wasn’t something he had a lot of sense for either. At least the chance of sunburn was significantly lower.
He kicks off his boots and opens the jarring caravan door, slips past its empty pinboard on it only to vanish for at least three whole minutes. A bit of rummaging inside follows, cupboards open and close. He returns in a new black shirt carrying bread on a plate, sliced and thinly coated with raspberry jam.
You already make a huge face of surprise, but he just squats down again opposite to you, extending the plate to offer bread.
"Jogged to 7-Eleven. You were still sleeping."
"That's two miles!"
"Hope you like it. There's sparkling water, too. And juice."
"Later," you can do as much as space out with the image of Jungkook jogging in mind. He didn't even look sweaty when he sat outside this morning before the rain came. In fact, you thought he never left.
There are more dragonflies gathering at the river. You take pictures of the scenery for social media to edit and upload when you get back home next week. The leaves, the mountains. It's not a bay, it's no prominent beach either, but after all, the horizon is so wide and ample with snowy peaks that you can see further — or rather, see more of interest — than if it were the sea. It is more of a postcard idyll than you thought. With electricity and wifi. That’s a real stroke of luck.
Jungkook and you only did this because your parents wanted to get rid of the caravan. To have more space for guests in the garden, that was the reasoning. But really it was just the two of you that they didn’t want to have around there. Your mother would always act like that when she was hosting another big vernissage for her sculptures, high-priced, polished, bland. The patrons were embodiments of akin stoicism and high brow.
Jungkook wasn't welcome there. Too working class, too unsightly, too oddball, too overseas, too everything. Nor would you fit into the mix so uncaring about the shallow, arguably style over substance type of art in the first place. It wasn’t your cup of tea. Sure, the sculptures were somewhat novel and represented something. But your parents loved them more than who they could spend actual human and limited time with. You, the couple. Soon-to-be fresh out of college looking for jobs and finally getting a bit of your own cash together to finance a joint valley holiday.
Dad would've paid for a fancier place to go with the aged and bulky white caravan. It was, in every regard, a relic nobody would dare to buy, even as a nostalgic item. The family had kept it for melancholy reasons only, pretending it was vintage while in reality, it was just plain ugly. But you said that Ibiza and Spring Break weren't what you had in mind. Neither were the job vacancies they suggested for you to apply for. At all. It was only a matter of half a day to sort things into the cupboards and go. On your way to the camping place, you alternated with driving during nine hours that felt like fifteen. Two traffic jams and very, very bad mood included. It could have taken only five hours. But what wouldn't you, in particular, do to evade the terror of Ibiza Spring Break and getting the caravan there. The vernissage would be boring either way. What’s a traffic jam when you can see Jungkook wander about and enjoy fresh bread so casually.
At least the mattress had been renewed as of recently after your mom’s critical inspection of the interiors. Otherwise, you’d have to deal with whatever smell and a tense back because the filling material would be too soft, with a valley in the middle where generations of people had rested on the bed. Not to mention the mites. You’ve tested it twice with your palms, still, and deemed it fit for the seven nights to come. Knowing that, no matter how much you tried to imagine yourself doing anything, there wouldn’t be anything extraordinary happening on the mattress either way. All you can muster is gazing into space.
Your Wellingtons dry up inside next to your hiking boots, the leftover bread is tucked into a box. Jungkook’s running shoes suddenly retain a new meaning when you pry at them in the other corner. They do look quite used now that you think twice. Two miles. But this is the wrong moment to rack your brain about 7-Eleven. The sky is already darkened and those nine hours plus imaginary jet lag from time shift that isn’t really time shift let you feel their most grueling of ramifications. New mattress or not.
But it’s unusual. And it’s shocking.
You can tell by the faint outlines the moon casts how Jungkook sleeps on his stomach, head tilted toward your shoulder and nuzzling against it. One hand lands in your hair, seemingly by accident, and won't retreat. You have to pinch yourself and double-check.
Even when staying at your house for two days or more where he said it was comfortable, he always preferred to lay down on his back, arms crossed and able to stare at the ceiling for an entire conversation.
Yes, he'd curl into your direction after dozing off. But you were always the one to prop your head on his chest in the rare case he would pull both of his hands behind his head instead of leaving them crossed. It's been two months. His habit had been there from the very start.
You can sense his breath toward your direction like that for the first time. Jungkook’s sleep, and you are grateful for that, is typically sound and faint, but his change in position and hand in your hair won’t let you doze off so easily tonight. You think about him jogging and cleaning off his arms again. He keeps mumbling something that very well sounds like your name.
The next morning, there are new crackers and sweets in the little caravan kitchen corner. A pot of camomile tea goes a long way, but you decide to make some cocoa instead. Your aunt sends pictures from her garden where you helped her plant a couple of vegetables last summer, and exchange a dozen voice mails back and forth about it. One person in your family in their right mind and you can feel better. Maybe you should call grandma later on as well and say hi. She did a lot of hiking when grandpa was still alive and her knee joints weren’t being rascals. The texts and obtrusive pictures of your parents you choose to ignore as of now. The day started with discovering sweets in the corner cupboard, no reason to continue it with bitterness.
A few of rather aimless bumblebees whirr through the grass when you open the window to shout to the river. The sky is clearing up besides a few clouds that appear more feathery than crisp and sullen. Let’s see how long that lasts is your only thought. Jungkook stands immersed right in the middle of the current, scrubbing a pile of clothes, whistling an upbeat tune to himself. Jeans and socks hang across his left shoulder, shirts off his right. He’s in his boxers and nothing else, shouting back with something almost slipping out of his hands. It's a large and square-cut bar of soap.
"Be right there, just a minute, Noona!"
He glances back over his shoulder, smiling his bunny smile from ear to ear.
The cocoa pretty much ends up preparing itself after that. You sit down together to have breakfast at 9:19, you on the tree trunk — now completely dried off at the top — and him cross-legged at your feet. At home, that would almost be "brunch" time, but you thought about it as the luxury of getting up late and eating like normal people would.
A bit of orange juice for you, cocoa for him, toast, more jam. The dripping laundry is dangling on a makeshift washing line that Jungkook launched and drew from the caravan’s side mirror to an oak tree some feet away. He shrouded himself into a giant towel now. You can’t see if his boxers are still on or not.
“Went to 7-Eleven again after untangling your hands?” you chew, dusting off crumbs from your lap. Jungkook looks a little lost now.
“Untangling what?”
“You had your fingers in my hair last night.”
“Oh... it wasn't—”
“You didn’t tug or anything. It was just cute. You don’t do it often for some reason?”
He levels at you with a little beard from drinking the cocoa. Otherwise, he is clean-shaven. At this point, you believe he must wake up way, way earlier than you to get ready at the camping facilities.
"I sometimes don't know,” he murmurs, as if he really had a beard.
“Don’t know?”
That came out a bit too worried. His voice drops even more in volume now.
“How to be close to you.”
That causes you to be silent for a moment. The toast turns cold already.
"Wait. Was it,” you ask, “because of how I am around my parents?"
He shrugs in his towel cocoon.
"When you stood up for going here instead of somewhere wasting money and getting drunk all day and night..."
You understand.
It's what convinced him. Because, and that you remember vividly, Jungkook himself was a bit critical about making a journey into the depths of Balearic Spring Break with its crowded beaches and tons of liquor.
"So you really thought I would agree with them?"
"What do you mean?"
"To go and party."
"I thought, maybe. You said you’d rather chill out. Your dad was quite adamant."
"To his demise, he passed that on. Child’s play to beat him with his own weapons."
Jungkook's eyes crinkle. He laughs, slaps his thighs, does a little clap.
"Party tourists are obnoxious anywhere," you add, and pick a daisy growing tall next to your left foot. "And I wanted to see you fool around here like Bear Grylls."
You tickle Jungkook's nose with the outer end of the flower, causing him to sneeze and laugh more.
"I'm not Bear Grylls!" he whines, then picks up daisies himself. But instead of tickling back as you had expected, he starts to thread something with them.
"Maybe young Bear, without the peeing antics?"
"I'm smaller! And I have more, I mean. Lips."
"Then you’re his good-looking brother. Bear Junior."
You tickle him again, the cheek this time. His toes intertwine with the grass.
"Hey, are you shy?"
“I’m with someone who had the nerve to decline sponsored beach mania!”
You chew on cold toast, the cocoa cup is empty soon. After completing a little daisy bracelet and handing it to you ("Why so sappy, Junior, where’d you learn that?"), Jungkook disappears to get dressed, then slips behind the caravan to fold the other load of finished laundry from yesterday. The afternoon sun had dried it within hours much like the former swamp is now much easier to navigate without getting dirty soles. But he's unhappy with the creases in some of the garments as you can tell by his little complaints coming from the direction of the washing line. That's the disadvantage of all things cotton. His and your underwear, not so much. Creases — don't matter there.
Still, he folds them with caring hands, then balances a pile reaching up to his nose into the caravan. You can see that he tries to accelerate when your eyes land on the upper part where your panties are stacked.
"Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry," he muffles with a hastened gaze into your direction and thus doesn't mind the step as he should. Jungkook flops head first into the caravan landing on the now scattered laundry pile. You scurry to help him up, but he does it himself, brushing off his sleeves and trousers. He’s twice as embarrassed.
"Gee, anything bruised?"
"No, just, the palms. Ah, hurts."
"Wait, I pick this up. You get a cooling pack."
"We don't have these here, Noona."
Oh, right. It's the wild. The fridge has only limited space. What did you not forget at home was the question. It was too much of a hurry.
"Still getting used to this outdoor thing, I guess. Now—"
"I’ll do that."
Jungkook, though aching, crouches down to sort the laundry. He folds corner on corner, everything anew.
"Are you really okay? There's a red spot at your shin, too."
You didn’t see it when he sat there with the towel wrapped around him. But now, the blemish on his left leg is quite visible.
"That's from earlier. Doesn’t hurt. It's just the hands."
"Earlier, you mean the river?"
Who knows, it could be from the long caravan ride as well.
"There's wood in there sometimes, it floats by. It comes from the pine forest."
He starts picking up one of his boxers, then your underwear. He's bright red in the face.
"You don't need to plait them. They just go in the drawer."
"I'm just,” he stammers away ever so sheepishly, “always doing that. For, for mine. I like doing yours like this, too."
"Mhm. You like doing mine like this, I see."
You lift your brows. Smile at him. It doesn’t have the effect you thought it would have.
"No, wait!” he wards, “That wasn't meant to sound weird."
He seems to consider the drawer as a legitimate option by now because he stops folding. You retort with firmness.
"Hey. Someone forgot who’s my boyfriend. If anything, you should have my panties in your hands every day."
Shock.
"Should what!"
"Stop pretending. Just take the underwear as it is. Why are you like that?"
"Don’t want to be perverted and creep you out."
"Really? If I thought you were a creep, you'd get kicked."
"K—kicked?"
"Kicked. Kicked out. Kicked in the butt.” All three, if necessary. You know the guys from early your university courses all too up close. “Perverts are guys who do things without permission. I didn't forbid you to handle my underwear, did I. Don’t remember that."
"No, no. You said I could take it all to wash."
Indeed so.
"Still stand by it. In fact," you poke his cheek, "you should handle a lot of other things more."
Jungkook disappears more and more behind his laundry pile in an attempt to hide his face.
"Noona... You want me to do your laundry at home when we're back, too?"
"It's not what I meant. But that would be nice as well. Means you come over more often. That’s why."
You’ve been missing him every other day. Jungkook says he’s busy with studies. But who are you to determine fate that you two would meet again at Taehyung’s Chrismas party at the end of December and exchange numbers, in the middle of uni stress and everything else practically collapsing around you. You can’t deny you wish he’d make up his mind about priorities.
“I’ll do that if you want.”
Maybe he did make it up. That— you will test.
“And. By handling other things I mean my ass!”
Straightforward.
“Noona!”
“Jogs to 7-Eleven, saves the birds, and does thirty pull-ups without breaking a sweat on a random branch several feet high. I still don’t know how you always get up there. Who’s that guy Jungkook who can’t even think about touching my hair without a breakdown?”
“I don’t, I don’t really know.”
The same as before. I don’t know. I don’t know everywhere. The question is, what does he know. There’s not just one person who has to make their mind up.
“Leave the damn laundry there, let’s sit on the bed.”
He frees himself off some leggings that landed on him and puts a dozen unassorted socks aside to make his way to the other side or the caravan with you. You decide it’s best not to step it up a notch just now because Jungkook looks already browbeaten enough.
You sit down awkward, the mattress creaks. Or rather, the wooden frame below. Silver-tongued as your mother might be, unsuccessfully trying to mold you after her own image genteel phrase by phrase, you’re not the best at this, at least aware, but nonetheless rather on par with dad who's probably still mad you had the last word in the Ibiza feud and even went with your own money.
Jungkook is picking at his peach fuzz and squirming around between the flattened pillows after sitting down.
“Apologies. Maybe I expect too much,” you begin. “But you act like we’re besties while telling my parents that you’re my boyfriend. You give me daisy bracelets and bring me sweets, you repeat my name at night for twenty times, you walk around in boxers smiling and saything nothing. But then, you, you... If you’re afraid to be intimate, you have to let me know.”
Maybe it's too early. Every person is different. You can only ask. But he's already been silent enough during those hours on the road in the blazing heat.
“I know, I’m sorry. Uh. I have a bit of an issue,” he exhales. Again, shifting on the sheets. His hair curls down with the movement, shading both eyes.
“What kind, is it physical?”
Maybe he likes boys more, this guy Seokjin from his sports club. Maybe there really is someone else, guy or girl. Maybe he's not the relationship type. Maybe, maybe, maybe. March can change all sorts of feelings.
“No, it’s just. I’m just not good at making first steps. I don’t know what to say or do. Please don’t laugh, Noona. And you don’t expect too much. It’s my fault. You can do what you want. It’s why I’m here.”
“Only that?”
“I’m not really afraid. Just, just. Repressed. I guess.”
“But, literally nothing is easier than that!”
“What do you mean?”
“Your heart’s too pure. All you want is for me to initiate? You think, it’s your shortcoming just because you don’t believe you’d find words?”
He nods. The squirming stops. Maybe being straightforward is not so bad at all.
The laundry is piled up orderly in the wardrobe, underwear resting on top. Outside, under the protection of a starry night without much wind, Jungkook turns some twist bread over a campfire. Two at a time using crooked sticks from the river. Nonchalant, as always. He’s done a few push-ups earlier but didn't really tolerate the pain in his hands well. You’re inside heating a soup with one of the smaller tin pots that the 80s style kitchen can offer. It has several telltale scrapes below the handles, but no rust or indents so far. You’ve chopped some vegetables hoping it would make a good addition. The fire could need another stack of wood, but it seems to you that Jungkook considered the bread almost crispy enough and the flames due to die down a little since both of you won’t sleep even when the campfire is just a glimmer. In passing, you’d already seen the all too dark scorch marks on the grass where another fire pit spot was built down the river. Who knows what people before you had been doing there.
The soup takes longer than you thought to heat up properly. Tapping your foot and playing with the risky thought of texting your parents back, but then, quickly discarding that one, you figure it’s time to plan ahead a bit. Not with your mom and dad or something. The food. Priorities above resentment, especially during a brisk night like this. You promised yourself to get into that mindset in the hopes of forgetting what was going on at home, at least for this week. So, priorities. Maybe you prepare a stew with cabbage for tomorrow, you’re sure he can bring the ingredients in time. Jungkook has become times more reliable like his little brother said to you once after you wondered why JK would always excuse himself.
You’d rather not get the smoke inside the caravan, but still leave the door open to hear him sing whatever song was on the radio at least three times earlier and none of you bothered to switch stations. He's nestled into his hoodie and roasting the dough until its sides turn into a golden brown. Your foot ceases to tap on its own, hearing his voice tangent into a little descrescendo. It’s even more beautiful, so soft and silent. He waves and twirls the sticks back and forth to get your attention, which snaps you out of the hypnosis that the song cast on you. The soup is still not completely boiling yet even if the handles are already too scalding to touch. You tell him to wait a bit. Jungkook keeps on singing.
Two bowls for the bouillon are prepared with ease, but without a proper ladle it turns out more than difficult to actually scoop something out of the tin pot. At the risk of spilling what took forever to assemble and things getting ugly, you dare a heartened sway with the pot to pour the soup into the porcelain. With a cloth wrapped around both handles, hoping not to burn yourself. The endeavor succeeds at the loss of only a few drops and you balance the bowls outside with a spoon in each. In a timely manner, Jungkook has removed the twisted bread from the outer end of the sticks and splays them out in a little basket, then uses one stick to carefully shove around a lump of aluminum foil within the burning wood and coal.
“Is that a potato in there?” you pry, bringing down the soup next to Jungkook’s left foot, slanted. He hands you the basket to pick out some pieces of bread. The night is silent except an occasional spark and bristling flames. Maybe there’s an owl at the river. However, the buzz and bedlam of the day has faded almost entirely.
“Yeah, trying something new,” he says, then indicates the bread. “Take three, we get six pieces each unless you’re hungrier. It’s not too hot. Thanks for this,” he points at the soup bowl next to him. He promptly removes the spoon, cups the heated bowl with two hands mumbling “ouch!” but not putting it down anyways. You chew away the silent minute that follows because Jungkook is non-stop slurping his soup at the speed of a tortoise, perhaps a third of it. If it wasn’t so hot, he would probably empty half the bowl. You take pictures of the fire and look through how they fit the other ones you already made. It’ll have to fit together on your website.
When he finishes, you comment how the bread tastes good and different from when he first made it, that afternoon you had some barbeque at his parent’s home. It was his brother’s birthday, you had received an invitation two weeks before. The day when you observed a stork’s nest on top of the shed’s roof together. You hosed a dancing Jungkook down in his bathing trunks because the fumes from the barbecue that he had thought standing in was a good idea were quite keen. It was the middle of August. A carefree day in Busan before you dated. It’s unlike now where Jungkook looks at you coy and serious instead of bright-eyed.
“There’s rosemary in it,” he nods. “Just experimenting a bit. More olive oil, too. I guess it’s fine?”
Fine. That is what he thinks he does. Fine. That’s his standard.
You understand that there’s only one person at the campfire who’s built for the call of nature. It’s Jeon Grylls in his hoodie looking like he never did something else. It seems to fall on fertile ground, repeating how you enjoy the bread and how he prepared it, and taking the seventh piece after asking twice. You are hungry. The night sky is vast and twinkles more kindly at those beneath today. Jungkook hums to the end of the song he had started, watches the broccoli and bell pepper bits swirl around in his soup, traces the steam as it ascends.
The basket is empty very soon, both bowls, too. As does the fire tame under the lenient breeze that now surfaces. The fire site attracts rather aggressive mosquitoes the colder it becomes while still being bright enough to emit a lure of light. You say it’s been worse when the entire place had been a swamp, particularly in bright daylight when the river had stood for a while and more mosquitoes came down from the other side of the bridge.
The jacket potato you separate in the foil. Hunched together under the increasing bug attacks until one tries to fly right into Jungkook’s ear — which everybody in his entire social circle knows to be his sensitive spot for a reason vastly obscure as of yet. Because the campfire is too dim by now, neither of you are able to locate the bug other than him hearing it twang around. At the end, it flies away by itself, only to come back with what sounds like three companions or more. The twisted joys of camping. Either you spritz on the nauseating stench of a spray that is more questionable to your own health than actual mosquitoes, or prance around all day being itchy in unimaginably mortifying places. You just can’t win. Jungkook gets a little pouty knowing that they kind of love his ears a bit too much.
You decide it’s best to eat the remnants of the potato inside even if the chipboard interiors can hardly compete with a night sky like this, or leave it be and save it for tomorrow. Jungkook, ever so speedy on a whim, takes his battery torch out and sprints down to the river to get some sand. He returns to extinguish the rest of the fire’s glimmer and lights the way back inside the caravan balancing the bowls in his other hand. In the too-petite sink, he submerges both and you are surprised that he doesn’t use the sponge for it. He says feeling it makes it cleaner and doesn’t waste sponges, that you should always use cold water. Wherever he gets all of these hacks and experience from, Jungkook must be the best survival guide you could have taken on a trailer journey. Lord knows he’s doing this for the sheer fun of it.
You say the stew fits potato very well and how a mash might be a good idea. He sniffles yes, he’ll get ingredients that while picking up the crockery and cleaning it as well. Jungkook still seems a bit grumpy because of the ear, or the bruised palms, or leg. It’s hard for you to know now. By the end of the trip, he’ll be a patchwork rug of injuries if he keeps going like that, but who are you to stop Mister Grylls from his higher calling which means ruining himself and naming it a good time. He could be one of these inarticulate park rangers driving around and climbing the most brittle of tree trunks to watch deer eat for ten hours straight.
The crockery is washed up because Jungkook insists not to postpone it; the kind of semi-warm potato is wrapped up again and stored in the fridge. Outside, you spot some fireflies going about their business at the river. Making Jungkook aware of it, he dries up his hands and becomes very giddy, snaps a couple of photos that he wants to send his younger brother. He hopes that the camera emits a proper flash, otherwise the pictures will turn out like during his last vacation in Tokyo.
You’ve got a couple nice frames of these yesterday. The fireflies are bright enough already, but fast, so he takes a series of snapshots with different settings on his phone anyways.
“So many!” he jumps, and the caravan brandishes back and forth a little. That shoos away the owl at the river quite audibly so since something flaps and hoots until the place falls silent again.
“Kid,” you chuckle from the tiny bathroom with the door open, squeezing some striped toothpaste — no fluoride and other weird stuff in it, you checked twice — onto a brand new brush. Jungkook, the genius, didn’t just fetch a pack of juice from 7-Eleven. Even that would not have been the bare minimum since you planned to tackle groceries differently, at least in your head, before departure into the literal wild. Now it seems that he thought about just everything and, you can’t lie to yourself about that, this makes you spot guilty eyes in the mirror. What have you done for Jungkook and this trip so far?
You close the door to start brushing and wash up a little since you sat close to the smoke of the fire. It’s hard to get out of your hair anyways without a heavy round of shampooing so you give up at some point. That’s all for tomorrow, way after he’s been sneaking out again. No wonder, you’re a shit person to keep good company with like a good-for-nothing. Even the grasshoppers do it better except chopping vegetables. He doesn’t even resent you for one bit, openly, but his actions make you ponder it over and over. There’s that fear again. He distances himself so much sometimes, it leaves you petrified. You begin to believe he has a solid reason, and it’s not about initiating. Jungkook only agreed to this because you came off your high horse for once and said no to Ibiza out of rebellion. But then again, just a few days later, you were disappointing once more. What have you done. You can hear him marvel at the fireflies again.
“Wow, wow!”
Every tile, even if made out of a sanitary wallpaper and to actual slate, stands in for an accuser in this room, which is, in fact, a court to settle your case.
One shakes and churns, says: you’re just worthless. The trial nods in unison. You can’t scrub away their reactions just by brushing your teeth a little faster and letting your mind trail elsewhere.
The other, louder, proclaims — you’re stuck-up. Yes, yes. We all know. Yet another “can’t help it!” upper-class toff. Look at you. Neither heart nor busy hands to create something of value. Even your parents do better with their artsy nonsense and keeping their household running. At least they contribute something to society and do stuff for others, their clients, their patrons, whoever, whatever. True, with bland statues and too much money that would be spent and used better elsewhere, but what do you do, go to barbecue parties and camp in the wild just because? If even they excel you, how low is the bar. Aw, don’t you complain. Anything you wished for could have been financed for this vacation if only daddy’s opinion wasn’t in the way. Can’t even do shit to fit in with your fellow students and mature in a normal way like everybody else. No, you always need to step out of line and drag everyone into it without a spark of conscience. No moral sense. No responsibility. No groupthink. So self-centered. Such a narcissist. Such a parasite. Such a waste. Truly useless, truly worthless, that was not a lie.
The court agrees, so knowingly.
Another tile sneers at you from the left, as if in the burdening tone of a judge. Maybe you two don’t fit together as you had wished. Jungkook was made for someone who could reciprocate and love him so, so much better. Family Moneysack doing their usual crap, but here comes Jungkook with the big heart and you just take him as yours like the greedy block of ice you are, and can’t even get intimate properly. It’s your fault. Good fucking job. You know that Jack drowns at the end of Titanic, right?
And from the other corner, a witness. Jungkook doesn’t deserve a girl like that, he does all of this for the worst possible person. Look at how benevolent and hardworking he is. So giving, pure-minded, active, strong. He did it all. You, in comparison—
The voices blend into one stream. You feel like crying. They are virtually indistinguishable. You know it’s your claustrophobia coming back.
Once you’ve rinsed down the foam from the paste, it gets too draining. You grip the door handle all too soon. You hear a little squeak as you turn toward the side of the trailer where the bed and wardrobe are.
There he stands.
Stark naked.
“Sorry! Sorry!”
He grabs whatever appears to be the nearest piece of clothing to cover up. Far too late, he realizes that it’s one of your beloved shirts. Horrified, he drops it and fumbles around, then hides behind the open doors of the wardrobe. You can hear him mess up the formerly tidy pile of clothing in search for something suitable, but as fate wants it, your underwear falls right into his face and he stumbles back into your sight. So he didn't put them in the drawer.
There he goes again with the sorry, now trying to use his hands to shield himself which proves to be rather unsuccessful.
Last night, he was trying to distract himself in the kitchen with making tea while you were undressing and switching into pajamas, and put his own on in the bathroom despite hitting the narrow walls with his elbows two times while doing so.
Your head is still spinning from precisely the same walls. But you scream at yourself on the inside to get it together. Come what may. The accusers shouldn’t be right. You can’t just muster gazing into space. That’s not who you are. And, after what you’ve heard, it’s not what he loves you to be either, running away from everything, so unlike yourself.
What you need to do.
Is one thing.
What’s it called?
Straightforward.
“Come on, Jungkook!” you slam the wardrobe shut. Too vehemently so, because both of you get a little heart attack when the door comes crashing into its rather antique lock. Straightforward: failure. Jungkook might be too innocent which was odd enough, but you were just too fucking stupid in the first place. Zero impulse control. Like a real brute.
Ironically, now it’s you spilling the apologies. Over and over and over. But there’s not much response from him now. It worries you all the more. You keep up saying sorry.
Until he hiccups a little “sexy” under his breath. Meek, but crisp.
Which takes you, in turn, too much aback.
“What did you say?”
“I thought it was— sexy.”
Sexy? Your brute brain starts to catch up by now. His words come back to you.
... just not good at making first steps.
I’m not really afraid.
Just repressed, I guess.
You can do what you want. It’s why I’m here.
“Jungkook.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell me you’re so turned on and try to get dressed again in the same breath. When will you make sense and not be ashamed? That’s exactly why that door is shut.”
“It, it is.”
He ogles to the side as if he didn’t see it closed yet. Then gazes back to you. Wide-fucking-eyed.
“No disrespect, but you’re ridiculous! Have you seen yourself? It’s the same person who was smiling at me from the river. Are you not happy with yourself, did anything change?”
“No, actually. I’m a fool.”
And the smile returns. He rubs his ears with one hand. He’s crimson.
“Fool, I see. Reflexes working overtime today, hm.”
“Wish they wouldn’t. I would have had everything you cooked twice, and, with your hair, I will do it more if that’s what y—”
“Put those hands behind your back, I count to ten now. One. Two.”
His hands recede to the sides, then cross just below the dimpled base of his spine.
“That’s a good boy doing his job.”
You don’t need to go to a vernissage to see a nice statue. You don’t have to doubt his words about being turned on either seeing what’s between his loins. Your choleric side is very welcome here.
“Get on the bed,” you continue, “just like that, sit on the edge. Still counting. Three. Four. Hands stay where they are, five.”
Jungkook, fast to move his arms, now seems all too slow walking to the bed. Only at eight does he speed up a little and sinks down on the duvet. You get it. He wanted you to have a good view of his backside. All those pull-ups make for a good shoulder area anyways. He makes more sense than you thought indeed.
You get your hand tangled up in his curls.
“What nice place is this?” you tease. “Somewhere I can put my fingers in?”
“Not just when I sleep.”
“Good answer, Junior.”
Jungkook, unlike your father, likes to be defeated by his own weapons. You do love his Botticelli curls. They’re so pliant and tender. A miracle of nature that such whimsical hair exists.
The curtains are drawn even if the chances of anybody snooping around are slim. Quite phantasmally so since the other camping spots are on the other side of the river way past the bridge. But still, it seems like major paranoia of whatever nocturnal animals peeking in. There’s not just one self-proclaimed fool in this caravan. It’s all from the frying pan into the fire with an extra shot of adrenaline. Or from the courtroom into freedom.
You could be jaded knowing Jungkook can move so much better than you. But his lap is too warm, his shoulders too nice to hold onto that it would cross your mind with jealousy. Whatever his legs have been planting into your subconscious since his trousers lifted during the bird incident, it seems to work. They’re firm, they feel safe, the fact that Jungkook is so casually self-confident about them makes it even better.
Soap — he smells good. Under the fluorescence of a not very energy saving lamp overhead, he looks wrecked and ripped enough to count as sexy himself. Wrecked in a sense that him going on his little adventures really took it toll. Or in a sense of knowing what expects him, because that, too, is an adventure. Initiate, that’s what he needs? You’ll show him. For a beginner, only his hands are vastly gauche on your back. All the more reasons that you instruct him precisely where he should plant them. With the confidence that he hasn’t admitted himself to have despite evidence from the wild out there, but who can resent him.
It’s just above the kidney area where you feel them grip the best. His palms are broad and cozy. The pain from his fall occurs to you briefly making a mental note not to keep this too manually heavy after all, with special emphasis on rebuffing any stubborn attitude that he may display about it. He won’t push himself again.
The scent of washed clothing intoxicates. Maybe you should get into the river with him later. Kisses, you want kisses, you say you want them bad from those lips. Jungkook’s gyrating hips do the rest, so do his lips that are more than incessant with taking you all in with little kisses around your collarbones. He seems to have a mindless obsession with that one area so you have to steer his jaw upwards to cover your neck as well.
Planting vegetables in your aunt’s garden is the only harmless and distracting image that comes to mind when he starts to use his tongue. Cumming right on the spot and spoiling it all seems like a bad option so carrots and tomatoes and radishes are everything you allow yourself to think about. But trying to withstand the pleasure of Jungkook’s tongue is like decapitating the Hydra. Ignoring it in one spot makes it twirl forth in two others.
Before it gets too bad and you have to resort to the imagination of an earthworm wriggling itself through the earth with the patience of a childcare worker after summer break — you tilt back his head at the tip of your index on his chin. Your turn, finally, to suck all the vibrations that his dolce moaning voice emits out of his throat.
From the ceiling comes an odd prickling noise that briefly makes you look up, but the repetitive dabble makes you realize that the rain just started again. It is not a family of long-legged tarantulas waiting to descend on you in fury of having their territory invaded. The image that would have been useful a few seconds ago now distracts. Too many things have been trying to ruin the vacation mood already. Before it starts to really mess with your brain again, you focus on licking. He’s twitching. Big eyes. Thighs swaying to caress you from below. Shit.
Stubborn attempts are nowhere to be seen. He is not the park ranger sitting on his branch counting mooses and deer. He’s a doe himself. Jungkook appears to fully savor your touch, his own on your back notwithstanding — although his fingers had not dared to move since you voiced how much you cherished this spot to be attended by him, no matter how expertly that turned out to be. You don’t give a fuck if he’s clueless about it. You want him, how he is, faulty, or not, perfect, more likely, it’s what he is. Au naturel, you undress and get preoccupied with his hair once more. The way that a more sheer type of horniness supersedes pleasure at the tip of his tongue can only tell you that he would make a better juice tester more than anything. Delicious flowing juice. With all the ease of just one finger guiding him, you have his mouth where it is supposed to be in a solid minute. Change of positions.
The way your thighs clamp around his head seems to do something to him. Something that in return, makes you wet, wetter, the rain can’t compete. Your fingers in his hair beckon him closer into you, to make his face drown, and you pay special attention to his hands resting on the sheets. They won’t do anything. You have to remind him once.
“And don’t rut against the mattress. You cum when I allow so.”
He’s obedient. Only his nose, his lips, his tongue get into motion. The teamwork is good. He nibbles your labia apart, left first, right after, but it’s gentle, only to prod forward to get his tongue in place where it gets the juice even better as right from the fridge. Jungkook loves to suck it all out, then gather it on your clit, and suck again. Right there. He doesn’t bother getting the little hood out of his way, and you’re glad. Otherwise, you’d not last without having taken in his body one bit. He’s messy. With shaky breaths in between. But a talent, like anybody who could hum this way at the campfire. Your voice guides him through it, and it has to be a bit louder. The rain is pounding on the roof.
Not good at making first steps was code for a lot more than just that, you initiating. What else did you do after the Christmas party had left its poignant memory. You were the one texting him more regularly. And that was a continuous process. Initiating doesn’t happen just once. After all that, you believe to understand what he meant after his fall, and how many of your maybes were more than dead wrong. Jungkook is always good for a surprise. Your clit wasn’t ready for that, either.
While he keeps lapping and nipping away, you, as good as you can and the length of your arm permits, fumble a silvery packaging out of a nearby cosmetics bag, rip it up and make a quick investigation from all sides. You take out another one of the little wrappings and open it just slow enough. You sigh. Jungkook’s tongue becomes slower and his eyes more attentive between your legs. What you anticipated did, in fact, come true. The condoms don’t look all too good and fresh around the edges, the lighting helps you tell unequivocably so. Any nine-hour trip with standing air in the entirety of the caravan would be hard on any latex that’s not fresh out of the factory. That one condom you can pretty much chuck in the bin without a second glance.
“Ah, shit. I guess...”
“Hm?”
“No dick for Mami today.” You shove the ring back into its shiny plastic wrapping and tuck away the rest of the packaging. Tough luck on you. “Can’t always have what you want.”
Jungkook pulls off looking rather quizzical.
“But, Mami can always have what she wants.”
His hands go fishing for his own cosmetic bag in the opposite drawer where your underwear was supposed to be in. It’s a bit clumsy, but he manages to get it out. You’re already looking at him half sly, half perplexed.
“Let me guess, 7-Eleven has your size and favorite scent or something.”
“The cashier gave me a pack, 50% discount.”
He’s holding up a little dark blue box with an inconspicuous logo on it. Good that you can catch your breath in this moment.
“What, how?”
“He just thought I’m cool or something, I didn’t really understand. Maybe he saw I always buy for two people. I was... looking at the tampon and meds shelf earlier. The pads, also. Just, just in case, you get, you know. I always hate when it makes you sick and you fear running out.”
Thoughtful. Really. Jungkook doesn’t cease to impress even with a boner like that. The tampon shelf. 50% discount because it’s, well, him. Whatever goes down at 7-Eleven each morning, you are missing out.
“I get my period in two weeks, don’t have to stock up yet. Meds are there. And medium size, by the way. Three drops on the packaging. Just in case.”
Because if there’s one guy who cannot be stopped buying stuff, that’s him.
You want to affirm it as well. ‘You are cool.’ But the words stay at the base of your lungs.
“Three drops. That explains a lot.”
“And the condoms, your size available?”
“I said maybe regular. The cashier gave me three sizes to try.”
“He’s clever. Let’s see. Ever measured and calculated?”
He shakes his head. Measured, kind of. But not like this. You pick the box from Jungkook’s hands, browse through it, and open an M size wrapping first.
Jungkook’s hips shift a little back and forth when you roll it down on him. He’s got a nice and slight curve that fills the fit quite well. He warms up your palms, so heated. The lube covering helps you slide the white ring to the base with more ease. You grip his shaft tight at the top, then slightly below, seeing how the material moves. You’re gonna straight up slump down on that cock and get a good stuffing. All loose and open on that rubber. To devour him. Exactly how he deserves, the good boy.
“Feels tight or loose? You don’t want too much friction for that one.”
“N-Neither.”
Mami can have what she wants indeed.
“Okay. Looks good, too. Smells good. Lay down. Can’t always stand around in the river getting hit by debris and shit.”
The quizzical look disappears to make room for a little eye smile. Jungkook, ever so submitting to the direction of your fingers, reclines with a deep exhale. He does well psyching himself up a little, but you make sure to make him know: All you’re going to do is make Jungkook able to fold your underwear without a blink.
March might not be the easiest on people who want to go on walks and like moderate temperatures but it sure does bring the moisture. Jungkook, beside scrubbing jeans in the river, might have noticed that as well. The cashier meant well giving Jungkook the condoms with extra lube but that made the entire undertaking an even more overbrimming venture. You didn’t slump down on him, rather, it feels like he was the one who fell in; you came down on his loins quick and hard. Fuck fuck, fucking wet and wide for him. It’s just fizzing out at the sides and hardly giving you a chance to bounce up and down. You just suck in his sloppy virgin cock and it stays there. If you moved, the slip-out would be all too dramatic. Neither of you wants to admit to the blame of that. Nor the danger of Jungkook not having an uncle he grows vegetables with so he can imagine a string of onions and garlic to keep his mind from losing it all. You’re milking out that pretty load of semen into the condom, and have it fully belong to you, but not now. When Jungkook worries he slipped in too fast and made you uncomfortable.
“When I can take you, I take you. It didn’t sting or something. Don’t sweat it too much”, you whisper to Jungkook who looks like he is going through an existential crisis of the survival sort. “First time’s never easy. Too much ado about nothing though. I’ll wait for a moment.”
In the hopes that everything just— flows out, evens out, but that’s not perfect math. Trying to stay still just now would be trying to bring a dull kitchen knife to a gun fight. Nothing better than to instead pull the metaphorical Glock on Jungkook to get a good dose of his sloppiness oozing out. So fucking sticky and good. You have to move and have him and pump it all downwards along the way with his girth, entirely at the risk of causing some misplaced noises because air likes to get in the way of humans having fun, and you feel your walls part a bit looser than before far down and not far up where it works best since his cock is nicely curved. Some gentle hip movement suffices to bring his length upward — although there isn’t much space left unless you want to shove up further and see him poke out from your abdomen. Today’s not your mood for a belly bulge fucking and having your legs still numb like everyone else when Spring Break is over. Today’s called creaming on my boyfriend’s dick day. With a bit of patience, you hope to deepen a bit more, it always takes some time. And that’s the easy part. Jungkook proves to be more than perceptive of that struggle and asks if you can kiss him again.
“’Course, Kook.”
Which proves to be ingenious because you have to bend forward. It was never meant to distract from the awkwardness of have you kiss and gobble at his wet mouth. As expected. He’s good. Lips pressed on his, you sense getting significantly more empty, although you don’t want to confirm it with a glance to see all that mess splurt out. You’re too busy letting your tongues talk to each other than to see how much juice has been spilling on Jungkook’s more than sensitive and already drenched balls. You’ve seen them plump, a bit tight and boxy, but plan to change that once you get the actual opportunity to make them ease up under the squeeze from your ass bouncing down. At least you’re not overflowing by now.
“If the rain stops tomorrow,” you nibble at his bottom lip, “I see ten bars of soap and a ruined duvet.”
“The sheets, I’m so sorr—”
“Hush. Baby. We’re off that.”
Being so apologetic again. Not now, not in your intimate moment. What’s more tempting than cutting all of it short through with a resolute kiss that melts into a deliberate, less ravishing one. Making you bob your hips on that cock and give Jungkook an even bigger stain to work with later.
“Noona, it’s hard to not... it’s the first time...”
"You're my darling. But you can’t come. Savor it to the last moment. The least Noona can do for her curly love boy. Forget blue pills. Cum, I punish you."
It’s easier to bounce freely now. You wanna fuck him senseless and find a good grip on his shoulders to cling to. But Jungkook's muscle hardly stays within your grasp, holding on is more of a challenge when there’s sweat forming. Jungkook whispers; his neck is a good place where you can lock both palms tight in place, all while his own hands support the continuous lift and drop of your waist ever so loosely at both sides, placed just below your ribs so you feel comfortable. That’s good, he’s experimenting now. The lube does the rest. You don’t need to go for a walk in the mud or do menial tasks around the caravan out of boredom twice because there’s nothing else to do when you can make out with the lost younger brother of Bear Grylls. You notice very soon that pressing his throat with your fingers makes him hornier, but also more sensitive around the sides of his head for a reason you don’t yet understand. A quick ruffle through his curls already tells you what is going on, brushing against his earlobes by accident while doing so. His reaction is unexpected. Jungkook shivers.
“Is it because it turns you on? Your ears, I mean.”
Ears. He’s always trying to safeguard them. And when they are touched by someone he likes, that elicits something like the faces he made when between your legs around his head. Now you have a plausible explanation that he does not have to give a verbal answer to. Jungkook, he’s just moaning. You flick against his ears again which makes his dick twitch fast inside of you. Yes, now you’re expanding more. The rubber of the condom by now carries more dampness that it eases thrusts with relative convenience. Jungkook’s legs get quite shaky the more you rub at his earlobes. His breath no longer wants to be reined in either. He’s getting greedy.
You ponder if you could pop away from his cock and pull the condom off, have his cum spurt out all over his chest and tease him for it. But maybe that’s not the right point in time. You don’t wanna start a giant cleaning action later. Making him cum on his belly would be just right to decorate him properly. But that you will do back home if he wants to sleep with you again. Not taking anything for granted. Now, it would probably be too messy to sleep with for the night, cleaning up is less easy. So you make an effort, even if it’s hard, to slow down and instead let your walls clench harder around him in the fair hopes of milking some semen out. It takes less than that since by virtue of you caressing his ears alone, a vital string of composure inside Jungkook’s brain seems to snap right in half. You can see it in his eyes. The pleasure is too much to bear at once.
You pull off the condom with extra care not to spill a singular drop. While he’s getting flaccid again, Jungkook has to battle fatigue knowing that he’s getting twice the fill by Mami.
“Jaw loose, tongue out. Want a taste?”
“Mhm!”
You empty out the condom over his tongue. It takes some time to squeeze it all out since his cum is slightly viscous. What could have been inside of you gets to a way better place it never thought of. Back in the system. Jungkook makes a grimace because how bitter it is, and you have to giggle a bit.
“Always swallow fast. First lesson. Better for your stomach.”
“Why’s it so bitter?”
“Acidic.”
You roll up the condom, then reach for your makeup bag. But you realize that your hands are not the best to work with now. Your juice, his cum, lube. All over. So you ask him to get a pack of tissues out. One to wrap the condom into, the other to clean your hands. A third to wipe his sloppy mouth. He does it with diligence even if tiredness is taking over. Once finished, you pin him back into place.
“Keep going?”
“Yes, Noona.”
“Getting tired there, Junior.”
“Pinch my cheeks, I’ll be okay.”
“For real?”
“Yeah, sure.”
And you do love to do that. Jungkook is fucking cute. His blush already deepens after doing it twice. Good. Very good. Now— the best part.
Your labia part with less easy than they did to stretch around his shaft. They’re all sticky and his nervous tongue is less than precise by now. You expected him to go slow since he’s exhausted a lot of energy but no, it’s Jungkook you are talking about. He’s just bloody eager. It feels like he’s trying to slurp up soup, or eat a sandwich but tries to get the sauce out first. He’s all over the place.
“Kookie,” you calm. “One point. Keep it focused.”
Not a sandwich. But an ice cream cone that you wanna get the remaining cream out so you gotta make your tongue small and stiff. You realize that by far, this vacation was successful in making you give a fuck: the guy right underneath your pubes.
He has to guzzle and slobber it all up and stick with it until you stopped gaping. It does take a few owls hooting and the rain to stop that your walls close again and he retreats. His gaze is ensnaring. No dragonfly could keep up with it. When has he last looked at you this way.
Jungkook, too fucked out, won’t bother putting on anything. He apologizes for being so fatigued, but you fend it off with a better excuse either way, half tucked under the blanket that sure is ruined, but who cares.
“Guess who’s more tired.”
A forehead kiss, and another, susurrate him to sleep.
The rain keeps on pandering to your whims, evening its rhythm on the caravan roof until only a faint trickle reaches you. Jungkook sleeps well when rain or even hail pound against the windows of his attic room that had recently been renovated (a reason more that he could stay at your house while three craftsmen were drilling and sawing, which was a good idea). But you were too much of a light sleeper. You hope for the weather being stable until the morning unless you’d succumb to your selfish desire to see Jungkook get busy with the washing line once again because everything was soaked. But you’d be content being soaked yourself, and the weather did what it had to do. At this point, could you care. The caravan had seen it all, yet the interiors were still not falling apart despite all circumstances. That was what the trailer was built for. You wished the same for your relationship. Seeing Jungkook doze so peacefully worried you about going home. It would be better not to think about it. Some things stay unresolved like thunder can always return, at any time. You can only stay away from it and huddle together.
Your phone vibrates on the nightstand. Jungkook murmurs something, winds around. You let it vibrate until only the rain is audible again. It’s not like killing time anymore. Jungkook against your chest feels like not wasting your minutes somewhere in this outback just for the sake of not being in Ibiza or standing up against your father, or chasing after the next big thing like both of your parents would encourage. This moment feels like quality time instead.
You open your eyes to Jungkook fussing around in the sheets looking for yesterday’s shirt. He’s got a 5′o’clock shadow and morning breath. You smile. He didn’t sneak out two hours earlier or something.
The laundry is indeed all soaked. Jungkook hums in the bathroom shaving, then hesitates, then picks up a towel and informs you:
“I’ll shower in the facilities. Do you...”
“Don’t ask twice. The second towel must be somewhere in the pile, right? Hope not on the line.”
The facility is cube-like and bland, a bungalow in white that had seen its glory days. So are the showers, but the bathrooms certainly are scruffier and not something you plan on using even if the caravan’s restroom is already at its utmost limit. But you work with what you have before the wild is testing you again with what is in those bathrooms and is not very pleasing to the eye. Anything better than Ibiza, still. Jungkook is humming at the other side of the building where the men’s showers are located. That’s the sign.
You balance a shampoo, conditioner, and water bottle in one hand, your wallet, brush, and toothpaste in the other. It’s the wild, but who would have thought, you can still get robbed. Jungkook hands you the bracelet key to the rusty locker that he used and you store inside the water and purse. You hand it back to him closing the door to his shower stall behind you. The water is running already. He’s even prettier naked in the brightness of this room. You’re not feeling like the tiles want to speak to you today. There’s only him.
“What were you humming?”
“Shakira I guess, I thought it was just a signal to say there’s nobody else in the men’s showers?”
“You’re out there trying to make She Wolf repeat fifty times in my head before lunch.”
“Possible. You like Shakira.”
You scrub your teeth first, having to wait for the water to become slightly warmer by the minute. Jungkook’s body looks like a temple of bruises by now, but you can gladly see his shin healing already. The shampoo isn’t too bubbly but scented enough to make you feel like Jungkook’s and your hair is free of smoke odors. It’s hard to exclude that you won’t do it again tonight except light the cheap citronella candles that Jungkook found in the kitchen to finally retaliate against the mosquitoes. His ear is fine, but you get the feeling that he would like you to kiss it anyways. Not as long as he’s still covered in shampoo. You rinse it off, squeeze some conditioner into your palms.
“And you like detangling?”
“Mhm.”
You kiss his left earlobe through the stream of water from above, twirl the creamy lotion into his strands back to front.
“You know what, Kook?”
“Maybe it’s a bit too much conditioner. I’m feeling like a ball of grease now.”
“No, not that. Wait until I wash it off. I meant the cashier.”
“What’s with him?”
“He’s right you know.”
“Yeah, it’s size M. M for maybe I should measure properly before doing literally anything.”
Jungkook giggles. You don’t. Then, he doesn’t.
“Something wrong, Y/N? I’m sorry, that was a bad joke.”
“It’s not size. That you’re cool. He said you’re cool. Not just everything ‘fine’. Cool.”
“I got a feeling the discount rises to 80% for tampons if we show up together though.”
“We will show up together. Can’t guarantee I won’t be breathless and look like a sweaty orc.”
“If I carry you, my morning routine is done. Can skip all the boring stuff.”
“I see. No sweaty orc alert. We rather look like two water ghosts after washing all that shit in the river, don’t we.”
You move Jungkook to step under the shower again. Flakes of conditioner rinse out in a milky stream, and he keeps on laughing.
EPILOGUE
Whatever your parents are going to say about this pine tree romance, they are sure to be surprised by the mud stains all over the caravan having completely dried into the surface material on your way home. Perhaps they’ll be less callous assuming you’ve been through hell and back, and Jungkook looks at you bright-eyed more than ever, and the will not to excuse himself again. There will be pictures of him on the caravan door’s pinboard. Maybe, the tarantula family is indeed somewhere nestled behind the wheels. Living their best of lives. Only waiting to swarm out and deface some sculptures with their webs and dead flies? An... interesting fantasy.
Without a doubt, according to you, the sculptures would look much more beautiful afterwards. But hey, you’ll bite your tongue for at least once about it. And who bothers if it triggers your dad knowing you drove through mud — what will he say if you announce you plan to work for charity on top of that? — and didn’t break spring like everyone else did because you simply don’t like it. Building your website and finding rest was better. It’s how you decided, there wasn’t much more reasoning to it save one thing: Just being one-on-one with Jungkook. That’s nothing Ibiza could have given you. Who goes there in March anyways, no club is open. People go to Ibiza in June to party. In fact is anybody there right now? Isn’t everyone elsewhere? Who’s fucking in Ibiza?
You still got quality dick, though most importantly, the heart of a tender baby boy. Your aunt will pat you on the back and spill all sorts of gratulations when she sees with how much more ease you can touch each other, and yes, she has an eye for that. What you won’t tell but she’ll feel anyways is how Jungkook even did his own wet boxers contest and won against himself because he’s Jungkook. The guy who will do a good job at folding your underwear every now and then just for the fun of it. Who loves you more than you thought. Your little smiling sunshine in the rainy mountains.
