Chapter Text
"Well, what the hell! There's nothing in this stupid dumpster but a bunch of garbage!"
Min Yoongi, seventeen years old and homeless, had been on his own for a few years now. He thought he had it all figured out for the most part.
Basic survival, anyway.
However, today wasn't going all that well for him. This was his third dumpster dive of the day where he couldn't find anything relatively useful. No old clothes that had been discarded from stores, no cool little trinkets, but worst of all, no food. That was what he'd always gone in search of first.
Food.
He tried to keep his dumpster diving to late at night so nobody would see him, but he had been exceptionally starving today and couldn't wait a moment longer. Unfortunately, it was constant bad luck. Most of the restaurants didn't throw out their used food until night time -another reason why that was when he would usually crawl around in them- and by morning everything was always spoiled.
He had crawled into one of the giant green dumpsters behind a local BBQ restaurant called KBBQ (which literally just stood for Korean Barbeque- quite enticing), one of his favorites, in hopes of finding some old chicken wings. He'd even settle for some stale bread at this point. After tearing apart countless giant black garbage bags, all he found were old containers with no food in them. Empty boxes. None of the drink cups with lids had even the slightest drop of liquid in them.
He took the current empty cup he was holding and threw it back down onto the floor of the dumpster, full of rage. "This is bullsh-"
"-Hello."
He flinched when he was caught off guard by a random voice coming from his left. He looked and was startled to see a young boy with brown hair and giant brown eyes staring at him. The boy's hands were holding onto the side of the dumpster, an indication that the kid had climbed up onto one of its little ledges to look up and over into it.
Yoongi had to catch his breath as he placed a hand on his chest. He grabbed a random empty food container and chucked it at the kid's face, watching him dodge it. "Hasn't anyone ever told you it's rude to sneak up on a person like that?! You could have given me a heart attack!"
"I'm sorry. I was walking by and heard talking coming from inside the dumpster and thought I was going crazy. I had to make sure that I wasn't." The boy looked around the dumpster to see a ton of the garbage bags ripped apart with trash spilling out of them. "Did you lose something in the garbage? Do you need some help looking for it?"
"No, I don't need help! Not from you or anyone else! Go away and mind your own business, kid! In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit busy. Now, shoo! Get out of here." Yoongi continued to dig around through garbage bags, ignoring the boy.
The boy holding onto the dumpster inspected Yoongi, who was rummaging about inside of it. He noticed his medium length brown hair that clearly hadn't been washed, his clothes that sort of fit but not really, and the general disheveled look of him. He tilted his head as he continued to stare in silence.
Yoongi couldn't help but feel annoyed. "First you sneak up on me, and now you're staring? Do you have a camera? Would you like a picture or something? I told you to go away." He took another piece of garbage and chucked it at the kid, missing again.
The boy didn't say anything, but continued to stare.
Yoongi groaned. "You know what? Fine. If you won't go away, then I will." He figured this dumpster had turned out to be a waste of his time anyway. He climbed out and shoved the boy out of his way. Without a second thought, he started walking briskly back down and out of the alleyway from behind the restaurant.
The boy followed Yoongi. "My name is Jungkook, by the way!" His tone made him sound quite eager. "What's your name?"
"I don't see how that's any of your business." Yoongi tried to speed up, and Jungkook made sure to keep up with him.
"Do you always hang out in dumpsters?" Jungkook asked, moving on from his last question as he continued to keep up with Yoongi. "You kind of smell like you do."
Yoongi stopped in his tracks and turned to Jungkook. He eyed the boy up and down, taking in his newish looking activewear and his giant blue backpack that looked stuffed to the brim. Everything Jungkook was wearing looked clean and new, which made Yoongi immediately realize this kind must have just left his house to go out for a random stroll through town. He also noticed that Jungkook was significantly shorter than him, and he had a bit of a baby face with his giant eyes and puffy little cheeks. Yoongi could tell that Jungkook had to be a few years younger than him, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, at most.
Yoongi wanted to make a snarky remark back, but realized it really wasn't worth his time. He was starving and thirsty, and that was all he was concerned about. He didn't have time to be annoyed by some random boy's rude remarks on the street. "Look, kid."
"My name is Jungkook! Well, my full name is Jeon Jungkook, but I prefer to just go by Jungkook."
Yoongi sighed. "I don't care what your name is. Now if you don't mind, I've asked you to leave me alone like a million times already! So go away, will you?! What are you even doing out here alone anyway? You're like, tiny. Go back home already before you find yourself in trouble."
Yoongi watched as Jungkook grabbed onto both of his backpack straps and glanced around, avoiding eye contact for a moment. He could see Jungkook was hesitating to say what he wanted to. Yoongi thought he'd finally gotten the boy to shut up.
"I've...I've never had a home," Jungkook finally said.
Yoongi had absolutely no idea how to reply to that. He honestly didn't know if Jungkook was kidding or not. The kid had to have come from somewhere, didn't he? He also took slight offense, thinking that was not something to even joke about, considering he himself was actually homeless.
"Alright, well then, assuming you've never had a home, then where did you come from?" Yoongi asked as he raised an eyebrow. He was hoping to catch Jungkook in his little white lie. He has to be lying. His clothes...his backpack...he doesn't look the slightest bit homeless.
"The orphanage."
"That counts, I think. It's still somewhere you live. So go back. They're probably looking for you by now."
Jungkook made the same expression he'd made before he stated that he'd never had a home. He hesitated, and then replied with, "They're not looking for me."
"What makes you think that?"
Jungkook stared at the ground and started kicking little pebbles around with the tip of his shoe. Without any other explanation, he repeated himself. "They're not looking for me."
"You're telling me they don't look for their runaways?"
Jungkook shrugged but didn't respond.
There was an awkward silence between them, and then Jungkook decided to ask Yoongi if he lived in the area.
"Where I live isn't your business either." He didn't care to tell Jungkook anything, despite Jungkook looking quite ready to give his entire life story right there and then.
The two stared at each other in more awkward silence. Jungkook was starting to get the hint that Yoongi didn't want to be bothered, as much as he would have loved for them to talk or hang out for a bit. He figured Yoongi had to be around his age, maybe a little bit older. As the silence lingered, he heard Yoongi's stomach start growling and saw him clutch it.
"You're hungry? Is that why you were in the dumpster?" Jungkook asked. He started to take his backpack off and unzip it. "You should have said something. I have food."
Yoongi's mouth instantly watered at the mention of food. Is he really about to offer me something to eat?
He watched Jungkook finish opening up his backpack to see the entire backpack had been stuffed to the brim with individually packaged twinkies.
"Twinkies?! You're telling me that big ass backpack you're carrying around is full of nothing but twinkies?!" Yoongi burst into laughter. It was quite possibly the funniest thing he'd ever seen. "You ran away, and all you brought with you was twinkies?"
"Yeah, they're my favorite!" Jungkook grabbed one and held it in his hand. "I'll give you one, but only if you tell me your name first."
Yoongi was too hungry to argue. "Min Yoongi. There, are you happy? You can just call me Yoongi."
Jungkook held out the twinkie and Yoongi snatched it from him, tearing the wrapper apart and devouring it in seconds.
"Yoongi. That's a cool name. How old are you? I'm fifteen!"
"If I tell you how old I am, I want another twinkie," Yoongi demanded.
Jungkook held out another one. Yoongi snatched it as he told Jungkook he was seventeen.
"I knew it! I knew we were probably around the same age! That's so cool! Maybe we could-"
"-We are not doing anything," Yoongi replied, cutting Jungkook off. "Thanks for the food, but now I have to get going. And don't follow me either. I don't know how long ago you ran away but go back to whatever it was you were doing before you found me."
"I was just walking. I left the orphanage about two hours ago," Jungkook replied.
"Two hours ago!?" Yoongi was beside himself. This was all turning into a big joke to him. "That's not you running away! That's you taking a leisurely stroll through town! Go back, kid. You know nothing about being out here." He turned and started to briskly walk away again.
Jungkook followed. "But maybe you could-"
"Jungkook! I swear to god if you don't go away in the next five minutes!"
"Okay! Okay! Fine! Sorry!" He got the hint. Give the damn dude my twinkies, and he's still a jerk! His parents must be so proud!
Yoongi felt a wave of relief course through him when he saw that Jungkook had finally stopped following him to go do...whatever else he liked to do. At least I got rid of him. About damn time!
The rest of the day was uneventful for Yoongi. He wandered around still looking for more food and something to drink, and had found a few things here and there. When he was really, really desperate, he would steal from some of the local gas stations. He had gotten so good at it that he could rob the same ones over and over and somehow still never get caught. Two years of practice made him pretty stealthy.
He was still laughing about Jungkook in his head. Fucking twinkies. The kid wants to be a runway, and the little dude fills his backpack with fucking twinkies. He knows nothing about being a runaway. Reality is going to hit him fast. He'll be running back to the orphanage before it even gets dark outside. Kid won't even last the whole day out here.
Once darkness fell, Yoongi waited until the perfect time to head back to the KBBQ dumpster. They always threw their wasted food out a bit after 10 p.m. He had a new watch that he'd recently stolen to help him keep track of the time. Around 10:15 he made his way back behind KBBQ but stopped when he got to the entry of the alleyway and heard some kind of rustling from behind the building- right where he was supposed to be heading.
He kept silent as he crept his way towards the back. A single streetlight above was lighting up half the alleyway, which showed no signs of people. Maybe it's just some kind of animal.
The closer he got, he realized the noise had been coming from inside the dumpster. That's when he took a deep breath and relaxed a bit. Obviously just a racoon or something. But it's getting to the food!
He ran to the dumpster and as he ascended the little ledge to get in, he yelled to try and scare the animal away as he looked down.
Yoongi rapidly blinked, thinking he was hallucinating. After what felt like his millionth time blinking, the same doe eyed kid he met earlier was still standing right in front of him. He felt his blood start to boil.
"You again?!"