I'm on the run with you, my sweet love

Chapter 8 | She's in my head, I must confess

"What did you miss the most about Seoul?"

Wide-eyed, Jungkook shifts his attention from a tabby cat napping on the roof of the building across from his new apartment, situated in a suburb area sprinkled with nightclubs, restaurants, and shops (a whole other story from the peaceful alley in Tokyo), to Yoongi, busy unwrapping a package of cigarettes. He's standing on the opposite corner of the small balcony, the tip of his tongue poking exactly on the spot of his cheek where a brush of dove-grey paint lays.

Fully absorbed in another activity -mind still drifting to the tail of the cat hypnotically swinging back and forth like the pendulum of a clock, and how he'd like to bury his hands in that furry, chubby body to cuddle it- it takes him quite a few seconds to elaborate the question; and when he sets in motion all the dusty cogwheels of his brain, Jeon Jungkook doesn't know what to say.

Tilting his head to the side, pointer trailing to his temple to rub it, he puts his thinking cap on in the attempt to search for a good answer. He gazes up to the ceiling, being distracted by a mould stain for the tiniest second, rummaging through all the mental boxes he used to open when he was in Japan and nostalgia was too strong to crush it: there are tons of things he missed about this city, it's hard to pick one from the cluster with absolute certainty -it's like... gathering all of them into your arms, thundering and noisy, only to have them slipping through your embrace one by one, in a pattern that repeats itself over and over the moment you think you've grasped the right answer.

Jungkook squints his eyes shut.

Images flash in the back of his mind fast -moments, places he found also in Tokyo; but, although similar, they weren't the same: there's Mr Kwon's comic store that smelled of paper, and how he used to recount him about life and times of his days spent studying art to become a great manhwaga (and a girl resting her hands on Jungkook's waist to brush past him, headed to a shelf full of Shojo-manga, a little frown between her brows as she studied the cover of a comic); the café three blocks from KNU managed by Ms Choi, who used to draw a cocoa-rabbit in his latte macchiato (and a girl sipping her cappuccino, sat across from him, reviewing her notes for the upcoming test with music in her ears and a shadow of stress weighing on her pretty, bleary eyes); the subway winding underground and its typical sounds and smells that make him feel at home (and a girl, sat beside him, letting him rest his head on her shoulder to take a nap).

It's difficult to choose a particular "something" when the nostalgia harboured throughout all these years has different shapes, beats, and colors...

"So?" Yoongi turns with an arched brow and the cigarette between his lips, a puzzled expression dancing across his delicate features due to the persistent silence he's receiving back.

Jungkook stares intensely at his chief, fluttering his eyes, contemplating the deep arching of his brow. He is used to receiving that type of look whenever he spaces out, like they were dealing with a dull-witted who takes ages to do the basilar action: it's just his own habit, to immerse himself in his own world and staying still with his round eyes fixed on a random spot of the micro-universe that's surrounding him, picking at his peach fuzz.

But then, he notices it, the chink of tenderness breaking through Yoongi's seriousness, and it warms his heart -the same warmth that used to cuddle him when a particular someone used to tell him: "Kookoo, don't listen to them. You're not dumb, you're just who you are. You're more than ok," when people couldn't comprehend his mannerisms -gentle, with an encouraging smile that made him feel at the right place (when he was an insecure Busan boy who couldn't camouflage his accent, and his college life looked like a runaway train on the cusp of going off the rails).