Chapter Text
He was told it had been a freak accident. The kind that could have ended up in some comedy skit if the ending hadn’t been as brutal as it had.
When his youngest brother Jungkook had told him the story he thought he’d been full of it. Especially considering his story-telling skills sucked as much as they always had. “I swear, hyung, it went like this: You were walking down the street, barbeque sauce on your tiddies, when cRaSh ...shit got real.” Of course, Kook finished his story by sobbing his heart out and using the scratchy hospital blanket to blow his nose.
Then, he’d seen the CCTV video. The doctor hadn’t been sure he should be allowed at first, but after a few days of begging and using every ounce of charm he had, the doctor had finally relented.
In grainy pixels, he watched his life change with a stoic face, his brothers on either side of him trying not to cry. The accident was simply a ludicrous series of events. A window washer had been just doing his job on an apartment building when he’d passed an open window and startled the cat sleeping there. The cat panicked and attacked the window washer, who freaked out himself and jostled his lift, sending his supplies flying. The bucket of supplies crashed into the unsecured timber frames and bricks of the new extension to the building that was being constructed. The barely built addition crumbled like dominos, falling onto the unsuspecting victim that was Kim Seokjin as he played Maplestory on his phone during his walk to work.
It was so silly. So hilarious that his life had been altered so drastically in such a stupid way.
When his parents had finally gone home for the first time since he’d woken up and his brothers were forced to leave his presence to shower since they smelled like corn chips after they’d gone nearly a week without, he finally allowed himself to silently break.
The moment the door had shut behind them he’d let the dam fall on the tears he’d been holding back. He sobbed and wailed in privacy, clutching the horrible hospital blankets to himself. He wept until his chest felt like it would burst and his nose burned.
The truth was, the accident wasn’t funny in the slightest. Seokjin had to be rescued from a pile of rubble after he’d been knocked out and his body assaulted by the falling debris. He’d been informed that he’d suffered a broken arm, broken rib, fractured ankle, and an extremely bad concussion. He’d been in a coma for six months before he’d woken up and it had taken another two weeks for him to speak or think coherently. The worst, however, had been the fact that nearly seven years of his life were gone. He’d become a cliche - the guy who gets a bump on his head and suddenly can’t remember a damn thing. His last memory was pulling up to the dorms of his college as a fresh young college student - though he’d graduated three years ago.
All he could remember after that was near-constant pain. Not from his body, which had been doing an okay job healing itself during his extended stay in the hospital, but in his head. It still pained him from time to time a whole year later, but those first couple of weeks had been the worst.
He could still remember the way it had felt like someone was piercing his skull with a jackhammer whenever he opened his eyes. There had been a voice singing to him - lullabies, he thinks - and that voice had seemed to make it worse. As beautiful as the voice was, as much as he’d wanted to listen, it made his head throb with pain so fierce that at one point he’d started screaming to block out the voice until he blacked out.
Once the voice was gone and he could no longer smell the scent of honey that always seemed to come with it, his mind started clearing enough for him to feel...human again. Not himself - but human was good enough, considering.
And now, a year and a half after the stupidest accident of all time - and after months of therapy (both mind and body) - he was finally going back to having a life. The therapy would of course continue, but at least now he’d received the all-clear to move out of his parent’s house and into an apartment away from his mother’s smothering affection.
Seokjin stared at himself in the reflective doors of his new elevator, always in awe over how weird it was to see himself. He’d kept up his skin regime during his forgotten years enough that it wasn’t overly obvious how much older he was than he remembered, but if he looked closer he could spot a few things. A longer and leaner face, a few laugh lines around his eyes and lips, and a scar on his forehead that he didn’t remember getting. His biggest hint that he’d aged was the way his knees popped for no good reason or the way that super spicy tteokbokki now gave him heartburn.
He sighed when the elevator dinged, pulling himself out of his thoughts. His therapist always told him that it was okay to mourn for the time he lost, but not to let it consume him. He was still trying to work on that.
The doors slid open and he tightened his grip on the box in his arms, striding out into the carpeted hallway. He sneered at the horrid design of them - blue with purple triangles and squares? Really? His mother had insisted he was going to love the place though, so he hoped the inside of his new apartment made up for the outside.
He shook his head to himself as he searched. Ah, there he was...8B. He juggled with the box, putting it into one arm while he searched for his keys. He managed to pull them out only for them to fall onto the disgusting blue carpet and he sighed. The box was also slipping from his grip and he just knew he was going to fall next…
“Here, let me help, please.”
The voice was soft and lyrical as it came closer and Seokjin swiveled to look. A small man was rushing from the open door to 8C - directly next to his - and he grabbed the fallen keys. He turned to Seokjin with a bright smile and his brain just... melted . Ooze was all that was left of the great Kim Seokjin after facing the sunshine that was 8C.
The man was simply...ethereal. Stunning. All bright blonde hair and smiling eyes, big pillow lips, and mochi cheeks. Seokjin fully expected an entourage of fairies and unicorns or angels to surround the guy and sing a choir. Simply put, 8C was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen in his life.
“Is it okay with you if I unlock the door for you?”
It had taken him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize he was being spoken to, but he finally managed to unglue his eyes from the vision’s face long enough to remember that ignoring people was technically rude.
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” the man giggled.
Literally giggled . Seokjin’s heart was about to burst from his chest and explode into a cloud of heart-shaped confetti.
The man stepped in front of him and stuck the key in, giving Seokjin a chance to take a completely not creepy in any way whiff of his hair.
Honey. The man smelled like pure honey and Seokjin couldn’t help the stray question of whether the guy tasted as good as he smelled.
“There you are! Please let me know if you need any more help! I’m right next door and I’m off all day.”
Seokjin gathered his wits around him enough to bow politely and flash him his most charming smile.
“Thank you, 8C. I appreciate your help.”
The man giggled again, though this time it didn’t seem to match his eyes. “It’s Jimin. Park Jimin.”
“Ah, Jimin. I’m Kim Seokjin. By the size of your hands, I’d say I’m your hyung,” Seokjin winked and threw in a wicked grin for good measure. His personal motto comes into play - “When in doubt, be ridiculous.”
“My hands? What do my hands have to do with anything? I could be older than you,” The man huffed cutely, reminding Seokjin of Jigglypuff, but obviously more adorable.
“Haven’t you heard? You can tell everything by a man’s hands. I have gained much wisdom, Jimin. Therefore, my hands are those of a gnarled old man,” he laughed, willing the other to go along.
After a few seconds, the man snorted and shook his head, his eyes shining with an emotion that Seokjin couldn’t quite interpret.
“Whatever you say, 8B,” Jimin responds with an amused grin.
“Oy, some respect, please. I am your elder and I’ve given you my name…”
“I’ve known you for two seconds. You want me to call you hyung right away too?”
Seokjin was surprised by how much he very much wanted that.
He shrugged, the box in his arms shuffling precariously. “Up to you.”
Jimin sighed and chewed on his fat bottom lip as Seokjin struggled not to stare at it.
“Okay, hyung,” Jimin finally smiled shyly, backing up towards his own door. “I’ll let you get back to moving in. It’s going to be interesting having you as a neighbor, I think.”
“We’ll have to do dinner or something once I’m settled in. I don’t get much time to cook these days, but maybe I can throw something together.”
Jimin nods, “I’d like that a lot. Okay, really going now. Bye, neighbor!”
Seokjin barely has a chance to wave before the door slams behind the man and he’s back to being alone in the hallway.
Seokjin grins to himself and whistles a broken tune as he walks into his new home, taking a second to close and lock the door behind him and setting down his box before he looks around.
He’d let his mother decorate the place as her condition for his freedom and he’d agreed. He never really cared about fabrics and decor anyway as long as it was useful. He could tell where his brothers had a hand in helping when he came across funky vintage lamps or mugs in the shape of a squirrel. The kitchen was a decent size and came with all the appliances he needed, which was nice. The bedroom was humongous and fit the queen-sized his brothers had insisted on so they could cuddle in peace. All the furniture was in subtle earth tones and blacks and really nice, actually. He could live here, he thinks.
He has the night to himself to settle in, though tomorrow he’s back to work at his father’s company. He really should have negotiated a full week of rest and restoration before he joined the workforce. Apparently, he used to do a great job. Was a marketing genius and the board loved him. He didn’t remember any of that, of course. This was a trial run to decide whether or not he’d have to attend college again or if he’d remember stuff on the job. He did get bits and pieces of memories from to time, so it wasn’t that farfetched of an idea.
Seokjin hums to himself and rifles through his box for his favorite mug. It was in the shape of a beehive, with cute little bees on the rim and honey dripping off the sides. He’d found it in his mom’s cabinet and immediately grabbed it, loving that it was so unusual from what she’d usually buy. He now used it every day for his nightly calming tea that he needed to calm his nightmares. The sight of the cup never failed to bring a smile to his face and he wasn’t sure why. It just made him happy.
He waited for the kettle to boil, humming some tune that seemed to haunt him constantly. He places the packet of tea in the cup, pours the boiling water over it, then lets it sit. He rifles through his stocked cupboards trying to find what he needs, breathing a sigh of relief when he finally spots the jar of wildflower honey that had become one of his food groups since he’d woken up.
He was just stirring a generous glob of the stuff into his tea when he heard a door slam next door.
Thin walls.
He sighs, trying not to listen but he can hear strains of Park Jimin speaking. Whether to a person or on the phone he didn’t know, but it was enough to know that these walls were ridiculous.
He settled at the kitchen bar with his drink, sipping slowly. He’d finish this, shower, take his meds, and then who knows what. It’s been a long time since he’d been alone.
He freezes when he hears the distinctive sound of a sniffle. It’s so close to his wall that it’s almost like Park Jimin in 8C has his head smashed against the wall and wouldn’t that just be Seokjin’s luck. He meets the most beautiful man on the planet and he’s a weirdo.
The sniffles turn into sobs and Seokjin’s heart fills with sympathy. Those are not the cries of something simple. No, those are sounds that Seokjin’s familiar with these days. The kind of crying you do when your heart is broken, when your world is smashed, and you can’t find your way out. Seokjin had cried like that when he’d been told what happened to him. When his baby brothers stood at his bedside looking like grown men that he didn’t recognize. When his mother held his hand with gray hair and new wrinkles. When he looked in the mirror and barely recognized even himself. When he felt that cavern of loneliness and despair that permeated his heart, searching for something that he couldn’t find.
He raised his mug towards the wall, saluting the slowly softening cries.
“To broken hearts.”