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myhahnestopinion · 4 years

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THE AARONS 2019 - Best Film

Once again setting a personal record and winning a friendly competition, I watched 105 films from the year 2019. That’s more films than there are seconds of screen-time for Rose Tico in The Rise of Skywalker! That one won’t be found here, but after ranking all 105 movies, here are the ones that did rise to the top of my list. Here are the Aarons for Best Film:

#10. Marriage Story

Marriage Story twists a knife we never even saw go in; its tragedy is a fully formed snowball of once seemingly-insignificant bad decisions that the viewer is powerless to reverse, only observe. Director Noah Baumbach, however, makes only great decisions in his tale of the difficulties and distractions of divorce (in the context of the film, that is. The infusion of Baumbach’s informed personal experiences is unmissable here). The film splits its focus between the perspectives of the two former spouses, but not evenly. Through both, we understand the effects of unintentional harm of other being; in the unbalance, we empathize with people reaching that realization at different times. Marriage is a story about learning that, no matter the effort to relate to another, there will always be unknowns, but in trust, there is peace.

#9. Little Women

The best adaptations play to the strengths of the screen. The kinetic timeline shifting of director Greta Gerwig’s new version of Little Women is a feat only manageable in cinematic form. The shake-up to the traditional script enlivens the familiar story; the bits of happiness and heartbreak all feel a little bit bigger. Backed by an exceptional cast, Gerwig illustrates that the importance of retelling stories is the same as the importance in telling them to begin with. The movie is undoubtedly the superior cinematic version of the story; if it’s not too blasphemous to say, it’s the best version on the big-screen or off.

#8. The Farewell

Secret secrets are no fun, but can shared secrets spare someone? It’s the question at the heart of director Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, in which a family decides not to tell their grandmother she only has a short while to live, and stage a wedding as an excuse to gather the family together before she dies. Such a heavy burden seems unbearable alone; the cycle of shame and fear when trying to find the best way to love someone is inexorable. Sharing has never been a strong suit of the Western world; the culture clash of the understated film ends up a surprising source of comfort. Yet there will always come a point where one must face such uncertainty alone, and choose whether to say goodbye to the guilt or not. The Farewell is a comfort there as well.

#7. Parasite

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know; survival depends on sticking together. Like The Farewell, Parasite’s premise unearths questions of solidarity; unlike The Farewell, its execution is not understated. Director Bong Joon-ho’s lampooning of late-stage capitalism is as unmissable as a big dumb rock, and he lampshades it as such. Parasite is the most unexpected of heist films, but one that cuts to the heart of the genre: the world as-is is a mad scrabble for a good job, and morality need not apply. The insidious ploy of the film is an insightful exploration of class conflict. The two families at its center may not have a single person between them who’s not hungry for more, but only one is deciding how many seats are at the table. It’s not our world, we’re just living in it.

#6. Knives Out

After the dregs of the internet came for him with knives out, director Rian Johnson decided to kill them with kindness… and gift everyone with another masterful work of cinema. There’s no foul play made in Johnson’s new murder mystery; the cast is stacked with talent and the screenplay stacked with twists. The story subverts genre expectations in revolutionary ways, keeping viewers guessing and engrossed. The additional emotional undercurrent is similarly revelatory; even when killers are caught and loose ends are tied up, questions of justice remain. Pointed, poignant, and uproarious, Johnson has carved up an excellent mystery. Considering his debut feature Brick, it’s no surprise the director’s dunnit again.

#5. Shazam!

After shifting its focus from an overambitious shared universe to its lesser known characters, DC Comics has captured lightning in a bottle once again. The selling-point of Shazam! is, in a word, magical: a young boy given the power to transform into a full-grown superhero (play with infectious charm by Zachary Levi) boils down the appeal of the genre to its base wish-fulfillment elements. With superpowers dominating the cinemas right now, Shazam!’s recentering of their collective narrative is more powerful than Zeus. Zack Snyder sought to bring maturity to the Superman story by questioning the burden of possessing power. Made for kids but holding the wisdom of Solomon, Shazam! combats Snyder’s misguided notions: with great power comes great responsibility, but responsibility is sharing power.

#4. One Cut of the Dead

While there are many films shot in one-take, including one vying for Best Picture at the Oscars this year, One Cut of the Dead’s pure commitment to its craft makes it a cut above the rest. In the film, things go haywire for a small filmmaking crew on the set of a zombie movie when real zombies attack; what happens next is best left unspoken (to preserve its wonderful surprises). The tightly-crafted horror-comedy is a bloody beast; its multi-limbed nature reaches every mark its aiming for, tearing at one’s heart, brain, and stomach in equal measure. It deconstructs its own movie magic only to build up an even more fantastic monument to cinema and the cooperation demanded by its creation. Within One Cut of the Dead’s endless inventiveness, the art-form’s rarely felt so alive.

#3. Midsommar

Midsommar is an honoring of tradition, but it quickly evolves into something all its own. Its most obvious influence is The Wicker Man, yet while that film’s pagan horror turned a twist of fate and a twist of faith into its punchline, Midsommar lets viewers in on the joke. Director Ari Aster lets events unfold at a meticulous pace in the closed-off community, but dread never sets in. The film is perhaps entirely miscategorized as horror; any screams crescendo into a potent catharsis. Midsommar is a banquet of visual treats that leaves viewers to chew on a shocking ending. With both, Midsommar is nothing but fulfilling.

#2. Us

Many directors can’t escape the shadow of such a successful debut, but luckily for us and for Us, Jordan Peele was no less effective at holding up a mirror to society’s sins in his sophomore feature. Like Get Out, Us rips the ineffectual bandage off this country’s festering wounds, demanding they be properly addressed lest they be allowed to kill us. The effect is once again deeply uncomfortable, gnawing at the viewer long after it’s over, as all proper horror films should. Peele, however, is entirely comfortable, further solidifying himself as an unmissable auteur through an assured handling of tone. The movie is both a crowd-pleaser and entirely uncompromising; we have met both friend and enemy, and it is Us.

AND THE BEST FILM OF 2019 IS...

#1. It: Chapter Two

It is inexplicable. The first half of the new adaption of Stephen King’s monstrous book was #8 on this same list back in 2017, yet while Chapter Two is much more uneven and unwieldly, it floated all the way to the top as my favorite film of 2019. It’s victory certainly owes a debt to its origins; the second part is a reflection on the first, as the adult version of the Loser’s Club must remember their past to battle the child-eating clown one last time. With this intent in mind, the film’s ungainly composition shifts into a new form. Chapter Two is an eerie and eerily-accurate encapsulation of the sensation of unpacking past trauma. It’s confusing, frustrating, disheartening, scary, and often unexpectedly funny trying to control such a narrative. Sometimes, all one can do is scream at the cyclical cruelty. In those moments, the greatest thing is to have someone screaming with you. Perhaps the It sequel suggests that there is no such thing as good movies or bad movies - maybe there are just movies that you need. Chapter Two is a cinematic barbaric yalp, indulgent in its runtime and its special effects because that is how it can and chooses to be heard. I needed it.

NEXT UP: THE 2019 AARONS FOR WORST FILM!

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honeybammie · 5 years

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every day & always › jeon jungkook › pt.3

↳ part one, part two ↳ when the time comes for jungkook to take over his father’s role in the min gang, he has second thoughts about the man he wants to be, but you’ll do everything in your power to make him stay. ↳ mafia!au jungkook, angst; ft. some suggestive content with taehyung, minor fluff ↳ wc: 5,596 ↳ note:

The first time we fucked, Taehyung and I bit purple stars into the other’s skin and called it art. He liked to hold onto the sentiment, even months afterwards, whispering sweet nothings about masterpieces into my ears, but I had dropped saccharine words in favor of the unmarked truth: we had sex because we had nothing better to do in the middle of the night when we couldn’t sleep, and neither of us had ever cared enough to love anybody, and maybe I liked having someone to see me as anything other than a monster once in a while.

I didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to spend the night thrashing in my bed and throwing off the covers and pacing the floor, so I spent the night thrashing in Taehyung’s bed instead, my thoughts disintegrating into hazy nothings when his head was between my thighs. That’s what this was. Not art, but nothing, and in light of the vast somethings of the past two days, I needed nothing. One of the best parts about Taehyung was that he didn’t bother with unbearable what’s wrong’s and what can I do’s. He didn’t care what was wrong, and he knew what to do. I showed the same kindness in the moments he showed up at my door asking for another masterpiece. My problem with Jungkook had always been asking, knowing, feeling too much, so I fixed that mistake with Taehyung. No asking, no knowing, no feeling.

We never cuddled afterwards, too good for or too afraid of affectionate embraces, so we’d stare at the ceiling or a wall to catch our breath and stayed there when our lungs were full again. Sometimes he offered me a drink. I usually said no, because one drink would turn into four and I would be in no state to drive myself home and sometimes even Taehyung’s room was too heavy with silence or with the heat of his body next to mine, so I had to be able to leave at a moment’s notice. He never asked, never cared, if I was staying or not, and was doubtfully ever surprised when he fell asleep with me next to him and woke to an empty bed.

But this time, when he offered a shot of whiskey on ice, I asked him to bring the whole bottle. He blinked at me, slow and lazily curious, but drew out of bed without a word, bringing back two glasses and a bottle from Scotland, only the world’s finest. He probably picked it up on one of the world travels I had sent him on.

I downed my first drink in seconds, fire tickling the back of my throat with a scraping claw. Taehyung’s bedroom walls, like those in my office, were covered in stolen artwork, without even a dirty little fingerprint as proof that they had ever belonged to anyone but him.

“I like that one.” I gestured at a painting above his TV, a Japanese work depicting frothing waves and fogged-over mountains in the distance. I felt like I was about to be drawn under, spat back out, thrown against the sides of cliffs. “Hokusai, right?”

“Hiroshige,” he corrected me with a mumble against the rim of his glass. I poured myself another drink. “I didn’t know you were such a fan of whiskey.”

“Depends on the night,” I answered. For once, I was glad for the conversation. For every moment Taehyung and I weren’t having sex, Jungkook crept back into my thoughts, so the additional distraction was welcome. Looking at Taehyung did half the job, though. He was still nude, reclined against his headboard with a sheen of sweat on his body and a vein protruding from his neck. Sometimes my chest swelled with pride that I got to sleep with him, that in all his ethereal poise he chose to come to my door at night, chose to share priceless bottles of whiskey with me.

I wonder what sleeping with Jungkook would be—fuck. I stopped myself midway through the thought, taking another sip from my glass and dying to think of a conversation starter.

“Who would you die for?” I asked, too suddenly, like when a pianist presses the wrong key and the whole audience jolts, but Taehyung barely flinched.

“Well, the Min Clan, obviously. That’s kind of my job—to die for you, if ever the need arises.” He swirled his glass, ice clinking together, as cold as his voice. There was no passion in his words, only unquestioned duty and complete acceptance of his role in life.

“Outside of that,” I meant, not sure what I was looking for, and by the way Taehyung looked at me, he wasn’t sure, either. His eyes were asking about the unprecedented conversation, wondering what was so different about me tonight compared to every other night. “Like…is there anyone you would die for who you’re not obligated to?”

He finished his drink while mulling the question over, then sat the glass over on his nightstand with a small shake of his head. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Just wondering,” I said. One of the paintings on the wall reminded me unerringly of Jungkook, a boy with too big and too dreamy eyes that were ready to consume the stars. I looked away, but a moment too late, with those eyes still burning on my skin. “What’s something you couldn’t live with? Something where you’d rather die than endure it?”

“Betrayal, I suppose. I couldn’t imagine being disloyal to the syndicate, and then expecting to go forward as if I hadn’t done it.” His voice was so mechanical, like a machine just doing its job, and I wasn’t sure if he actually meant it or if he was only trying to impress his boss.

“I agree,” I said, wincing at the lie while another sip of whiskey burned its way down, setting nerve endings in my chest on fire until the sensation reached my toes. “Do you wanna fuck again?”

I lingered outside Yoongi’s office while he was with Jungkook, finding half a dozen excuses to pass by his door, but I hardly heard a word of their murmured conversation punctuated by silence. I shouldn’t have been there, leaving myself vulnerable to lingering and curious eyes. Jungkook wouldn’t have wanted me there anyway. After I pulled off the murder for him and he was tattooed, our relationship would return to the way it had been for years. The way it should be. And yet it took all my willpower not to press my ear against Yoongi’s closed door. All I asked was that Jungkook wouldn’t go back on his promise.

By the time Yoongi came by, I had returned to my desk, pretending that I had been immersed in work since morning. I was behind on today’s workload and bound to stay after-hours, but Yoongi hadn’t stopped in to ask about any of that. He was there to tell me what I had been waiting all day to hear.

“Well?” I prompted. Yoongi liked to linger in suspense, examining the art on the walls and running a finger along the bookshelves to see if they needed dusting before coming up to my desk and having a seat at the edge, as if there weren’t two chairs a couple feet away. “Good news or bad news?”

“That’s relative,” he said. I raised my eyebrows, prompting him to go on. “Besides, it would be good news for us either way. Either we’ve gotten rid of a disloyal man or recruited a loyal one.”

I stared at my brother, knowing this was where we differed. Ripping the bandage off versus toying with prey before finishing the job. “Which is it, then?”

Yoongi rapped his knuckles on my desk, straightened a framed photograph of the two of us and our parents from years ago. My fingers twitched impatiently. “Start writing up that assignment,” he said, quick and short, exactly what I had been waiting for.

My heart lurched into my throat, a shot of relief straight into my veins, but I maintained the crease between my brows and the straight line of my mouth. “He’ll be joining us, then?” I clarified.

“He’ll need some work, once he’s recruited. I’ll have Namjoon keep an eye on him, try to help him along quicker, but he seemed eager to go after his father’s killer, so he must’ve come to his senses about whatever doubts he was having.” Yoongi treated doubts like a dirty word. No room for doubt or hesitation in a world that would kill you in your moments of fumbling for certainty.

“I suppose you were right to have faith in him. I’ll have his assignment ready by the end of the week to hand over.” My stomach churned at how easily I lied to my own brother. We had been trained in how to get away with a lie, but never to each other, only to the enemy. Forgive me, I silently prayed to my father’s ghost.

“Take your time. After his assignment, I told him we would reconnect him with his mother and brother, so they can decide for themselves whether he’s anything like his father.”

“He’s not,” I said, peering back at my stack of papers left to do. Yoongi would need to leave soon if I wanted to have any of it done by the evening. “He seems to have no interest in drinking or prostitutes, at least. Just wants a wife and kids.”

Yoongi laughed. Somewhere along the way, I missed the punchline and stared at him dumbly. “That’s not what word on the street says. He lives in the same area as a lot of our soldiers, and one of them must’ve seen some hooker going into his apartment last night.”

I kept myself from flushing deep crimson, gritting my teeth together in a forced smile. “Huh,” I said, pretending to be surprised. I would’ve liked to put some sense back into whoever thought I was a hooker, but asking too much would give me away. “I guess he’s enjoying the bachelor’s life while he’s young, then.”

“Must be.” Yoongi shook his head, chuckling one last time before rising to his feet. “I’ve got a few more things to get done. You tell me if you need anything, alright?”

He was always doing that, always filling the role of the big brother perfectly, willing to fill in for me anytime I needed it, or drop anything to bring me a lunch that I wanted. He told me I was the best second in command he could ask for, just like generations of Min siblings or Min cousins who had filled our shoes. I wondered if I was the first to commit treason, the first to break the long line of pristine loyalty.

“Will do.” I forced a tight-lipped smile, waving to him on his way out the door, thus resuming my hours of incomplete work.

I messaged Taehyung sometime during the early evening, telling him not to expect me. He was headed for Germany in the morning, and had asked if I would pay him a visit before he left for four days. I had said yes before I fell so far behind, but maybe it was for the best not to see him so soon after stepping over our usual line with last night’s questions and too much whiskey. He stopped me after my fourth glass, and despite my resistance then, I was glad for it now.

I handed off various tasks. Drug smuggling jobs for Seokjin’s subordinates, casino operations for Namjoon’s lot. Jungkook would soon be part of them, but I forced myself to continue forward well past dinnertime, withholding thoughts about Jungkook. We had passed step one. That was all that mattered, and I shouldn’t have to worry about him again until it was time for step two.

Or so I thought.

Jungkook appeared at my threshold just as the last traces of sun were disappearing, casting the world in dark shadow. I had looked up to turn on my lamp and found him, silently watching, although he couldn’t have been there longer than a minute or two.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked, dry, the same way I had spoken to him two days ago. I tried to forget the way I had buckled to my knees in front of him less than twenty-four hours before. “It’s past office hours.”

“You’re still here,” he pointed out from his spot, seeming to have no intention of coming in unless I explicitly said so.

“Something came up earlier, and I fell a little behind on work. Just trying to catch up.” I twirled my pen in my fingertips, eyeing him, wondering whether or not to invite him in. “Now. What’re you doing here?”

“I was in the area for dinner, meeting with Namjoon since it looks like we’ll be working together soon. I walked by the building and…I don’t know. Sometimes I come by the offices after everything’s locked up, just to walk the empty halls. I saw your door open and thought I’d see what’s going on.” He sounded like a kid checking on a classmate, like when we were kids checking on one another, asking about homework or whether the other wanted to go to the playground before dinner.

“Work’s going on.” I neither dismissed him nor welcomed him in, unsure of which I would rather do. I was almost done, ready to leave and go home and do the same thing again in the morning. “Congratulations, though, on getting to work with Namjoon. He’ll train you well. You might be just like him in a few years.”

“That’s the plan.”

We both fell silent, anticipated the other’s next move with bated breath while counting the heartbeats that passed in between. I wondered if his was synced with mine, if our heartbeats had become irrevocably intertwined when we still loved each other.

“Do you want me to leave?” He gripped the engraved doorframe as if trying to anchor himself there.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Are you just going to tell me more about how we aren’t going to be friends in the future and how everything now doesn’t matter enough?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.” There was a slight tug at the corner of his lip, just a glimmer of humor in his voice that somehow took me off edge. “Can I come in?”

“I suppose,” I conceded, and he sat where he had two days ago. I felt like so much more time had passed, probably because the people we were forty-eight hours ago didn’t exist anymore. We were traitors, and I wasn’t even sure if Jungkook cared or knew what that meant.

“You’re staring,” he said. I realized he was right and returned my attention to the papers in front of me. I was losing hope in the idea that I might finish tonight, which meant I’d have to stay overtime the next day as well.

When it had been a while since either of us said anything, and I scribbled my signature at the bottom of a page, I decided to try my hand. “A soldier who lives near you saw me last night, apparently.”

“What?” I could almost feel Jungkook’s pulse quicken as he leaned forward in his seat. “Someone knew you were there? Did Yoongi hear about it?”

“They didn’t know it was me, specifically.” I shook my head, allowing him to relax again. “They thought I was a hooker.”

For a moment he looked offended, like he was wondering who could possibly mistake him for the type of man to give money for sex, like he was trying so hard not to be his father and his reputation was already being muddied. But after a moment his features softened again, and in his eyes appeared a glint of mischief.

“I told you the wig was tacky.”

I melted, just a little, all of our sins momentarily washing away in favor of a world where we could laugh about the secrets between us. I believed, for all of a couple seconds, that we would be okay, before I remembered the eyes in the walls watching us, scrutinizing every move.

“While you’re here, maybe we should outline some of the details of your assignment.” My voice regained its former rigidity. Jungkook’s smile disappeared in the same moment.

“But…I thought it would be a few days before I had to worry about that.” He tugged on the tie around his neck, loosening it so he could breathe easier. He didn’t want to talk about death, even if he wasn’t the one blotting out another man’s life.

“You’re here now, and the sooner the better. Park Clan is surely waiting for your next move.”

Every event in the syndicate was one move in a centuries’ long chess match. Min Clan versus Park Clan, with occasional disturbances by third parties, but none big enough to turn the match in another’s favor. The upper hand traded off here and there, but neither side ever had a strong enough hold over the other to end the game. Right now, Jungkook was a vital piece, and taking him out was a priority. Not for the sake of turning the tables, but for revenge.

“Why didn’t it just end?” Jungkook muttered. Although he already made his choice, and I mine, he wasn’t finished with his ever expanding list of why why why’s. “The point of my father’s joining the mafia was protection from Parks. They killed him. They got what they wanted. Eventually, they’ll probably get to me, too.”

“His life was prolonged twenty-five years. It’s a risk we all take,” I reasoned, although reason was a tactic he hardly listened to. “Once the Parks have been disgraced by one member of a family, that person’s entire family is at stake. They want to stop the bloodline and keep its descendants from ever becoming anything.”

“It doesn’t make sense how a man commits a crime and his entire family deserves to die.” Jungkook narrowed his eyes, like his displeasure of the world would change the way it revolved on its axis.

“If you spend your life trying to find out why people do the things they do, you’ll drive yourself mad. They’re vermin. They care about maximum profit and maximum destruction. Accepting the truth is hard, but you at least have to know these things.”

“That I’ll spend my entire life running?”

“Running from the truth and running from the enemy,” I said, my brevity making him wince, but he had to know. That was his life.

“Can we talk about the assignment tomorrow, please?” he asked, lowering his gaze. His meeting with Namjoon must’ve put it in his head that he was already on his way to working in the business, ignoring the inevitable task ahead. I had already made his life as easy as I could, and still he cast his eyes away from me.

“Fine. Is there something you’d rather talk about?” I implored.

“Could we go somewhere else?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why?”

“Well.” He searched around him scanning the art-filled walls, covered in painted faces he didn’t recognize and hadn’t learned to appreciate. What hobbies had he taken up, I suddenly wondered, in the years when we hadn’t spoken? We hardly talked about anything outside of the mafia in our early teenage years, and by the time we developed our own interests, we didn’t speak much at all.

“Having so many faces watching is a little…eerie,” he continued. I remembered the decor of his apartment, in that there wasn’t much to remember, nothing to indicate his interests.

“You’re going to have to get used to it. These faces aren’t even real,” I reprimanded but gathered my papers into a neat pile and clipped them together, setting the stack in a tray and making the mental note to return to my incomplete tasks first-thing in the morning.

Funny, how he wasn’t used to eyes being on him. His usual jobs required a low profile, sure, but hundreds of our own members and surely hundreds of Park Clan had watched him at his father’s funeral. Running a casino wasn’t a faceless job, either, especially since the job meant having at least twenty employees to lead, and knowing how to put on a charming face for customers and other men in the business was paramount. Jungkook would have to familiarize himself with the heavy eyes of pressure and scrutiny, or all of his dreams would dissolve into ashen nothings.

And yet, I stood because he didn’t like the centuries’ old watercolor and acrylic faces staring him from the walls. Maybe it was their emotion. Staring mafia members in the eye was like looking into ice most of the time, cold and dead. Maybe it was easier to look into the unfeeling eyes of the living than the treacherous expressions of art. Or perhaps he knew that he was just like them, a tragedy in the making, and he couldn’t bear the reminder.

“We could grab a drink,” Jungkook offered, copying my movements as he stood and grabbed his belongings. I trailed a step behind him walking out of the room, shutting off my lamp and locking the door.

“No, thanks,” I said, stepping into the dimly lit hall. In my opinion, this was far more eerie than my office: shadowed halls anyone could be lurking through at night, but for whatever reason, Jungkook found solace in wandering it after hours. “I had enough to drink last night.”

“Last night?” he asked, and I gritted my teeth. “You weren’t drunk at my apartment, were you?”

“You think I’d drive over if I had an ounce of alcohol?” I snorted, defiant, but shrunk back into shame at the thought of telling the truth. He already knew about Taehyung. A lot of people did—even Yoongi, regrettably—but admitting that I sought out sex and alcohol as solace for my problems sounded too much like his father.

“So you went home and got drunk?” Jungkook pressed no less, and I tried to find the judgement in his eyes through the dark.

“I went to Taehyung’s and got drunk,” I said in a thin whisper. It had taken two steps out of my office for me to forget who I was, and I straightened up once I realized I couldn’t be weak, not even in front of Jungkook. We weren’t friends. He made sure to tell me.

“And you stayed the night with him?” Jungkook clarified.

I nodded. “I did.”

There were conflicting tides in his expression, calm seas and uproarious oceans coming to mind. “As long as you didn’t drive, then,” he said. “As long as you were safe.”

I wanted to ask. Why didn’t he glower at me for doing the same things he hated in his father? Maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t paying for sex, or that I wasn’t cheating on anyone, but there was a glimmer of recognition in him despite his collected exterior. He had made the connection, just hadn’t manifested it into an argument.

Then I realized. He hadn’t been thinking of his father at all, but mine. He only wanted me safe, protected. Who I was with didn’t matter. Even if Jungkook hated Taehyung, he was content, as long as I felt security in whoever’s arms I found myself in. Perhaps it wasn’t a good time to mention that Taehyung wasn’t one for holding me, that he probably had enough trouble holding himself together.

I wondered, suddenly, what the inside of Jungkook’s arms would be like, and remembered the brief thought from last night when I had cut myself off before I could think too much about sleeping with him.

“Every day and always, right?”

My meandering train of thought stopped short, and I blinked up at him, solid and real in front of me and suddenly I wondered if I should take him up on the offer for drinks. He wouldn’t have much, not with his discontentment towards his father’s actions, but maybe a glass or two to soften the hard edges of our minds.

But maybe I liked his edges jagged, liked his sober thoughts.

“Right,” I agreed. I would never let him go. My pinky would be pried from his only after we were long dead, even if we weren’t friends, even if the cold reminder of treason sat forever on my chest.

“What do you do, Kook?” I hadn’t called him by his nickname in years. Lifetimes, even, when I used to refuse to call him anything else. He got mad once whenever we were preteens, saying that he was too old and the name was childish, but I was hard-headed by that age and didn’t back down. I phased into calling him Jungkook when we were around sixteen, and Kook disappeared in its entirety soon after.

“I…smuggle drugs and steal things. What?” A crease formed between his eyebrows. “You know what I do for a living.”

“I know what you do for a living,” I echoed, “but what do you do to feel alive? You’ve had it pretty easy with the number of jobs we’ve given you, so what about your free time?” He clearly hadn’t spent it with family, or at bars and clubs. He wasn’t even very close with many of our soldiers. Most of his childhood had been with me and Taehyung, and I didn’t think he ever replaced us.

“I…drive around a lot, I guess, trying to find some new things.” He nodded for us to keep walking, so I did, my footsteps matching his down the hall. It amazed me how we were still so in sync, but I let him keep talking. “I think that’s why I started coming here at night sometimes. It’s quick to drive to. Other times I’ll go to a 24-hour diner and just watch people, or talk to the waitress if she’s pretty.

“Sometimes I leave the city limits, so I don’t have to think so hard about who I am. No one notices if you leave to the countryside for a day. My father never did, and you never did, so…” He shrugged, like being alone came easily to him, or he was just pretending that it did. “I’ve made friends with a lot of farmers over the years, as weird as it sounds, but as soon as I get close to them I stop visiting. I never wanted to risk their lives, you know? But they never knew who I was. I told them I was just a college student. Sometimes they’d ask if I had a girlfriend at school, and sometimes I’d say yes.”

He would never be able to have serious friendships outside of the syndicate, and if he tried, he would expose them to potential threats from the Parks, and Jungkook wouldn’t do that to an innocent. None of us would, but Jungkook especially. I pitied him, just a little, for inventing personas of himself to farmers, hoping one day he would get to be the boy he said he was. But I was a little jealous, too, that somewhere in the world, in the hearts of rural farmers, he was someone else. Meanwhile I was always who I was.

“If I told them I had a girlfriend, they would demand pictures. The first time, I panicked and showed them a picture of you, and I accidentally made a habit of it. A few people I met said you look like a natural-born leader. Very proud. I would say we were both studying business but that you were much better with people than I was. ”

Or maybe I was someone else, too. Somewhere I was the business-student girlfriend of a business-student Jungkook, without the mafia tagline that I had been unerringly labeled with since birth.

“That’s…crazy,” was all I could think to say once I realized he was waiting for a reaction.

“Are you mad?”

“No, no.” I pulled on my earring, and I hoped he didn’t notice. The small act returned a sliver of my clarity. “Good crazy, not bad. That there are people out there who think you’re someone completely different, and that I’m someone completely different. It’s a good thing you leave them, though, as much as it hurts to.”

“Burning the old bridges builds new ones. I vary the background a little, once in a while, but I leave the city less than I used to, and I probably won’t be able to often once I’m initiated.”

“It’s too dangerous.” I nodded, proud of him for showing a sense of duty. No putting himself or others in harms way. Always being ready at a moment’s call.

“What else?” I prompted. “I learn as much as I can about art when I have the time. What do you do?”

“I’ve taught myself to dance over the past three or four years, and I think I’m half-decent,” he said, and I gave him the kind of side-eye that asked for further explanation. “Not, like, ballroom dancing or ballet. Think hip-hop.”

“How’d you get into that, though?” There certainly hadn’t been any dancer in him when we were young. We were both graceless fools, dizzying ourselves and falling onto the living room floor.

“One time Taehyung and I went to this underground show when we were fifteen, maybe sixteen. It was towards the end of when we were friends. You were in trouble, I think—”

“I was never in trouble.” I shoved his arm, and he stumbled just slightly. He used to be so much bigger than me when we were kids that he’d never go anywhere when I pushed him, and he was still stronger than me, but I had grown enough to be able to hold my own.

“Well you were busy, then,” he said, giving a gentle shove back. “Anyway, Taehyung and I went to this show, and the rappers were alright, but you should’ve seen the people dancing there. The crowd went as nuts for a couple of random kids on the street having a dance-off as they did for the actual performers. And they made it look so effortless. I forgot about it for a while, but once you and Taehyung weren’t in my life anymore and I had a ridiculous amount of time on my hands, I started dancing horribly in my dad’s basement and then dancing mediocrely in my apartment.”

“You’ll have to show me sometime.” I half-expected him to be a complete dunce, half-expected him to look like a professional. He had a dancer’s body, I considered, before pushing thoughts of his body to the back of my mind again.

“Please, no. I’ve never actually had an audience,” he said, embarrassed, but there was a light chuckle in his throat.

“I don’t care. I’ll be your first audience member. Promise me.” I reached out my pinky, almost on instinct, and he slowed his pace just to ponder the offer, like he was reminding himself how to make a pinky promise. We hadn’t done it in so long, not even when we swore ourselves into secrecy.

“Whenever we were kids,” he started into another tangent, not ignoring my extended pinky but using his time carefully while he had my undivided attention, “Taehyung and I used to argue when you weren’t around. We would fight over which one of us was going to marry you someday. Neither of us really knew what we were saying, but I used to get angry because the marriage was all about prestige to him. He would be marrying the queen, so he would have all the power and opulence of a king.”

“What about you? Why’d you want to marry me?” I dared ask, my pulse in my throat and my pinky curling subconsciously back into my fist.

“Because I always heard that you’re supposed to marry the person you care about more than anything in the world, and you were that person for as far back as I could remember.”

I blinked, because it’s all I could do. The rest of me froze, suspended in wait. “What’s that have to do with a pinky promise about dancing for me?”

“When he walks into a room, you look at him like he’s a masterpiece, like he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. You have for years, ever since the three of us became the two of you.”

I wanted to rush him to the point, but the ache in my chest was almost too addicting, and I was scared that it wouldn’t come back once it was gone, that this ache was for Jungkook and he would never again look at me the way he was.

“Promise me,” —He raised his hand, holding his pinky just an inch away from mine— “Promise me you don’t love him.”

Jungkook was right about all his claims. Taehyung was the most beautiful person I had ever seen, a walking masterpiece among men, belonging among the paintings on my wall, but no masterpiece was ever enough before I was wanting more a few weeks later. I asked tirelessly for new art once the same faces had been staring at me for so long, and none appeased me. None of their eyes stilled me the way Jungkook’s did.

He wasn’t a masterpiece. He was only a boy, and that was all I wanted of him.

I twined my pinky with Jungkook’s, the easiest promise I ever made.

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