Island Cove~

A blue-green of delicacy. This teal color signifies an individual brimming with optimism who understands their innate place in the universe. Outgoing extroverts in action tend to exude this color.

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Upon immense consideration, I realized something had to change.

So I broke the news to Costa that I simply cannot tutor him any longer.

It was a quick closure of our agreement, and he seemed to understand the message hiding behind my eyes.

Slightly bedraggled from being torn out of bed prematurely, Costa's red figure greeted me with a mixture of anticipation and despair. He knew there had to be bad news from the moment my face arrived at his door. I had never gone to his room before.

The words left my mouth before he could interview me for the reason behind my arrival.

"I can't teach you English anymore, Costa. I'm sorry."

He stood there a few moments, blinking. I noted with a quick glance into room 334 that the interior appeared as if a storm had blown in. From the minute peek I got, I didn't get to see all of the carnage, but I saw enough.

Shirts and pants lay scattered about the floor. Wrappers strewn on his mini kitchenette countertop piled liked messy, elementary snow piles. His window was propped open, and the early heat of day simmered the stale air resonating off of his body.

It was a shock. No, it was more than that.

It was as if I were opening a dictionary, expecting to see a list of pristine, detailed words—only to discover there were only a few blunt definitions. The description under the word 'Costa' in the dictionary did not reveal a definition of immaculateness but said something else entirely.

Leonardo Costa: 'A mystery. Orderly in appearance and aura but not in living space. Utterly attracted to Jeon Jungkook so much that it poses him significant health problems such as unrequited attachment syndrome and physical stress...what are you doing so close to him, Jungkook? Get out of ther-'

"Why, Jungkook? Why can't you teach me?" 

He asked sharply. I couldn't possibly miss the arrangement of unexpected hurt traveling over his tired cheeks. His mouth wilted in a wince. I froze as red tendrils reached out and tapped my chest. While they prodded at my rib cage in a forlorn question, I clenched my jaw.

"I can't. Coach Kan won't let me. He says I need to focus on practice. I can't be distracted. That's what...Kan says."

An entirely scripted, well-believable lie. Leonardo couldn't see through it.

"Oh..." Costa unconsciously leaned my way through the threshold. I took a defensive step back. "I see."

To whatever extent he could actually see, I didn't want to stay to find out. 

Instead, I bowed my head in an apology, grateful that he didn't call me back as I exited the vicinity. I would've hated nothing more in that moment than to stare at his disappointed features any longer. 

But there was no way I was going to subject myself to that kind of tension any longer! 

He likes me, I don't like him back. I am not gay and never will be. Not that I'm against homosexuals...er, like my homeland...because I most definitely am not. But my interests stop after the female specimen. 

I was willing to be Costa's friend, but he made that insidiously impossible.

Now, left with an awkward competitor and newfound uneasiness behind Costa's coach (father) I must rapidly get four more weeks of training out of the way. 

And beat Leonardo Costa, of course.

That goal I understand now with infinite clarity.

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Sweat drips down a pulsing strip of forehead into harsh, unforgiving eyes.

Chalked hands beat brutally down on the parallel bars with a menacing death grip.

Skills aren't simply done, they are quite literally executed. No body part is out of place. Every sinuating twist of torso and burst of rotation is timed expertly. The bar is a servant to its master's commands, bending and giving and supporting through a ferocious routine of tribulation.

Every cell in Jungkook's body is alive. 

Sweat careens down his neck, over his cheeks, and into his eyes, yet he can see crystal clear. After adding another Dimitrenko in his routine, Jungkook's difficulty score has risen higher than anyone else in competition. Like a king before his throne, as long as he can keep his head up after everything is said and done, he'll be fit to rule over the other gymnasts. 

This routine is not solely a test to prove his competence. It's to forward his placement among the masses. 

To become the best.

Jungkook blinks the sweat off of his eyelashes, hardly registering the salty burn of his irises as his body winds into a handstand. His chest heaves with the fire of motivation while his hands throttle the bars. Groaning under the Korean's weight, the parallel bars are expressive in their utterances of heavy use.

The taste of chalk in Jungkook's mouth is spicy, a sign that he's on the right track. Sweet tasting chalk in the gym is a universal sign of ailing focus. If one lingers on melting the granules of calcium carbonate too long on the tongue...just enough to get past the spicy foretaste...then one has already erred. 

Attention wasted on the taste of chalk is forever lost in the routine.

Prime concentration, raw focus, a steady mindset...these are the indispensable attributes of a champion gymnast mid-routine. 

Confidence is the much-respected contemporary of focus, a self-regulating creature of utmost necessity. Concentration and confidence are equally important for a gymnastics routine's ruthless demands. Concentration and confidence, the gold mines of ability.

Jeon Jungkook has both.

And he'll use them to win.

Since exorcizing the Brazilian devil from his quarters, Jungkook has felt the compelling urge to win. Leonardo Costa's weakness of fleeting emotion for him and bouts of anger for his father have opened a door of opportunity. Jungkook is striding powerfully for that door right now.

Striding, flipping—landing.

The dismount comes as silent and graceful as a bounding baby lamb. Jungkook sticks it cleanly, powerfully, confidently. His chest rises in undeniable prowess, his smile wide and sure on his upturned face.

Silence tapers across the gym like heavy, astounded curtains.

Then, a panting, boyish laugh splits the air. Jungkook can't help himself. He performed so well, so flawlessly, and with the added element in his routine, he would easily get the gold on parallel bars. Easily. So he laughs.

Jungkook basks in the sight of his ankles kissing each other. He salutes to a pretend judge, whirling to face Coach Kan. His coach grins with tremendous pride. 

Ecstatic, lemony yellows and bursts of cherry red float Jungkook's way and ascertain Kan's satisfaction with the routine. But Kan beams not only because of the routine, but because of its implication...its meaning. 

Jungkook is now the best male gymnast in the world. 

Starting now, all of Jeon Jungkook's routine scores have a higher starting value than Leonardo Costa's. As long as the Korean can perform them at the current exemplary caliber, he shouldn't take issue in defeating the longstanding Brazilian champion.

Jungkook continues to wholeheartedly laugh as Kan smiles-

"Great job, Jeon."

The silence breaks.

Jungkook frowns.

Both him and Kan pivot to address this new voice. Jungkook swallows overflowing achievement in a thick lump down his throat. He shifts to his normally humble exterior, dropping the air of immense pride.

"Oh. Thanks." It comes out dragged, breathless. Unexpected. 

Why would Leonardo Costa compliment him on taking the number one spot? Whatever reason he has, Costa's compliment was shockingly genuine. He truly meant it.

Jungkook also didn't miss the way he was referred to as Jeon instead of Jungkook. Hadn't they moved past formalities? Then again, Jungkook had called him Costa this morning when ending their pedagogical pact.

Jungkook blinks dazedly at the Brazilian. Leonardo briskly turns back to the chalk box to powder up his grips. Today Costa's red aura is subdued, only a mirage of the splendorous sanguine halo that once covered his whole body. 

It's as if Jungkook's denial to teach him earlier today has tamed down his infatuated tendencies. Melting the boil of lust down to a limp drawl of a latent crush. 

Possessing a will of its own, Jungkook's foot slithers forward across the mat. Towards Costa.

"Wait a second." 

Coach Kan tugs his arm, speaking in Korean so that others do not realize the content of his speech. "You don't need to chalk up yet. I want to speak with you. You rightly beat that motherfucker, that Costa guy. And he had the fucking audacity to comment on it...I swear, he's asking for it, Jeon. You ticked him off.  That son of a bitch! Haha! That snarky devil, you pissed him off, Jeon! Haha! What should we celebrate with tonight? A night off conditioning?"

Now unfairly irked, Jungkook's smile drops to the pits of hell. "No, the hell? You said it yourself, Kan. No celebrating until that gold medal is around my neck...or is my coach asking me to slack?"

The outstanding reverie of winning the top spot is refaced by adamant reproval. Kan scowls.

Jungkook overstepped the line, even if he was just rephrasing Kan's utterances. The amount of bite in his response could grant him malicious conditioning. However, Kan is oddly forgiving today given his mentee's rock-star routine. Evidently, Kan is still riled up from the routine, sneaking glances at Costa's back every few seconds as if rubbing Team Korea's success in his face.

"You're right." Kan crosses his arms. "Go chalk up. Piss him off more. We have three and a half more weeks of this. No breaks. No skipping conditioning. No slacking. But let's have fun with this training, let's piss him off a tad...shall we, Jeon?"

Jungkook receives a friendly nudge to the shoulder. At the same time, Costa's coach lopes in from the sidelines to retrieve his mentee. 

Jungkook studies the man's gait, high brows, demanding countenance, and the unmistakable solid reds in his competitive aura. 

How could Jungkook not see the similarities before? He never paid Costa's coach much attention, but it's so obvious now, gazing into the man's idiosyncratic cloud of tell-all. This man is strikingly blood kin to Leonardo. A man of 

"Yes, let's have fun with it." Jungkook can't hear his own voice over the low pulse of blood in his ears. A steady thump thump thump of confusion, mingled passion, and partial woebegone determination. 

"I'm going to go chalk up now."

Jungkook's footsteps feel off-kilter on the mat as he approaches Costa speaking in hushed tones with his father. They stand defensively behind the chalk box as if warding off the blow from Jungkook's stellar performance, utilizing the rickety box as some kind of ego blockade. 

Clearly, Costa wasn't the only one who received the knock to his self. Coaches take equal pride in accomplished promotion as the vicarious disappointment of a lost competition. They feel the ups and downs of their gymnasts as full and flagrant as if they were the ones performing routines. 

So father and son--both bested by the underdog from South Korea--are left to mope and lash at each other.

Upon Jungkook's approach to the chalk box, Costa's father sneers and drags his son away. Costa doesn't fight back, but by the sudden tensing of his shoulders, Jungkook can tell something is awry. Spools of choked vermillion and deep obsidian flutter into the Brazilian's aura as he's subject to his father's scolding and tugging arm.

Together, the Brazil natives climb over mats and pathways until they're walking down the hall. Jungkook follows their receding figures with his gaze, curiosity blooming sharply in his stomach. His fingers clench hard around a block of chalk, splitting it down the center in an upchuck of white dust.

"Kan." 

Jungkook spins around. He blinks exaggeratedly. The dust in the air acts as indefatigable visual proof for a possible ailment. Jungkook cups his eye, shaking his head violently. 

His coach walks over, unfazed.

"What is it?"

"My contact. It fell out into the chalk box. I have chalk in my eye. I can't see where it went."

A rare occurrence, but not entirely unbelievable. If he continues the blinking act, his coach will have to buy this impromptu performance. 

Kan sighs. "Quick, change it out. Don't be longer than three minutes."

Jungkook is already stepping towards the door, heading to the source of contention. The locker room.

"Got it, Coach."

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As Jungkook surreptitiously opens the door to the locker room, he hears it.

Clear as day and as brittle as the Arizona soil. 

The sound of skin on skin. 

A slap.

Jungkook nearly gasps, freezing in his spot. Although he cannot see the beings behind the entrance wall, he can feel the negativity pooling in the air. It's thick, shocked, and undeniably hurt. It's the noise omission following a horrendous explosion...the horrified absence of thought as the action sinks in.

A slap.

Covering his mouth in surprise, Jungkook backtracks out the locker room door just as a single pair of footsteps approaches him.

Swiftly, he dips into a side door for cover as Costa's huffing father passes by. The man's aura consists of violent swirls of muddy red and brown that seem to battle voraciously in the air. His morals? His conscience? His anger? 

Jungkook doesn't know. 

He waits until Costa's father strides out of sight before he heads to the locker room again.

When he enters, he is again met with silence. 

Except this silence isn't the awed denouement of a massively successful performance. It isn't the quiet admiration of onlookers as they behold a champion rising to the challenge. 

This silence is unnerving, the lethal presence of a careful snake right before it strikes prey. 

This silence is damning, the absence of noise before falling victim to night's eternal sin. 

The Korean listens intently, waiting for a breath, a chirp, anything out of Costa's mouth. Yet he hears nothing.

Suddenly, familiar rays of red leech out from the interior of the locker room and attend to his position by the entrance. They reach out for him, beckoning him onward. Deeper into the room. 

Come closer, they seem to say, you are the only remedy for our troubled ward. 

Jungkook bites his lip. 

Should he try to seek out Costa to get answers about the issue? Costa's coach—father—just slapped him. Is that a normal happenstance between these two...maybe some kind of accepted familial procedure? 

Or has this behavior been brought on by something else...a violent bomb detonated by a certain triumphant competitor overtaking the top spot? A rage sparked by Jungkook's ability to best the never before bested?

Did Costa's father slap his son because of him? Jungkook doesn't even want to imagine it. 

The red continues to unfurl, swimming around his chest. What he should do or not do is no longer left to logic. It is a product of reflex.

In the end, he follows his intuition.

"Leonardo?" 

He speaks loud, hoping the Brazilian will hear him. Invite him in. Tell him everything is fine, and that he imagined the sound of the slap.

Although Jungkook can't hear Leonardo at all, he knows his competitor is somewhere in the labyrinth of lockers. The red wisps tapping at his chest certify that fact.

"Leonardo? Um...Costa?"  

Jungkook starts into the locker room, preparing himself to face wrath in the eyes. Preparing to get blamed for Costa's father's ire. A slap most definitely prompted by his stellar performance, so close to the approaching Olympic Games. 

But when the Brazilian comes into focus, all Jungkook sees is pain.

A cylinder of dark brown wraps tightly around Leonardo's face, perpetrated by the heavy red handprint smarting on his cheek. Teardrops bead in the corners of Costa's eyes. One falls wordlessly down the man's twinging cheek. The water droplet cascades down a bowed chin, drifting without recognition into the man's lap.

The stillness of the Brazilian gymnast sitting hunched on the locker room bench is eerie, disheartening. As Jungkook approaches his forlorn figure he does not so much as stir. Nor does he move when Jungkook, not knowing what else to do, takes a seat alongside his competitor. 

"Leonardo?" 

Jungkook's voice is a thin whisper. He watches as the four syllables of the name boost the morality of Costa's red aura, if only a little. 

"Leonardo." He repeats.

As if snapped out of a trance, Leonardo blinks stupidly at the lockers facing him. Then, with molasses speed, he turns his head towards the Korean as if noticing him for the first time. Seconds later, recognition settles in his irises. 

Jungkook finds himself confused as he watches the components of Costa's gaze alter in front of him. What starts off as a joyous recognition of a friend quickly twists into pained shock.

Costa leaps from the bench and heads for the door.

"Wha—Leonardo!" 

Sinews of maroon pull him up from his seat on the bench, badgering him to follow the fleeting competitor. Jungkook's consciousness acts on the invisible forces, even if his logical mind shrinks back from them. 

"Hey, get back here!"

But Costa doesn't stop so easily. 

No verbal command will pause the Brazilian from trying to protect the little dignity he has left in him. Crying in front of a competitor is undeniably worse than losing to them. Weakness in such a cutthroat atmosphere is like professional suicide. If word gets 'round that the best gymnast in the world has been crying after being physically abused by his coach...

What will spectators see but a pity case?

So Costa runs.

And Jungkook follows.

"Stop!" The Korean catches the strap of Costa's training tank under his finger right before Costa can bolt out the door. "Please, stop!

Fully stopped and hanging his head, the Brazilian does not face Jungkook. His pride prevents him from doing so, even if his aura aches to be near the other gymnast. His mind battles his heart, the worst kind of physiological tussle when in danger of losing it all.

"Let me go." 

He eventually peeps up, his voice a somber admittance of defeat.

"No." 

Jungkook grips the tank tighter, breathing heavily. In such close proximation to this force, Jungkook's heart rattles away in his ribs. Both in excitement and dread...and something else can cannot place. 

"Let. Me. Go." 

Costa's angry tone is halfhearted. Jungkook knows it isn't directed towards him. He can see that clear as day in the other's aura. Leonardo Costa doesn't blame Jungkook in the least. If anything, he's embarrassed at being caught up in an unfair punishment from his father. 

Jungkook is suddenly wrought with a sad prospect that never crossed his mind until now.

"Leonardo...do you like gymnastics?"

Leonardo sucks in a perplexed breath. 

"What?"

"Do you like the sport? Gymnastics."

Finally, Leonardo Costa turns to face him. Even with their slight height difference, the Brazilian appears much, much smaller than Jungkook in that moment. His mouth is drawn in a thin line, eyes suspicious, and his body caves in as a vague form of protection. 

Jungkook releases the tank strap.

"Of course I like it." Leonardo bites rather harshly given the innocent question.

Jungkook isn't fazed. He presses on.

"Well, do...do you like gymnastics more than your father likes gymnastics? Or is he making you do this?"

At this, Leonardo jolts to the side. 

His mouth opens and closes. He minutely shakes his head in concern. Red balls of want, attachment, and horror bound and break in the air, promulgating the Brazilian's mixed sentiment surrounding the situation.

He's been caught. Jungkook somehow has predicted all of these things about him without the information. Shock is clear as day on Costa's gaping face.

"I...how did you...how did-"

"Answer my questions." Jungkook stands his ground. 

In an odd way of brotherly care, he feels like being an outlet for Costa's issues might at least lessen the burden of keeping them secret. And it's not as if Costa doesn't already suspect Jungkook's own private issues either. The uncanny way Leonardo was able to spot the eating disorder in Jungkook proves that this isn't one-sided, either. 

Both are attentive, observant individuals who notice things. Who have fallen upon the dark side of their competitor weeks before the Olympics.

A dual give-take, despite Jungkook's vow to never mess with his competitor on close terms again. Evidently, the red successfully persuaded him to do otherwise. 

Leonardo Costa speaks up.

"My father wants me to win the Olympics more than I do...I'm here because he pushed me. Forced me."

Each word is drawn out with much effort, a slow-rolling reveal that any audience would wait for on the edge of its seat. 

Never in a million years would Jungkook imagine the statement falling from the lips of the world's best male gymnast. But now that they have, he can't help but feel lighter in an odd, displacing sense.

"Oh." 

Jungkook can't formulate the proper response. His senses have dulled down to a low thrum, hardly able to feed his working faculties. "O-h...um..."

"Don't tell anyone. Please." Costa grips at his arms, tightly. 

Instantly, the deeply rooted struggle in Costa transfers to him in tingly patches down his arms, chest, and legs. 

He understands this man now, understands his collection of fattening snacks, his messy room, his sharp verbal fights with his father, and the severe pressure placed on him to win. 

Now Jungkook understands the complimenting, the genuine care for his nutrition, the companionship Costa sought out between them because he likely felt alone.

It's with this sudden comprehension that something naked and sympathetic swells in Jungkook's chest, raw in its intensity. 

Leonardo Costa was never the Brazilian devil. He was never an evil competitor. No matter what his immaculate image or elite ability suggested, he was nothing but a man being forced into compliance by the familial binding of honor. Someone else's dreams had mutilated his own, shoved them out of the picture, and took up shop in their wake. 

Jungkook steps forward. 

"Don't worry...I won't tell anyone. I promise you, Leonardo. I won't."

Red appreciation crashes against lockers.

Seconds later, Jungkook's sides are being squished in a bear hug, not unlike a soulmate welcoming in its other half.

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note from authAURA~

Olá.

I had the utmost fun writing this chapter and I don't expect that level of satisfaction to decrease any time soon. I think in the oddest sense my keyboard is a dependable disperser of euphoric neurotransmitters into my rollerCosta mind. 

Every press of key, every part of me, a-b-c-d-e, sending dopamine! 

[I key it: The Five-Syllable Keyboard Kantata]

On this lovely second of the watch I am not wearing, I hope you find that outgoing island cove part of yourself and speak with someone! Whether it's a vibrant conversation about the likelihood of Martian existentialism or the ingredients to a peanut butter cookie recipe, by all means, tell somebody! They might get something out of it, anyhow.

LOVE,

| is see |