Bakery Morning~

A light brown of manipulative intent. With this faded color, individuals will do whatever it takes to accomplish goals, doing so to ease their overwhelming feelings of insecurity.

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"Hello! Hi Jungkook. I'm glad you called."

McKayla practically screams into the phone, rattling the speakers. It startles me, to say the least. I had to call her to find out the details of the locker room vandalization. Even though we aren't a thing anymore, I have to know what happened.

"Yeah, hi McKayla. I'm sorry about what happened." I plop down on unoccupied side of the bed and stare out the window. The sun has just started setting, kissing the horizon on this lazy Sunday night. Leo naps in a ball on the other half of the bed, his face smashed against the pillow. 

From what I've learned about Leo during our time spent together, it's that when he's deep asleep, he's unawakenable.  I can clap, yell, or play music loudly, and it wouldn't do much to get him out of bed. It's still a mystery to me how he can wake up on time for practice every day.

"Oh shibal, Jungkook! Don't apologize, it's not your fault or mine. It just...happened. I'll explain it all, course. It's the craziest thing! By the way, the real culprit was caught earlier today."

I sit up straighter. "Really? Who vandalized the locker? Why would they do such a thing? Also, why would YOU admit to doing it if-"

"I'll explain if you let me!" McKayla's voice is half-brimmed with giggles, a sign that she's taking the situation better than expected. "I don't have too much time to explain. My coach is coming to my room soon to discuss the matter with me. I have to explain fast. So listen carefully."

"Okay."

I slouch against the wall, holding the phone tightly to my ear. Leo wiggles under the crumpled blanket, smashing his face further into the pillow. I adjust the sheet so that it covers his legs, and his body relaxes once more.

"So for starters, I did not actually vandalize the locker, but I saw it happening. When I saw it happening, I wished I didn't have....it was pretty ugly." McKayla starts off at a fast pace. I struggle to keep up with her. "You remember those two gymnasts that 'slept together' and got caught? Well turns out, they didn't do anything. The Italian girl asked the Belize boy to come to her room for reasons that have to do with something a lot worse than having some oooh bedroom fun...hah, sorry."

I snicker across the line. Her habit of speaking without reserve hasn't changed in the least.

McKayla sighs. "The two were apparently conspiring to share drugs. Performance enhancers. The Italian girl was under the impression that Belize boy had a drug called Ephedrine. If you don't know what that means in English, Ephedrine is a stimulant that increases stamina. It's a cheating drug, basically. They were planning on cheating. Someone caught word and reported them to the Board. But the Road to London camp doesn't want the Olympic committee to tie doping procedures to them. They covered up the scandal with the whole 'don't sneak out at night, horn-dogs!' gimmick. Mr. Garcia made a pretty believable skit at the banquet, turning it into a laughing stock. No one had reason not to believe him."

My eyes widen, and I gape at Leo's sleeping face. Doping? Drugs? Performance enhancers? Cover-ups? I've heard of these practices before, but I never expected them to ever get mentioned under this roof. Gymnasts here would seriously risk their status as Olympians just for a stimulant? They must be super desperate.

"Anyway. The Italian girl got the Belize boy suspended from camp. And...well, you can see why that made the guy mad. So he took it out on her locker, since he wasn't allowed onto the second floor to do it to her room. I caught him." McKayla laughs at the memory. "He was crazy. Berserk. Batshit. But he was also so, so scared when I walked in on him."

Leo stirs slightly on the bed. McKayla goes on.

"He told me the story about the drugs and his dream getting trampled on. He was in tears." McKayla speaks slowly now, reliving the moment. "And I felt kinda bad. So I told him I would take the blame for it. If the Board found out he was responsible for yet another bad thing happening in camp, he would be prohibited from competing. He agreed, but we didn't realize that the locker room had cameras pointing to the entrances. Later, they caught him on footage and now he can't go to the Olympics. He fessed up. My image has been cleared. But now he's not going to London."

I digest the words, zoning out on a spot on the beige wall. Who knew the Road to London camp was capable of housing such scandal? I always imagined places like these to be squeaky clean, free of any questionable affairs. Then again...

Then again, the top male gymnast in the program has an abusive coach...and is physically involved with another top male gymnast from Korea. If that isn't the largest scandal for the tabloids to jump on, then I don't know what is.

"I'm glad you didn't do it." I tell her, staring at the ceiling. "I think the guy from Belize had it coming. I get why you'd take the blame, McKayla, but you didn't have to-"

"Ah, don't fight me on that, Jungkook." McKayla chuckles brightly. "I know it was a dumb choice to protect him. But if you saw his face...shit. It was puppy dog eyes and tears. The things we do for sad faces...haha!"

I stare at Leo, who is snuggled deeply under the covers. Right now his face is serene, anything but sad. I hope it stays that way for a long time. Calm.

"You're a good person, McKayla." The words don't take much effort to say. She has such a pink aura that I don't know why I questioned her vandalizing the lockers in the first place. She could never. McKayla is caring, bubbly, energetic...and now, out of reach for me.

"What? No, I'm not a good person. Ugh, I have to go now, my coach is knocking. Goodbye, Jungkook, call me if you need anything!"

McKayla hangs up before I can give her a proper farewell. I lower the device from my ear, setting it on the sheets. For a while, I sit in silence. The sun continues to descend, bathing the land in a deep orange soup of light. I'm so caught up in the way that the clouds laze around the hazy sun that I don't sense the movement next to me.

"Mmm..." Leo grumbles and reaches for my wrist. I allow myself to get pulled down next to him, stunned by the sheer amount of warmth radiating off of his frame. Groggily he comes to, blinking tired eyes at me. Then, he smiles. "Did I miss anything?"

"No." I bless the fact that his face isn't a sad one. If his face was a sad one, then I'd be in for so much trouble. I study the red, hopeful stars in his eyes, counting them in my mind. Hope looks beautiful on him. Leo reaches a hand up and brushes the hair out of my face with a tenderness unmatched even from my own mother. 

"No, Leo. You didn't miss anything but me."

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Jungkook sprints down the runway.

His feet tramp down the strip of carpeting one after the other, a train of concentrated ferocity. His arms pump viciously to build speed, carrying him quickly towards the vault table. His mind is hardened on one goal, one object: to explode on the springboard, shoot off of the vault table, and gracefully flip thrice.

Like lightning, his feet punch the springboard. Momentum forces him up into the air, and his strong arms push the vault table away from his body to generate height.

When Jungkook is airborne, it's as if time stops. 

Physically, his body goes into autopilot, executing an incredibly difficult flip sequence that few in the world can do. Mentally, his head is in the clouds, dully aware of his muscles contracting in tandem. The first flip melts into the second, and finally the third. Gravity tugs him back to Earth, down to the navy landing mat behind the vault. Almost forgetting to untuck his body for the landing, Jungkook remembers to open at the last second. 

His feet land with a stutter.

Squatted down, with his chest low and his arms swinging to keep him upright...

"Opened late!" Coach Kan shouts. "Crunchy form, slow rotation. Jeon, what the hell?!"

Jungkook stands up straight from his less-than-stellar landing position. A frown tugs against his lips. He performed the vault poorly. His focus was absent from the task, and it showed in a collection of amateur mistakes. He walks off the mat towards Kan with growing apprehension. These are not the types of mistakes he should be making during week five of training camp. A murky orange of stress leaks into Kan's aura as his mentee approaches.

"What was that!" Kan pulls Jungkook aside the runway so that Donnell can go next on the vault. A good distance away, Leo tapes up his ankle in preparation of his own vault, twisting white bands thickly around his leg under the watchful eye of his father.

"Um, I was...a little distracted."

"Distracted?" Kan's voice raises a pitch in disbelief. "By what! The fucking mat color? Don't lie to me, Jeon. The last time you pulled such garbage you were eighteen! Fucking eighteen! Looked like you gave up mid vault. Would have never thought you were going to the Olympics in two weeks."

Jungkook swallows his anger. Kan's injurious tendency to exaggerate verbal criticisms of anything Jungkook does is painful. He takes a deep breath and rolls out his shoulders.

"The Olympics are getting to me."

"Bull." Coach Kan crosses his arms, staring hard at him. "Something happened. Have you been watching the videos of your routines? Doing your stretching regimen? Eating the right foods that we—wait a second."

Kan regards him closely, studying the black practice leotard and matching shorts he's wearing. Slowly, his coach circles around him like a shopper studying an odd kiosk. Jungkook curbs his tendency to suck everything in and tense his abs under the fabric.

 As well as Kan, Leo's eyes stare at him from behind. Although he cannot see the Brazilian's gaze on him, he can feel Leo's aura checking in. Reaching out to him. An watchful evaluation from Leo's red to Jungkook's dark purplish blue.

"You've been eating more." Kan notes. "So you decided against the strict dieting after all? Finally decided to take in enough fucking calories, like a normal athlete?"

Jungkook keeps quiet, but the effect of Kan's words settle in. His teeth bite down on his tongue as negativity begins to feed into the black cloud of his midsection once more. His weight gain is noticeable, and although not a dead giveaway, Kan pointing it out is disheartening. Jungkook's stomach tenses, remembering the night of his crazed binge-eating all those weeks ago.

Kan continues his relentless assessment. "Your shorts aren't as baggy around your legs anymore! You put on weight. You fixed the problem, sure, great, but now you fucked up the variables, Jeon! Any small change in stature will mess with performance. You can't afford messing up this close to the Olympics! For fuck's sake-"

"Coach." Jungkook interrupts with a pit in his gut. "I promise I'll lose the weight. I'll...return to the state I was in before if it means consistency in routines. There's still a week and a half left to do it. I'll lose the weight."

Kan grins bitterly. "That's not right, Jeon, but I can't argue with it. You'll have to. Consistence is key here. You can't fucking change that with a gold on the line. Now, do the vault again."

Both miffed and crestfallen, Jungkook drags his feet back to the beginning of the vault runway. The black cloud around his stomach intensifies, warring with what Kan said and what Leo tells him on a regular basis. 

Starve for consistency, or eat for health?

When Jungkook's feet hit the vault runway to go a second time, Leo gives him a questioning look. Before the Korean can give him a response, Leo turns away when his father orders him to do a few drills for warmup.

Jungkook stares with new hatred at the springboard at the end of the runway. Even though he's going to let Leonardo Costa win the Olympics, he can't give everybody the impression that he's planning on it. Therefore, he must follow Kan's orders. He must go back to his old routine of calorie-cutting and deprivation. No matter how unhealthy, backwards, or ruinous, Jungkook has to do so.

He has to do it for Leo.

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"It was nothing, Leo. I swear."

Jungkook forces on the best poker face he can, hoping the Brazilian won't see through it. His hope goes unanswered, however.

Leo shakes his head, crossing one leg over the other. Even when sitting in a rec room chair of the dormitory, Leonardo Costa appears poised and postured in the presence of onlookers. Regardless if those onlookers are ditzy janitors cleaning out the men's room in the lobby.

"It was something, Jungkook." He peers into Jungkook's eyes with the intensity of someone trying to dig deep. Again, he repeats. "It was something."

Jungkook sighs, turning away from Leo's prying gaze. He focuses on the waiting room table donned with several dog-eared magazines and a random purple scrunchie. 

Unlike Leo, Jungkook slouches over in his chair, slumped by emotional exhaustion. Throughout the entire practice today, Kan picked apart every single one of his skills. Ever since Kan noted Jungkook's weight difference, everything he seemed to do was mediocre or poor. Even when Jungkook performed confidently, with his skills stuck and his chin raised, Kan found something to comment on. And rather rudely, at that.

"Yeah...it was something." Jungkook admits, biting his lip.

"What?" Leo taps his foot on the ground, impatient for a substantial answer. 

"I can't tell you. Just like you can't tell me some stuff your father says to you in Portuguese."

Leo flinches, measurably taken aback. His dark eyes flicker with something that borders on despair, but he reigns it in before Jungkook can understand it.

"You don't want to know what my father says. But I would be willing to share."

Palpable anxiety enters the air between them, rolling in the thick waves of Leo's auric tide. Jungkook bites his inner cheek. "No, that's okay. You don't have to share that. I mean, sometimes the things Kan says are mean to everyone. Not only me. My competitors. The camp administrators...you. Um, especially you."

"Me?" Leo chuckles. His head lolls to the side and he gives Jungkook a lopsided, humble smile. "Now, why would Coach Kan talk bad about me? Because I am Jeon Jungkook's number one competition in the London Olympics?"

"And Jeon Jungkook's number one fan. He despises that." Jungkook chortles, folding his hands in his lap. A hunger pang hits his stomach then, growling loudly in the waiting room. It receives sharp pressure from the fists in his lap. "Kan hates anything that threatens me, naturally. Since you're the best of the best, he sees you as the top threat. Whenever you spoke with me before, he thought you were tainting me or someth-"

"Why are you doing that?" Leo motions to his stomach suddenly, eyebrows furrowed. Jungkook nonchalantly removes his hands from his midsection, placing them on the chair's arms.

"Doing what?"

"Jungkook."

"I don't know what you mean."

Leo stands up from the chair. His aura is partially irritated, but more worried than anything else. When he faces the Korean, his face is wrought with disappointment. One last time, he tries a persuasive tactic.

"Tell me what he said. I can help."

Jungkook opens his mouth to reassert his ignorance, but falters miserably. Leo's aura hops upon the weakness, urging him to speak the truth. "I don't...I want to tell you, but..."

Leo starts walking away. 

"Wait!" Jungkook springs up, catching Leo by the wrist. "Don't go, Leo. I'm sorry. Kan told me some pretty hurtful things today. They aren't that serious, just irritating. I didn't want to share them with you, since I'm sure you have it worse with your father."

Leo brushes aside the last comment, neither affirming nor denying it. "Tell me, what did he say?"

A few janitors scurry by with their squeaky cleaning carts, eyeing the two top gymnasts curiously. Jungkook releases his grip on Leo's wrist, stepping back. Eventually, the cleaning men exit with their supply carts down the hall. 

Leo meets his gaze expectantly. Jungkook sighs.

"Okay. Um. Kan said I need to slim down. My form was sloppy, horrendous, 'fucking pathetic' because of the um, weight gain. He said I wasn't worthy of competing in London unless I lose the weight I've gained before the Olympics come."

Leo's face falls, taking all the positive light out of his eyes. He scowls not at Jungkook, but at the answer. "Why would he suggest...Jungkook, that's not safe. You look good now at your weight. You look a lot healthier than before, when you were...you shouldn't do that to yourself, that could-"

"Stop." Jungkook closes his eyes, pushing Leo's encouraging words away. The nice words won't help Jungkook avoid food cravings later on. "I have to. My coach said so, Leo. Don't talk me out of it."

Leo's mouth presses into a thin line. "Fine. But promise me one thing."

A pause. "What?"

"Don't overdo it this time." Leo pushes a finger gently into his black leotard-covered chest. A warm feeling floats around Jungkook's ribcage. His heart rate inclines to the stars, beating under Leo's steady fingertip. 

Under the Brazilian's touch, there is no room for debate.

"Okay, Leo. I won't."

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note from authAURA~

howdy.

i hope you have the dandiest day, night, and inner monologue as you move throughout these weeks. and by dandy, i do not mean DANDER. if you have a dander problem, pls consider getting dandruff shampoo to curtail your dry scalp, okay? no need to be embarrassed, but do handle the situation efficiently. don't put off your wellbeing! never put off your wellbeing! you are not some reminder to be snoozed! you are important, always deal with yourself, NOW.

oh yeah, and duck and roll around bakery morning. you shouldn't be manipulative or step on others to get what you want. that's mean, billie jean!

adieu and away!

izzy.