word count: 8.5k

recommended listening: best years & kill my time by 5SOS

premise: twin flames born moments apart, taking their precious time to figure their shit out. a lil bit of love rosie inspiration, and a very endearing kook.

pairing: jungkook x OC

a/n: edited this super later so excuse typos lol

a/n 2.0: hiiiii!! this is edited and reuploaded. i had to change some tenses and fix some things, but it also identical to the og ^^ (JUL 22)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

1997. 

The year of the Ox. 

A twelve-month period which saw the births of the bold and the brash; the brave and the true-blue. 

Jungkook had never much been one for believing in fate, but there was something serendipitous about his mother being rushed to hospital two weeks early in the fall, heavily pregnant. 

Across the ward, two weeks late, was Felicity's mother.  The pair of them were born just 2 minutes and 13 seconds apart.

He disputed it routinely throughout their childhood. He was taller. He was stronger. So surely, he should be older too. 

But he wasn't, and Felicity made sure that he never forgot. 

She would never wish him a happy birthday first, and she would always make the guests at their joint parties - of which they had until they were twelve - sing happy birthday twice. Once for her, and then again roughly two minutes later for Jungkook.

He'd blow out her candles in retaliation, and the parties would always end with frosting in her hair and cake up his nose.

Their parents despaired at the pair of them; the chaotic, beautiful mess of a shared soul split in two.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The summer of 2004 saw many firsts. Jungkook lost his first tooth, and Felicity broke her first bone. She'd tell anyone who listened that it was Jungkook's fault.

He'd protest and say that he merely suggested that she climb the tree in her parents backyard, and see if she could land on all fours like a cat. He didn't think she'd actually do it.

But she did, and now she had a cast on her arm to prove it. At first Jungkook liked her cast. He'd doodle on it, and write their names in squiggly letters as big as he could, annoying her with his incessant need to graffiti Felicity every single time he saw her.

If she was going to blame it on him, then hey - he may as well make the most of it. He viewed it as his own personal canvas. It wasn't as if they didn't draw on each other's arms all the time anyway, it was just that now it was a little harder to wash off.

It was something that he learned the hard way, when Felicity showed up to recess a new signature on her cast: 'Bobby.'

"He's my boyfriend," Felicity had declared, aged seven and far too young to understand the concept of love.

Still, she'd seen Cinderella, and knew all the words to Tale As Old As Time by heart, so in her youthful eyes, she was a connoisseur. 

"I'm your boyfriend," Jungkook sulked, huffing and puffing at the idea of Felicity replacing him.

"No, you're my boy..." she took an extra-long pause before continuing. "Friend. It's different with Bobby."

"How is it?"

"We're in love."

Bobby would be the Prince Eric to her Ariel. Jungkook would merely be her Flounder.

When she began to talk about their future wedding, Jungkook would simply put his fingers in his ears, and proceed to sing lalala's, followed with an "I'm not listening." 

They bickered a lot for a few weeks.

"Talk to the hand 'cause the face ain't listening," became Jungkook's go-to response whenever Felicity tried to talk to him.

At one point, their parents even had to be called in, over concerns of bullying. Their principal was bewildered when both sets of parents laughed so hard that they cried.

Unfortunately for Felicity, Bobby didn't yet understand what breakups were, and asked another girl to dance with him at their end-of-term disco right in front of her face. Heartbreak started young for Felicity.

It had for Jungkook, too, he just didn't realise it yet.

"He's a butt-head," Jungkook had attempted to comfort Felicity, offering her the rest of his juice box while they waited for their parents to come and pick them up.

"You're a butt-head," she sulked, sipping on the sweet liquid, aware that she should say thank you but choosing not to. 

"I know you are, but what am I?"

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Things changed once they became teenagers. 

As with all friendships, they began to feel the changes of life around them. Jungkook was having growth spurts seemingly every two months and he was starting to come into his features. Still, his eyes remained large and Felicity would tease him for his lack of facial hair - only for him to insist that she had facial hair instead. Bickering came naturally to the pair of them, as if it was what they had been born to do.

"What do you mean you don't believe in love?!"

Jungkook hadn't expected her to erupt in such a glorious fashion, spilling his quiet confession to their entire literature class like overflowing lava.

"Think about it," he reasoned with a tone of veracity, holding his copy of Romeo & Juliet shut, slapping it down onto the wooden desk he was sitting behind. "This shit is the greatest love story of all time - and they just DIE. Love is death."

He concluded his point with an amicable shrug, indifferent to the shocked expression nearly every single female in the room was casting his way. The boys snickered and thought he was cool for berating something that girls seemed to like.

"Language, Mr Jeon," their teacher, Mr Kim, bellowed in a futile attempt to settle the class down. Jungkook's outburst had caused quite the commotion.

By the end of the lesson, the pair of them were swinging their legs haphazardly, sitting outside the principal's office. When he opened the door and saw Jungkook first, he sighed, knowing that you'd never find one of them without the other.

"What now?!"

"He started it!" "She started it!"

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

For someone who said they didn't believe in love, Jungkook had a funny way of showing it.

In fact, he wasn't showing it at all.

It had taken him a few years to warm up to the idea of love, but by the time he reached 15, he'd gotten himself a girlfriend.  

She lived across the country, and they had never met, but he was adamant that she was his soulmate. Felicity was naturally dubious - but Jungkook thought that she was just jealous that he had found love before her. 

Felicity would ignore the 'nudge' messages he would send through on their instant messaging server, setting her account to 'brb', as an amber strip illuminated her profile picture. She didn't fancy talking to him. Why did he even want to talk to her? Couldn't he just talk to his girlfriend instead?

Within a week of changing his relationship status, Jungkook ended up adding a broken heart to all of his usernames. His first love had flourished and died within the blink of an eye, tainting his view of relationships once more.

He and Felicity would be back to square one, not that either of them minded all that much.

"I just don't understand why you love 'love' so much," he had rolled his eyes during a particularly boring lunch break, after yet another literature lesson focused around some Shakespeare bullshit he didn't care about. "To love is to DIE."

He clearly still wasn't over Romeo and Juliet.

"Because who doesn't want to be in love?! You're only bitter because you got dumped," she huffed, leaving him to stew on his own thoughts. "Let me know when you fall for another rando on the internet, and I'll be sure to arrange your funeral."

"Girls," he groaned as she stormed off. "Fuckin' girls."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Despite their different friendship groups, you'd have been hard-pressed to find Jungkook and Felicity more than ten metres apart from one another. In their shared lessons, they would sit next to one another, regardless of the carefully crafted seating plan that the teacher had arranged. 

In the end, their teachers just started grouping them together as a pair.

On days when their schedules aligned, Felicity would be sick to the back teeth of Jungkook by their third lesson, but laughing and joking again with him by their fifth. 

Nobody understood them. They didn't really understand themselves - but they were teenagers. No one understands themselves at that age.

"You ever think about it?" Felicity had mused one lunchtime. 

Jungkook was sat up against an old oak tree, vying for shade from the sweltering summers glare, tie loosened, sleeves rolled midway up his forearms. Felicity lay perpendicular to him, the crown of her head resting just below his knees, as she held her copy of Great Expectations above her, cramming for their next lesson.

"About what?" He mumbled, watching a sketchy stream of a baseball match on his iPod touch, which he'd suspiciously connected to the school's WiFi.

If he got caught doing it once more, he'd get a three-day suspension. Worth it. One white headphone was hooked into his ear, the other hanging into his lap, so that he could hear Felicity when she spoke.

"About Miss Havisham," Felicity hummed with tenacity. "Wearing her wedding dress until the day she died, all because she got jilted at the altar."

"I think she probably had more problems than just that," he considered briefly, having finished reading and making annotations on the novel weeks ago. Locking his ipod and letting it join the headphone in his lap, his attention focused on the girl using him as a pillow.

"Even so," she smiled. He didn't realise it, but the corner of his lips had softly raised themselves, too. "Does the idea of being alone forever not scare you?"

Yes.

"Not really."

Pulling the battered book down to rest on her chest, Felicity turned to face him. Her skin was dewy, the humidity in the air causing her to gloss slightly, but Jungkook liked the way that the sun illuminated her features.

"It terrifies me," she admitted. "I don't think I'm very easy to love."

Like all teenagers, Felicity thought that she was undeserving of everything positive that came her way. Jungkook hated it, he really did - but he saw how bitchy the girls in the school hallways were, and he knew that the boys could be even worse. It only took a few bad apples to spoil the barrel. 

If he weren't such a coward, he would have told her that she was incredibly easy to love.

"Tell you what," he proposed with a cheeky grin instead. "If you're still acting like a Havisham when you get to 35, I'll marry you. Save you from becoming a spinster." 

He was joking, and she knew it, but part of her wanted to play along.

"Just what every girl dreams of."

"Two words: Tax benefits. We'll be living the good life, wifey."

"You make me sick."

The dull, blunt corner of Felicity's book hit Jungkook's torso with a smack.

"You'd have to take my surname," he continued to tease her as the school bell rang. She didn't bother to wait for him as she began to walk away.

"Over my dead body, Jeon."

"Oh, come on, Havisham! My surname sounds so good when you say it like that!"

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The tender age of seventeen hit like a freight truck. One moment they were just kids; the next, they were thinking about university, and virginities (or lack thereof), and how the fuck they got so old so fast.

 At a party she had never really wanted to attend, and one that Jungkook only went to at her insistence,  Felicity was crying in the bathroom, again.

Jungkook hated her boyfriend. Felicity swore she loved him. 

She had a little too much vodka in her system, and her boyfriend had kissed a few too many people that night who weren't her. 

Jungkook had it in his right mind to punch his stupid, cheating mouth straight off his face, but that wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't make Felicity feel any better.

And so he sat, rubbing circles on her back as she sobbed over the toilet seat.

"We won't be seventeen forever, Flick. He's a loser."

His words, though meant well, caused her to cry even harder. She knew he was a loser. Which made her an even bigger loser for being so uncontrollably heartbroken. 

"I'm gonna be alone forever, Kook. No one's ever gonna love me," she wailed as he tucked her into bed that evening. Felicity's parents were out of town, and it was up to him to keep her safe.

Not that they had asked him to; he just took on the role willingly. 

"Shut up, Flick, no you're not."

"How do you know?" She sniffled, a few seconds away from falling into a drunken slumber.

"Because anyone would be lucky to have you."

The memories of that night were sketchy, and unclear, but her breakup was vivid.

She didn't eat anything other than cinnamon toast crunch for nearly three months. 

He began to call her Havisham again.  

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Jungkook played Not Nineteen Forever so many times on the eve of their twentieth birthday, that they both cried when the clock struck twelve. 

As they belted out the lyrics, with dodgy faux English accents and one-too-many shots of tequila in their stomachs, they made a promise for twenty to be their year.

Studying at different universities, they cherished the time that they spent together. Things felt different, and yet also entirely the same.

By the time the holidays rolled around, Felicity had another loser boyfriend, and Jungkook was the loser boyfriend of some poor girl in his mechanical engineering class. Neither of them took them home for Christmas.

After a few too many glasses of mulled wine, it had reached the time of evening when people would say things they'd learn to regret in the morning. 

Jungkook was no exception to the rule.

"Fucking Dennis. You're dating someone called Dennis. What's up with that? Did his parents hate him as a child? Who looks at a baby and thinks 'yep, he's a Dennis'?"

"Well his parents are dead, actually," Felicity deadpanned. Jungkook's mouth formed an 'o', and Felicity laughed. "I'm just fucking with you, Kook. Christ, when did you get such a stick up your ass? Lucy keeping your sense of humour locked up?"

He sighed as if the weight of the whole entire world rested upon his shoulders. 

They're broader than Felicity remembered, and he doesn't quite fit into his Christmas jumper like he used to. It isn't a bad thing, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's just... different.

"Lucy's driving me nuts," he confessed. "It's like if I don't call every hour, on the hour, she's convinced I'm sleeping with my childhood friends."

Felicity choked back a snort.

"We're fucking? That's news to me."

There was a distinct roll of his eyes.

"She thinks I fuck every woman I walk past."

"That's a lot of hard work. Does she not know how lazy you are?"

It took Jungkook three more mulled wines to admit that there's a reason why Lucy is so paranoid: he had cheated on her during the last semester. It was just with a random girl in a club, but it didn't really matter who it was - it was bound to ruin things regardless.

Felicity didn't speak to him for three months after the revelation - two months longer than he stayed with Lucy. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

By the time 21 rolled around, Jungkook was rubbing Felicity's back as she hung over a toilet seat, again. 

This time, they were in a bathroom stall at a club, and he really shouldn't have been in the ladies - but your best friend is your best friend. 

Dennis had been long gone for a while now, and for the first time since they were about 16, they were both single. It was the two of them up against the world again - or against bottles of tequila, if they were being realistic.

Felicity was losing, and at quite some pace, but as long as Jungkook was there to get her back on her feet, the party would always continue. 

"C'mon, Flick, we only turn 21 once. Drink up," he urged, passing her a bottle of water. 

"Shush, I'm older than you," she slurred, eyes closed, head lolling. "Don't tell me what to do." 

Her grin was lazy, eyes half shut, but by the time a litre of water had flushed her system, she was raring to go.

They spent the night dancing, and laughing, and singing, and then dancing some more. They'd lost their group of friends during the first half of the evening, but neither of them seemed to care all that much. 

They had each other, and that was enough.

It was always enough.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Felicity was lucky to have Jungkook and she knew it. 

Freshly graduated and without a plan, they'd packed up their childhood bedrooms and moved into the city. Their apartment was tiny, but so was their budget, so they had to make do.

Jungkook landed on his feet in a high-flying start-up. He wore suits on the daily, and Felicity couldn't help but feel infinitely proud of him. Had he always been this handsome? So dashing?

He'd break the illusion every evening, without fail, when he'd walk into their apartment after work and shove his stinking gym socks in her face. She'd squirm and try and get out of his grasp, but he wouldn't relent until she tapped out.

Collapsing in stitches, he'd find the whole ordeal hilarious, hair ruffled from her defence and a boyish grin resting on his charming face.

It was impossible for her to stay mad at him for too long - especially on the evenings he came home with a bouquet of sunflowers, simply stating: ' the kitchen needs sprucing up'.

Felicity tried not to read too much into things, especially not when Jungkook had dates nearly every single Friday evening.

Occasionally he'd find a stable girl, one who didn't seem to mind that he was closer with his childhood best friend than most, but they were normally too good to be true.

Eventually, things would fizzle out, and he'd be back to spending his Friday nights on the sofa with Felicity.

Selfishly, she preferred it that way.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

23 was the worst. 

Jungkook's string of rebound lovers never seemed to last longer than him in bed, leaving him unsatisfied in every sense of the word. Love really wasn't on his agenda, but he would have liked something stable; something comfortable.

Something a little like what he had with Felicity. Just with the addition of sex.

Felicity had begun to master Tinder. Her matches streamed in, thick and fast, but she found dating exhausting. It was all so fake, from the catfish photos to the laughter she'd feign for men who still thought misogyny was funny.

She'd leave dates so mentally exhausted, that all she wanted to do was to curl up on the sofa and watch shitty house reno shows. 

And Jungkook was always there at the end of the night, with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and two spoons.

"We're basically kissing," he had joked one evening when she had arrived home early, catching him snacking on a tub of Baked Alaska. She'd climbed onto the sofa beside him and stolen his spoon, the pair passing it between them in tandem. 

Neither one of them cared much about the exchange of their DNA, but Felicity made sure to gag especially hard at his comment. 

"You'd be lucky," she teased, taking the spoon from his hand and clamping it between her teeth.

"Have you ever thought about it?"

Felicity doesn't answer.

The silence consumes Jungkook for a month straight.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

It was barbecue season, and Jungkook was standing with a beer in his hand, casually flipping the sizzling burger meat for Felicity's father. They were in his parent's garden, at one of their families' annual get-togethers, celebrating everything and nothing all at once.

He could hear Felicity laughing, so he glanced in her direction, his long fringe obscuring his view slightly. Shaking it away from his eyes, he was pleased to see her smiling.

Her belly had swollen quite considerably during the second trimester. 

She was showing, and not hiding it anymore.

Felicity was pregnant.

And Jungkook didn't think she'd ever looked more beautiful. 

She was chatting with Jungkook's mother, a hand resting on top of her stomach, discussing the madness of her pregnancy. 

Like most things in her life, it hadn't been planned. 

A few too many drinks after a particularly stressful day at the office had led her to a club, where she'd met Hoseok. 

He was the kind of guy who was there for a fun time, not a long time. There was no longevity to their coupling, no matter how much they enjoyed each other's company. Or rather, each other's bodies.

And so, despite his effortless charm and unthinkable good looks, they'd called it quits two months before Jungkook had to drive Felicity to A&E.

He thought she'd developed appendicitis. It was a shock to them both when the doctor came out, congratulating Jungkook on the spritely little human that was growing inside Felicity's stomach. 

"Pregnant?! No, there's no way," she had pleaded, wishing for the doctor to say that he'd just been joking. Yeah, this was just a joke. Surely. It had to be. 

Except for the fact it wasn't.

"Three months," he replied. "Looking very healthy, too. Have you not had any symptoms?"

"None," she whispered, terrified of this new reality she had stumbled upon. 

Had she been feeling sick? She couldn't remember. Her period had been irregular since she could remember, so a couple of skipped months had never alarmed her before. The only slight clue, she supposed, had been her insatiable need for strawberries - but she'd always loved them. 

Jungkook had thought that she was just rekindling her childhood love for the sweet fruit. 

He'd even started picking up a punnet of them whenever he walked past the farmers market on his way home from work - which was most days. He'd rerouted his journey specifically.

It had been cute, watching her face light up as she saw them, and then devour them within a few minutes. 

"You'll turn into a strawberry, one day," he had told her.

The sweetness of the last few months now left a sour taste in his mouth. 

Pregnant. He hadn't expected a single word to impact him in such a profound way. 

Selfishly, Jungkook wasn't ready for Felicity to have a child. In his eyes, they were both still kids themselves, still aimlessly trying to figure the world out. How the hell was he meant to adjust to life with his best friend as a mother?

And why was he so devastated that he wouldn't be the one to hold her hand along this journey? 

They'd done everything together. Well, nearly everything. Conceiving a child? Yeah... she'd done that without him. 

He couldn't understand why it hurt, nor why he felt so betrayed, but all that ceased to matter when she broke down in his car on the way home from the hospital. 

There was only one thing that Jungkook wanted to do from that moment forward, and it was to protect her.

And so they'd spent the last few months converting the office into a nursery, and reading through baby books to figure out how the fuck they were supposed to parent a child. Well, how the fuck Felicity was supposed to parent a child. 

Jungkook wasn't the father. Nor was he Felicity's partner.

Yet as he stood, watching her glow and bask in the glory of pregnancy in his parent's backyard, he couldn't help but think it wouldn't be such an awful reality.

✧

It was just the two of them now, sitting on his parent's lawn after all the festivities had died down.

They'd spent their childhood playing hide and seek in the trees towards the far end, getting lost for hours in their very own fantasy world.

She would have quite liked to have escaped into it once more.

 "You think I'm stupid, don't you?" She sighed, eyes resting downwards to the hand that was cradling the top of her bump.

Even she thought that she was stupid; stupidly unprepared, stupid to think that she could do this and even more stupid for getting herself into this predicament in the first place.

"I think you're brave," he mumbled softly, twiddling with grass on the lawn below them. "You're the bravest person I know, Flick."

"You're the best person I know."

"You need to meet more people."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

As a kid, Felicity had accidentally broken Jungkook's finger during a playfight. 

She'd cried once she'd seen how bent out of shape it was, and vowed never to do it again.

Jungkook thought that she just might break that vow as she squeezed onto his hand, screaming in agony as she went into labour. 

This had not been part of the plan.

She was two weeks early, and for the hundredth time during her pregnancy, Felicity was terrified again. She wasn't ready for this! She couldn't be a mum, her brain told her. Not now. She just  couldn't!

Except she could. And she would. And she did.

Her mother took over from Jungkook as soon as she arrived at the hospital, and it took him a second to realise that this was it: he'd never get back the life he'd had before his best friend had given birth. 

And despite the immense sense of pride he felt, there was also an unmistakable sense of mourning, too. 

They'd never go on wild nights out, nor spur-of-the-moment road trips ever again. He wouldn't stay in her room until the early hours discussing all kinds of shite, and she wouldn't show up at his place of work unannounced just for something to do. 

Her life wasn't hers now; it was her child's. 

Yet as soon as he entered the birthing suite to see an utterly exhausted version of Felicity, who he almost didn't recognise, none of that mattered. 

All that mattered was her, red-cheeked and teary-eyed, and the tiny little human cradled in a mass of blankets, asleep on her chest.

"Hey, Uncle Kookie," Felicity cooed, choking back a tearful laugh as her swollen eyes met his. 

"Hey, Mama Flick," he whispered, heart stuttering in his chest. He looked at her, and then the baby, and he smiled. The gravity of it all hit him like a tonne of bricks. "Shit, Flick."

"Made a bit of a mess, haven't I," she nodded towards the sleeping beauty in her arms, ignoring the fact Jungkook had just cursed - but of course he was going to be the one to show her offspring the wicked side of the world. She'd have rathered no one else do the honours.

"You made a miracle." 

"On a technicality, I made a little girl," Felicity urged him to come closer with a nod of her head.

"She's so..." Jungkook stared in awe. Her tiny little face was pudgy and pink, eyes closed with tiny little lashes resting on her cheeks. A balled hand rested by her chin, minuscule sharp nails perfectly formed on the tips of her fingers. Dark hairs stippled her head, and already, he knew she'd look just like her mother. "Perfect." 

Putting his index finger out to within touching distance, the tiny hand uncurled and grabbed onto it. He felt like a giant. 

"Emilia," Felicity whispered adoringly. "Millie for short."

"Hey Millie," Jungkook cooed, waving his finger slightly, still trapped in her palm. "I'm gonna be your best friend."

"You better still be mine, too." 

Jungkook tore his gaze from Millie for the first time, to catch Felicity's enamoured eyes on him. 

With a smile, he willed all of the love in his body outwards, hoping that he could engulf them both with the sincerity of how he felt for them. Pressing his lips firmly against Felicity's forehead, still laced with sweat and exhaustion from labour, he didn't feel like he could ever adore another human more.

"Good luck getting rid of me."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

"How am I supposed to know how to change nappies?! You're the one who read the baby books!"

Jungkook didn't adjust well to there being a baby in the house. He'd never spent much time around kids, let alone lived with one.

"Oh you are so full of shit, you've read them all!" 

"I think you'll find that Millie is the one who's full of-"

"Can you just get me a clean one from her changing bag?!"

It was a strange, unsettling chaos that unfolded at the crack of dawn each morning. 

Neither Jungkook nor Felicity went to bed anymore - they just fell asleep wherever and whenever they could. It would never be too long until the baby monitor roared once more, tearing them from their sleep to tame the big bad dragon that Millie was.

"Keep this up and you'll end up like Miss Havisham," Jungkook had jokingly warned the adorable, doe-eyed chunk after a particularly sleep-deprived night. "Boys don't like girls who scream and cry all the time. Ask your mother."

"Did you just tell my baby that she's going to die alone?!"

"No?" Jungkook's voice raised in pitch, and had it not been for the giggling cupid in his arms, she'd have thrown a pillow at him. 

But, oh, what a beautiful sight it was to behold.

She'd never been more exhausted, but life had also never felt more idyllic.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

"I can't believe you're actually doing this," Jungkook scoffed on the eve of Millie's first birthday.

Felicity was exasperated by this point. They'd argued about this countless times already. All she wanted was for Emilia to have a happy, stable family.

"He's her dad! I have to at least try, for her sake."

"Her dad?!" Jungkook wasn't even trying to hide his upset now. "I've been more of a dad to Millie than he ever has been."

"And that's the problem! You have your own life, Koo. We're stopping you from building a family of your own."

"You are my family. I love the pair of you to death."

Truthfully, Jungkook had always been a little bit in love with Felicity.

He masqueraded it as purely platonic, the kind of love typical of two best friends, but deep down he knew it was more.

Call it denial, call it naivety, call it what you want; Jungkook had resigned himself to the knowledge that Felicity was too good for him years ago.

She was smarter. Prettier. Kinder. Better.

He would have much rathered the luxury of having her in his life as his friend - his best friend - than not at all. Living parallel to one another, existing side by side, their equilibrium worked.

Or at least it did, until Hoseok showed up out of the blue finally wanting to play a part in Millie's life.

"And we love you too," Felicity stressed. "But one day you're gonna want a wife and your own little rascal running about at your feet."

Millie was his little rascal. Why couldn't Felicity see that?

He had all he needed right there, with them. He didn't want more. He wanted things to stay exactly as they were.

And so when Felicity updated her instagram story of Hoseok pushing Millie's stroller around the zoo, with the caption 'family time', Jungkook blocked her.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The blocking didn't last for long. 

In fact, it lasted for less than a day, because he'd been too damn curious to know what they'd been up to. He still felt a primal need to protect the pair of them - but Felicity had never been into that macho man bullshit.

She could take care of herself.

Jungkook knew this. 

So he threw himself into work and his hobbies, hoping to find something, someone - anything, anyone - to distract from the fact that Millie no longer needed him to tie her shoelaces, and that Felicity could call someone else to run and get her milk from the shops. 

Twenty-five, on his way to the top of the corporate food chain, and with an enviable jawline, he was the city's most eligible bachelor. Or at least Felicity thought so.

She'd sigh with every new update of his instagram feed. 

It was a luxury that she only indulged in when Hoseok was asleep, for they'd already had at least fourteen arguments about Jungkook. He couldn't seem to comprehend that Jungkook was important to her, even in the most platonic sense of the word. He was her friend. 

She didn't have many of those now that she was a mother - and she wouldn't have changed it for the world, but it did make her feel a little bit isolated at times.

Sometimes, she wished that she could go back to high school and spend all night at a shitty house party with Jungkook, drunkenly eating cereal from the bag until they'd stumble home and sneak into his house through the garage window. 

It was the little things that she missed the most; his breathy nose laugh when he found things mildly amusing. His coconut scented shampoo. The way he'd always save her the white jelly beans because they were her favourites. 

Hoseok just ate the whole entire bag.

Still, she had chosen this. 

Just like Jungkook had chosen Louisa, his latest squeeze.

Bleach blonde, brash-talking and bound to cheat on him with the first Russian oligarch who showed an interest in her, Louisa wasn't one for the faint of heart. They'd met at a work function, and she'd taken to Jungkook's boyish humour and manly frame like a duck to water. 

He'd taken to the fact that she couldn't be less like Felicity even if she tried.

They were using each other, and they were both aware of this - but who cared? No harm, no foul.  

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

It was the summer of their 26th trip around the sun, and Jungkook and Felicity were finally talking again. He was playing fetch with Bam, his new Dobermann pup, while Millie clung to his hand. 

Felicity watched the pair of them fondly from her parent's kitchen, where the families had gathered once more. 

"He's so good with Millie," her mother cooed, coming to stand beside her with a fresh brew. "You're lucky to have him."

"He's a saint," Felicity nodded, well aware of this fact. 

"Any word from Hoseok?"

"No."

He'd dipped, again. This time it seemed to be for longer. Felicity was furious.

She couldn't care less for herself - she and Hoseok were chalk and cheese. They never would have made one another happy.

But he was supposed to be Millie's father. He was supposed to patch up her grazes and read her to sleep. It was he who should have taught her the joys of playing fetch and that she shouldn't be afraid of dogs.

And yet it was Jungkook.

Just like he had been the one to watch over Millie, while Felicity was wiped out from exhaustion in the early months. Every call Felicity had made, Jungkook had answered, come rain or shine.

Not once had he ever let her down.

She'd always hated being reliant on other people, but there was something slightly glorious about having someone she knew she could depend on.

"Is he still with whats-her-face?"

"Lousia? Mhmm."

"Well," her mother sighed. "As long as he's happy."

"Mhmm."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

"Are you sure about this?" Felicity's voice trembled slightly as she spoke. 

It was almost inaudible to the naked ear, but Jungkook had been trained over the course of two and a half decades to detect every inflexion and change in tone.

He smiled in a bid to reassure her. It was one of those half-smiles, the kind that he pulled every time his mum shouted cheese and flashed a roll-up camera in his face when they were kids. The corners of his mouth would push back too far, his lips curving around his face, not up his cheeks.

It was funny how he could be 27, and yet still look like a seven-year-old version of himself.

"Positive," he clasped her hands with his own. She could feel the hard chrome of his rings against her soft skin. "We both know it's what we want. Why wait?"

And so he didn't. 

He was married by the end of the summer to a vision in white, who insisted on culling Felicity from the groom's party. His best man speech was given by his new brother-in-law, who he'd met on only eight occasions prior to the big day. 

"She's just traditional," Jungkook had defended the decision Louisa had made on his behalf. "You know you're still my best friend, right?"

It was funny, Felicity thought. Surely the person you choose to spend the rest of your life with should be your best friend?

She cried for nearly three days straight after the wedding.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Jungkook stared at Felicity for a little too long over dinner. 

She'd been making a toast, congratulating all the wonderful things that had happened in the past year.

But not once did she mention Jungkook's wedding. 

"It must have just slipped her mind," Jungkook reasoned with his furious wife on the drive home. "A lot of shit happened over the last twelve months."

"Why are you always defending her?!" Louisa practically screamed, fed up. "What about me? Our marriage?"

"I'm not defending anyone!" He stressed, exasperated by the conversation. They were always arguing and it was always over Felicity. "Tell me what you want. What do you want me to do?!"

"Cut it off. It's disrespectful at this point Jungkook. She clearly has no integrity for the sanctity of our marriage."

His jaw clenched, fingers so tight around the steering wheel that his knuckles turned white. He had half a mind to just veer off the road and be done with it all. He was so damn sick of these conversations. 

So damn tired. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

By the fall of his 28th year, Jungkook had successfully lived for nearly a year without Felicity.

His wife seemed very pleased with this statistic, but he hadn't smiled in like what felt to be a lifetime.  

He popped by her parent's house pretty often, checking in and seeing how Millie was doing. He missed her more than anything. He sometimes even thought he'd trade a day with Felicity to spend a day with Millie instead. 

But that was a silly thing to think of when he had a wife, who he believed would be a great mother one day, sitting at home waiting for him. 

Although, she wasn't waiting for him, not really. 

She was more often than not sleeping with Karl, a rich oligarch who had done some business with her company a few months before the wedding. 

Jungkook didn't know that, though, and he wouldn't do for quite some time. 

Funnily enough, when he did find out, he didn't seem to care. What bothered him the most was that there was no way he could just show up at Felicity's door, and curl up with a tub of Ben and Jerry's like they used to do. 

He spent his first night as a divorcee alone, in a hotel room, with all of his possessions in a storage locker on the outskirts of the city. 

His life should have been figured out by now. Instead, it had all fallen apart entirely. 

He'd never been more alone.

And yet as he drove through the suburbs, taking his slightly extended route home to swing by Felicity's parent's place, he felt content. Free. 

When he arrived, there was a carefully crafted note waiting for him, decorated in glitter and a hot pink gel pen. The letters were jumbled, the sizes awkward and gangly, corrected in places by cursive strokes that belonged to a hand he knew all too well.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Millie was clutching onto Jungkook's shoulders for dear life as he whizzed around his parent's garden. It was summer again, and everything felt like it was falling into place. Burgers were sizzling on the barbecue, and Felicity had a glass of wine in her hand as she watched her two best friends have the time of their lives together.

She wondered if this was it for her; if this was the life that she was destined to live.

When she considered her life, and the years that she'd spent on her own, it was hard for her to find a memory where Jungkook wasn't involved. 

There's not an inch of her childhood home he hasn't explored, nor she his. 

He'd held her hair back when she'd had one too many drinks on countless nights out, and she'd held his hand as they staggered back home from the clubs that they would dance in all night. 

He would send her sunflowers for no reason, just because he liked the way they reminded him of when they lived together. 

She'd drop his favourite snacks off at his house on the way home from her weekly grocery shop, just because she liked the way it reminded her of when they lived together.

There wasn't a version of her life where he hadn't been a fundamental part - and she didn't imagine there ever would be. He would always be there, ever-present, ever protecting. 

"Whatcha thinkin' bout?" He asked her, sipping on a bottle of beer at the end of the evening. Millie was in bed, her sleep monitor on the table by their feet, as they curled up on his parent's patio sofa. 

She seemed to be thinking about everything all at once, and yet also nothing. 

"Remember when we used to play weddings down by the trees?" Felicity nodded towards the far end of the garden.

He did.

"If memory serves me well, we played divorce just as often."

That wasn't untrue. On multiple occasions, neighbours had complained about hearing the two of them scream blue murder at one another, fighting over custody of a plastic doll and three cream crackers. 

"I wonder what they'd say if they could see us now," she smiled, nestling her head a little deeper into Jungkook's chest. She could hear his heart. It sounded like it was going to jump out of his chest. "Seven-year-old us, I mean."

"Young Jungkook would probably ask why I'm hugging you like this," he laughed, tightening his grip around her, before whining in his best seven-year-old voice. "Girls have cooties."

After their laughter settled, Felicity paused.

"Why are you hugging me like this?"

He paused.

And then he decided to tell the truth.

"Because I like the way it feels."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

It was a Saturday, and Jungkook was at Felicity's again.

At this point, it would have been stranger if he wasn't around her place. He frequented it so often that not only did he have his own mug, but his own pair of slippers and a coat hanging up by the back door.

Her single mother budget could only afford a modest two-bed, though, so he slept on the sofa on the nights he'd stay too late. Which, again, was most nights.

He had a three-bed apartment in the hub of the city. He didn't need to come to hers. But it felt like home, and so he always found his way back.

"I just did not have the energy to argue against her," Felicity rolled her eyes, crashing down into the sofa, leaning against Jungkook's broad chest. "She insisted on staying at Granny and Grandad's and refused to eat until I took her there."

"What a monster."

"Devil incarnate."

"She gets it from you."

"Me?!" Felicity pulled away from her position, shock plastered all over her face at his audacity. "She gets her attitude problem from you!"

"Oh, no, no, no," Jungkook laughed, sitting up parallel to Felicity. "Don't try and pin this on me."

"You literally swore the first time you saw her!"

"And how many times has she heard you utter the word 'fuck'? I know it's at least six," Jungkook teased, watching faux rage brew in Felicity's playful eyes. She was a fantastic mother, but she'd always sworn like a sailor - especially when he was around. "She learnt her Havisham ways from you."

Felicity grabbed the tub of frozen ice cream from her coffee table and held it in the air, as if to threaten Jungkook with the prospect of cold contact against his warm skin.

"Take that back."

And for a moment, they were kids again, wrestling against each other playfully, batting to see who would come out on top.

He was stronger, much stronger than he had been as a boy, but so was she. She'd learnt a few new moves too; how the tug of a hair could cause a distraction, how a knee against a groin could halt any sudden movements and how the scratch of nails down a back-

No. That wasn't one of them. 

Yet the pads of her fingers could feel his tight skin as he grappled with her body until she was squirming beneath him.

And then, suddenly, they weren't kids anymore.

They were a man, who had spent years suppressing his complete, pristine adoration and desire, and a woman, who had spent an equally long time trying not to imagine the way it would have felt for his lips to express the words she wished he'd speak.

Their breath was hot and heavy - sinful - and they both know that if they didn't break apart now, there'd be no going back.

It felt like a now or never moment; as if he didn't kiss her now, then he never could. 

But he'd also never be able to take it back.

"I win," he smiled, retracting back to sit on his knees.

"I let you," she scoffed, ignoring the blush she could feel in her cheeks. She, too, shuffled back, creating a little distance between them. 

It was awkward; unusually, painfully awkward. Jungkook didn't know what to say or do, so he did nothing, just turning his attention back to the television. 

Felicity wanted to ignore it too. But she couldn't. Not anymore. 

"Remember when we used to live in that shitty little house in the city?"

"You expect me to have forgotten?" he smirked.

Typically, she'd laugh at his playful remark. Not today. Today, her heart was beating too fast to allow laughter to gather in her diaphragm. 

"Do you remember when you asked if I'd ever thought about it? About kissing you?"

Her voice was quiet, but her words shattered through Jungkook as if she was holding a fairground megaphone to his ear.

"Mhmm," was all he could muster. 

She wasn't not looking at him, and he wasn't not looking at her.

"I did," she admitted. 

There was a pause.

"I do," she corrected herself. "I do... think about it. Sometimes. Quite a lot, actually. More than I probably should."

Jungkook choked on his own spit. Attempted to hide it with a cough. Didn't do a very good job of it.

"But best not to, right?" She backtracked once she realised that she'd taken things too far. Stupid. She chewed on her cheeks, terrified to catch his reflection in the television screen as it faded to black.

"Right," he croaked, as they both found themselves staring into the black abyss, directly at one another.

Now?

Or never?

"Oh, fuck it," he growled, turning to grab her wrist, dragging her onto his lap. There was no hesitation, no break in their movements as he pulled her lips into his, pressing together for the very first time. 

It was undignified, frantic, and a downright mess; so wrong, it was right.

Felicity had failed to consider how it would feel to have his teeth nibble on her bottom lip, or the roughness of his tongue against her own. She hadn't anticipated the sweetness of his breath, or the air he'd exhale from his nose onto her cheeks; long, hard and pent up from being so enthralled in her, that he'd forgotten how to breathe almost entirely.

When they finally parted, briefly, just to stop themselves from going dizzy, Jungkook whispered a confession:

"Guess I thought about it a few times, too."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

2033.

The year of the Ox.

The summer of their 35th year - soon to be 36th.

"Hey, Havisham," Jungkook smirked once Felicity was finally within earshot of him. He didn't dare speak loud enough for anyone else to hear, but it earned him an exuberant smile from the beauty opposite him. 

"I know you're only doing this because of that stupid pact."

"Ah, you got me," he put his hands to his chest, as if a blade had sliced straight through it. "Is it too late to leave you at the altar?"

Their banter was interrupted by the elderly man in front of them, who commanded attention from the room. "Please be seated."

There was shuffling behind them, the clinking of heels on ancient stone floors and creaks of pews that hadn't been updated since the 1950s.

Slipping his hand into hers, there was no way Jungkook would be leaving her at the altar.

There was no way he'd be leaving her, full stop. Not now, not ever.

"Remember when you used to tell me that 'love is death'?" she grinned, quietly pleased with herself for remembering such a detail, as the Vicar began to share some babble neither of them really cared for.

If he wasn't careful, Jungkook's laugh would get them told off, just like it always did back when they would banter in classrooms together. 

Baby-face teenagers, they'd known deep down, even back then, that this was endgame for them. 

"We planned one hell of a funeral."

Glancing over to drink her in one final time as an unwedded woman, he knew that if love really was death, he'd have been gone a long time ago. 

"I love you."

Her nose scrunched; an adopted mannerism of his that even Millie was picking up on.

"I'm still not taking your last name."

"Damnit."

"I love you, too."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ox // xo *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧