Chapter Text
“Eat your food, Jungkook-ah! Don’t be like that.”
Jungkook frowns, and turns his head away petulantly as his mother tries to feed him vegetables. “They don't taste good at all, eomma.”
“How will you get stronger if you don't eat your greens?” Jungkook's father asks, voice gentle as he reaches out and takes the chopsticks from his mother's hand. “Come here, let appa feed you.”
To five year old Jungkook, this is his entire world.
His mother, father, and these little moments they spend together. School is okay. Jungkook doesn't really have a lot of friends because he isn't too talkative and the other kids only play with the ones who actively interact with them, but Jungkook doesn’t mind. He likes learning about new stuff, and the extracurricular activities he gets to do.
Apart from that, his world truly does revolve around his parents, and there's not much outside this bubble that he really cares about.
Until then. Until that moment.
Until his eyes dart across the room that day, and for the first time ever, he sees him.
Jungkook watches the boy run in with a big smile on his face and get scooped up into the arms of the restaurant owner.
“Taehyung-ah, my son, how was school today?” He asks the boy.
The boy beams in response, excitedly telling his dad how he did so well on a test, how he aced a game they played, and how he shared his food with his friends. The boy is very expressive, his excitement and happiness showing through his expression. His hair flops around cutely as he moves around and jumps in his father's arms, and it gets Jungkook thinking.
This boy – he must have a lot of friends, unlike Jungkook. He seems exactly the kind that others must want to invite to play.
Does he have a lot of fun at school, then? With all his friends? He probably does.
And… would he make Jungkook his friend too?
Jungkook decides he doesn’t want to find out the answer to that yet, because he’ll be a little upset if the answer is no.
He's never been too keen on the concept of friendship so far, being content just being by himself and spending time with his parents, because they give him more than enough love. In fact, Jungkook likes not having to jump around or constantly talk. With friends, one would constantly have to do that, and that would take up so much energy.
But seeing this boy now, Jungkook feels intrigued. There's a certain energy that radiates off him, something infectious that fills Jungkook with something warm and fuzzy.
Jungkook wishes he could be friends with him.
“Appa, who is that?” Jungkook turns to his father, and asks, letting his curiosity get the best of him.
“Oh, that's Mr. Kim’s son, Taehyungie.” Jungkook's father says.
Jungkook looks at Taehyung, and nods as if he understands. He's so engrossed in this newfound interest, that as his father tries to feed him the same vegetables he rejected a couple of minutes ago, he eats them absent-mindedly.
Jungkook chews, and his eyes stay locked onto Taehyung. He can't quite understand yet what is causing this fascination, but he knows he wants to find out more about this boy.
“Do you want to play with him? Should I call for him?” Jungkook's father asks. “Mr. Kim wouldn’t mind at all!”
“No!” Jungkook's cheeks go red, and he feels embarrassed all of a sudden. “No.”
“Okay.” His father chuckles, and ruffles his hair. “I’m sure it would be okay, though. He’s a very friendly kid.”
He's about to say something else, when his mobile phone starts ringing. It's a device Jungkook has taken quite a liking to. He likes playing the snake game on it, and that's all he thinks about as he watches his father receive the phone call.
He then watches him greet whoever it is that's calling, and then, as his expression turns into something serious. He watches him stand up, tell his mother he has to leave, and then lean down to give Jungkook a kiss on his crown.
And then, he storms out.
Jungkook wishes his father could stay a little longer, but he doesn't mind. He's used to it. His parents tell him his father has important work that might come up at any hour, but he doesn't know what kind of work exactly. He doesn't dig deeper either, because he's not too interested.
All he cares about is the time they get to spend together. At five, that's all that matters to him.
Sometimes, he does wish his father would accompany him to his parent-teacher meetings at school more frequently. It's almost always only his mother, and he absolutely loves her, but it feels incomplete without his father at every meeting — all the other kids have their dads show up, but for some reason his father is often busy.
Still, Jungkook doesn't mind, because the time that his father does spend with him is always so full of love that it makes up for everything else.
He turns to look at Taehyung again. He's now telling his parents something excitedly, his mother having come out now too. Jungkook watches, as his mother feeds him vegetables, and eats without qualms because his mind is focused somewhere else.
“What? Do you want to play with him?” Jungkook's mother asks too. “You do, don't you?”
Jungkook blushes again, and shakes his head. “No.” He lies, out of embarrassment.
He doesn't know how to act around other kids, let alone someone he's feeling so drawn to for some reason. In his mind, Jungkook has unknowingly drawn out a pedestal and placed Taehyung on it without even trying.
Little does he know, Taehyung's never coming off, and Jungkook is never going to try to make him.
💭
The initial pull Jungkook feels towards Taehyung only gets strengthened over time. It develops into something much stronger and way more intense as the years pass by. And not only does it increase in vigour — there are also newer layers added to his admiration.
Jungkook doesn't know if it's Taehyung's exuberant personality that radiates warmth wherever he goes, or the way he laughs or the fact that he seems to have this magnetic charm nobody is immune to. And of course, Jungkook finds it really hard not to stare at his face sometimes. It's embarrassing, carrying around a crush of this magnitude.
No, they don't become friends by any means. But Jungkook still visits the restaurant with his parents every now and then. Now fifteen, he's gotten slightly better at talking to people and interacts with the restaurant owner and his wife.
But whenever Taehyung comes in, Jungkook still gets tongue-tied. He doesn't ever make eye contact or any effort to speak — simply because the mere thought makes him nervous.
He knows he isn't good at this, and he knows he's going to stutter or say something dumb if he tries. It's better to just remain ‘the quiet guy’ in Taehyung's eyes, he thinks.
Taehyung, now seventeen, has grown up to be ten times whatever he was at five in Jungkook's eyes. His energy is even more infectious now, and it's only gotten worse for Jungkook's heart over the years.
It's like, sometimes Jungkook doesn't know what to do with the feeling he gets upon seeing Taehyung. It's so difficult to contain it.
And not to mention — Jungkook thinks Taehyung is beautiful. The most beautiful. Nobody else comes close.
To him, nobody else stands out the way Taehyung does and nobody could hold a candle to him. And if Taehyung ever found out, Jungkook would be mortified. But part of him also wishes Taehyung knew, and that there could be a chance for something to bloom between them.
But between Jungkook being introverted and reserved and the fact that they don't even talk to each other, he thinks his chances aren't great, really.
Taehyung never initiates conversation either. There are shared glances and eye contact every now and then, making Jungkook go so red in the face that he has to look away, but no interaction of significance ever happens between the two of them.
Perhaps Taehyung is just not interested, Jungkook thinks. It's not like he has a very friendly aura or a lot of stories to offer. Why would Taehyung even bother?
And that is how they remain strangers despite practically seeing each other's face at least once a week, for years on end.
However, time doesn't stop for all the mental dilly dallying, or for them. It passes, and they grow older, and life goes on.
Taehyung moves out for his military service after graduating high school, and then for med school. Jungkook moves out for the military two years after Taehyung does, before going to uni where he pursues a business degree.
And they don't really meet after that — but that isn't the final state of things at all.
💭
The day Jungkook found out what his family does, and how they've come to have all this endless money, the ground had shifted from beneath his feet a little.
He was eighteen, right after he finished high school with flying colors when his parents sat him down, and explained calmly and in vivid detail that their family doesn't exactly own a conventional business. It’s an empire, sure, but of an entirely different kind than Jungkook had imagined growing up.
He had felt stupid. Most kids would have been curious, asked a lot of questions about stuff like that.
But Jungkook always had his nose buried in books or comics or novels or found himself just googling random stuff or discovering new music or games to play as he grew older. He had always been content with as much information his parents gave him, and never dug around much in regards to the family business.
He had never really been interested in it.
Growing up, there had always only been very few things Jungkook had focused on. He’d always known that there was no dearth of money in his family, but up until that point, he had never really explicitly asked them where it came from.
He always thought that perhaps, just like his other classmates, his family owned some big company too.
So when Jeon Jaesuk finally told him that he headed an organised crime empire — something that's been passed down to him, Jungkook thought it was some kind of a joke at first. But then, a lot of things that never made sense to him suddenly did.
The absurd working hours, the stress he clearly saw on his father's face and that one time he came back with blood on his hands. Back then, they had told him he hurt himself. A twelve-year old Jungkook had believed them.
That night, when he finally found out, he cried himself to sleep. And he wondered if Taehyung knew what kind of ‘family business’ his family really owned. Is that why he never talked to Jungkook? Is that why he always stayed away?
That had to be it. Jungkook wishes it weren't.
If his chances were abysmal before, Jungkook had thought after that night that they plummeted straight to zero. Negative, if that was even possible.
But over time, he learnt to accept what and where he came from. He slowly became more comfortable with his identity as the heir of this crime syndicate — the Wisaeng Sung-pa. It's not something he planned or wanted, but he just got used to it.
The knowledge that his father never killed innocent people and only messed with people who caused trouble helped a bit, but the fact that he killed at all kept Jungkook up for countless nights. For a while, he couldn't even look his father in the eye.
But it was his father. One third of his little world, his family. Over time, Jungkook learnt to be at peace with things as they were. It was something he was born into, and that was a cold hard fact he couldn't change, so he let it sink in instead.
And even though it scared him, he kept telling himself that there was still time until he had to take the reins.
But there wasn't.
There isn't…
At twenty-two, Jungkook sits in his dorm room, working on an assignment that he needs to submit by next week. He's doing well at uni, and has obviously managed to keep his family background a secret.
It's not like he interacts with a lot of people anyway. He's had a single occupancy dorm room since the beginning, upon request of course. He attends his classes, comes back and studies, and mostly keeps to himself.
Jungkook has this mysterious aura around him, and an incredibly handsome face — which draws a lot of eyeballs wherever he goes. People on campus are curious, but Jungkook doesn't exactly have the most friendly aura, which manages to keep most of them at bay.
And even though there are a few people who do try to get his attention, Jungkook doesn't indulge them at all.
They're not Taehyung. They will never be.
His phone rings, and Jungkook clicks his tongue as he accepts it without checking the screen.
“Hello?”
“Jungkook-ah.” His mother speaks on the other end. “Appa is hurt. Could you come home?”
Jungkook's heart lurches in his throat. The pen he's been writing with slips out of his grip, and his stomach suddenly knots up. “Is he okay? What… what happened, eomma?”
“He was shot.” She sobs, voice cracking. “He's okay now, but unconscious. It's just too much for me alone here. Could you—”
“I'm on my way, eomma.” Jungkook says without hesitation, immediately getting up from his chair and grabbing his wallet and keys. “I'll get there in a bit.”
And he keeps his word. Within an hour, he's at their mansion, rushing in to see his father. He encounters his mother first, pacing outside the door, the color returning to her face instantly upon seeing him.
“Jungkook-ah…” She whispers, tears spilling out of her eyes.
Jungkook pulls her into a hug, and chokes down a sob that's been threatening to get out since he heard the news. He lets go, and then walks into the room slowly.
It breaks his heart to see his father lying down, asleep, looking weak and frail like that. It breaks his fucking heart. He's always been the strongest person Jungkook has known.
To see him look powerless and injured like that breaks something inside of him.
There's a bandage running straight across his chest, reddish-brown ointment seeping through the white dressing. This time, Jungkook can't help the way his eyes start watering.
But he's just grateful his father is okay — that he's here.
He lets out a long sigh, and goes to sit by the edge of his bed.
He slowly lifts his hand, and lets it rest against his own palm. He caresses the back of his father's hand, looking at him. “Why do you still get involved with these things, appa?”
His father stirs a little, frowning, before he opens his eyes. He struggles to speak, but his lips twitch and he still tries his best. “Jungkook-ah. You're here. I'm… okay.”
“Yeah. I can see.” Jungkook stares at his chest. “You're clearly okay, appa. A shot to the chest is the textbook definition of okay, after all.”
His father softly chuckles, but then contorts his face when it makes his chest hurt.
“Careful there, appa.” Jungkook almost scolds, a certain softness to his voice. “Appa… you don't need to keep doing this.”
“What do you mean?” He asks, and then takes a deep breath. “I've always done this. This is who I am. I run an empire. I'm… responsible for all the people under me. These are people who depend on us to make a living, people who had no other way out. I can’t just… quit.”
“I know. But you don't have to keep doing this.” Jungkook says. “You've got to rest… take care of yourself, appa. It's… not nice to see you like this.”
Jaesuk smiles. “I’m sorry for worrying you, Jungkook-ah. But a few days of bed rest, and I'll be up on my feet in no time.”
“No.” Jungkook shakes his head, unsure what's gotten into him all of a sudden. But seeing his father getting hurt this badly shifts something inside him instantly. “You're not going back to… whatever it is that you do.”
“Someone has to do it, Jungkook-ah.” His father tries to make him understand calmly. “And I can't just hand it over to anyone else until you're ready to take over.”
And in that moment, Jungkook makes a decision. Something he's been mulling over the entire journey from his uni to his home. He couldn't convince himself, and knew he had to give it a lot of thought.
But right now, it feels like the only way forward.
“You don't have to. I'll… do it.” Jungkook says. His voice doesn't even shake, and he doesn't stutter. There's no hesitation in his voice when he blurts the words out. “I'm ready.”
💭
At twenty-three, Jungkook slowly takes the reins. He's done with his degree, fresh out of uni and he would have loved to pursue a master's degree, but life doesn't always pan out the way we want it to.
Jungkook accepts it.
He gets his first tattoo — the gang symbol, a dragon on his back. It hurts like hell, but Jungkook doesn't make a sound. His eyes water a little, but he doesn't let a single drop spill out.
It's customary for every member to get it. His father has it, and he hears his grandfather did too. Jungkook doesn't even want to know how many generations this goes back to. The information he already has is more than enough.
He's barely keeping his head from exploding these days.
However, the dragon inked on his back does begin his love affair with tattoos. Over the next couple of years, Jungkook adds more and more ink to his skin, and ends up with a beautiful, intricate tattoo sleeve on his right arm.
He also starts adding piercings to his ears and face, and finds that he really likes them. He's always liked wearing dark and neutral colors, and it somehow all comes together and works in his favor as he starts dressing for ‘work’.
Work. Jungkook laughs to himself sometimes.
Up until some years ago, when Jungkook thought of work, he pictured himself working on a laptop, dealing with heaps of files and making phone calls all day.
He didn't imagine himself becoming a mob boss.
But as he stares at himself in the mirror one day, dapper in a fitted black suit and hair brushed away from his forehead, Jungkook realises that life has a way of catching you off guard.
It has a way of taking a sharp sideways turn where you're expecting a straight path.
This is Jungkook's unexpected turn into uncharted territory. But Jeon Jungkook has always been good at whatever he puts his mind to. He likes giving his best, no matter what it is that he's doing, and this is no different.
Very soon, Jungkook embodies his role to perfection. Navigating drug deals, making sure all the clubs under them keep running smoothly and that every single person does their job correctly and with transparency — Jungkook takes his position as the head of Wisaeng Sung-pa very seriously.
It's the only way he's ever known to do anything.
A month in, he kills for the first time. Actual murder.
It's one of his men, someone at the lower end of the gang hierarchy who harassed several people and tried to extort money from them on the side, without Jungkook's knowledge, for his own personal gains.
Not just that, he used Jungkook and the gang’s name to threaten these people into giving him money, when Jungkook would never drag innocent people into his world.
Despite what he is. Despite who he's become — Jungkook has some principles and integrity, much like his father. That is something he's never going to give up.
The guy even took away all the money an old couple had, and left them penniless before he spent it all on booze and drugs. In fact, he had physically hurt them when they had tried to protect their money. That detail had left Jungkook fuming.
He had confronted the guy, but despite all the proof Jungkook had seen, he lied to Jungkook's face and blamed the people he had tormented.
And Jungkook hates liars too.
His anger knew no bounds, and the guy was just pissing him off with all the lying and dodging. He finally lost it when the guy confessed and said he'd do it again if he wanted to — that he'd kill the old couple for money if he had to, and he had been completely serious when he said it.
Jungkook knew he couldn't keep a guy like that working for him, and neither was he fit to leave out so he could harm other people. He isn't entirely naive about how to handle such people — his father has given him a talk or two already.
Jungkook had pressed the trigger then, and the blood had splattered right across his face too. He had stared as the man's body recoiled from impact, and then fell, limp and lifeless. He felt the droplets of blood trickle down his cheeks, and then, as if it didn't affect him at all, he had pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his face clean.
That night, he didn't sleep. The gravity of what he did kept him up all night, but he knew it was a choice he might have to make again and again if the situation requires it.
Jungkook closes up even more emotionally, and becomes even more reserved. He only speaks as much is required, and uses his brain to deal with anything he considers business rather than letting his heart get in the way.
It's all a process — learning. But Jungkook's always been a fast learner.
He feels like it's a role he just has to play, and he plays it all too well. However, deep down on the inside, somehow he's still the same Jungkook he's always been.
💭
Jungkook decides to drop by the restaurant one day a couple of weeks after that because he’s hungry, short on time and has to be somewhere. Deep down, he’s filled with excitement about the fact that he might see Taehyung again – it’s been years since the last time. And yet, every single time they’ve met over the years, the sound of his laughter and what every detail of his face looks like have been seared into his brain so deep that it's hard to undo.
However, a part of him is also dreading the encounter. Taehyung, by now, surely knows what Jungkook’s family is like, and that now he’s a part of it too. If before Taehyung never even gave him a second thought, now he’d be repelled by Jungkook, perhaps. Still, Jungkook would just find contentment in being able to see him after all this time. It doesn’t matter what he thinks of Jungkook, because Jungkook isn't going to bother him at all.
Jungkook has missed Taehyung terribly, and only the pages of his journal know just how much.
It’s not like he has a chance with Taehyung anyway, so he doesn’t have expectations. He doesn’t really think anything Taehyung says or does can even hurt him, because he’s silently carried all this love by himself for years without uttering a single word.
Wrong. Lies. It’s all lies, and Jungkook doesn’t even know it.
Because when he finally reaches the restaurant, he does find Taehyung, but in the embrace of another man, one Jungkook hasn’t seen before. Happy, chuckling, pressing kisses to the man’s cheeks. And Jungkook is proved wrong, because his heart immediately sinks to his stomach as if an anchor has suddenly been tied to it. His chest feels like an empty, heavy void before the pain starts to physically spread throughout that entire space.
Throughout all of Jungkook.
Suddenly, he isn’t hungry anymore because all of his appetite has been replaced by a knot in his stomach.
Taehyung is dating someone. He is actually with another man, and Jungkook hates how he can’t even delude himself into thinking it’s just a friend because of how intimate they look. Nobody lets a friend hold them like that. The very next second, the guy presses a kiss to Taehyung’s lips, and honestly, it feels like a stab to Jungkook’s chest.
All this time, he thought he was okay loving Taehyung from a distance. He thought it was okay even if his love was never reciprocated, and that Jungkook could survive solely on just being able to look at his face from across the room.
But now, Jungkook realises it’s because deep down, perhaps some part of him had hope. Hope that maybe someday, Taehyung will take interest in him and really get curious and try to talk to him. That maybe someday, some kind of miracle would make them end up together. He never really admitted it to himself, but a part of him was always optimistic when it came to Taehyung.
And right now, it feels like watching all those hopes come crashing down, and all that’s left are ruins. All the years that went by yearning flash in front of Jungkook’s eyes, and he thinks about how special those moments were to him, just sitting there and sneaking glances at Taehyung, and slowly falling in love without even trying.
It feels like someone’s rudely snatched that away from him, taken it all away, and Jungkook hates how final it feels. It’s over, a voice inside his head tells him.
Jungkook’s been hardened enough in the past couple of months alone for him to go through these emotions without as much as a kink in his features. And no, he doesn’t shed a tear. But when he turns around and wills himself to walk away, he has to choke a sob that makes his throat hurt for a good few minutes, and if his eyes are a little moist, nobody has to know.
Jungkook allows himself to spiral a little after that. It translates into him trying to completely let go of any hope that’s left, even if it’s a shred of what existed before. He doesn’t want to let Taehyung out of his heart, but he wants to protect his own peace too.
He thinks that somehow getting involved with other people will help him distract himself from Taehyung at least until it starts hurting a little less. Up until that point, Jungkook couldn't bring himself to ever be interested in anyone else.
And he still isn't. But he does completely ignore his heart and go to one of the brothels they own. There, without even trying, he immediately gets a lot of eyes on him, and Jungkook picks the one woman who looks like she might be experienced.
He has sex for the first time that night, just to momentarily take his mind off Taehyung.
And then, he has more of it, until he gets addicted to the physical pleasure that comes with it — until he gets really good at it over the coming months and years.
But somehow, no matter how incredibly good the sex is, Jungkook still hasn't been able to fill up the emptiness inside his heart. Not that he ever intended to, but he really wishes Taehyung could be his. Jungkook doesn’t know what it is about him, but it seems impossible to ever fall for anyone else, and that is just from looking at him, hearing him talk and laugh and watching him being himself.
So, his stupid heart still just beats to one name.
Kim Taehyung.
And Jeon Jungkook, somehow, is fine living with that.
💭
It’s been five years since Jungkook last saw Taehyung. He stopped going to the restaurant since the day he saw him with his boyfriend, and they don’t exactly run in the same circles. Jungkook stays busy with his work, and Taehyung probably is busy too with his life as a doctor. Sometimes, over the past few years, Jungkook has spent more time than he’d like to admit thinking about him.
He wonders if they’re still together. He wonders if they’re happy – he does wish Taehyung is happy. He wonders if the other guy is a doctor too; perhaps they met at work. And he wonders if he ever crosses Taehyung’s mind.
And even though Jungkook moves on with his life and evolves in every other way, his heart still holds space only for Taehyung. Jungkook doesn’t know what to do, and in a twisted, masochistic way, he doesn’t really want to do anything about it either.
One would think that five years would make his feelings fade. But how could they, when Jungkook still thinks of him every single day without fail?
The proposition comes as a total surprise one day all those years later, but as a very pleasant one. Jungkook's eating lunch with his parents, minding his own business and only opening his mouth to answer when he's been asked something.
He's technically now the head of the gang — the king of this dangerous empire, and has been for six years. But he still insists that his father sit on the chair at the head of the table, and his mother next to him.
Jungkook’s using a pair of chopsticks to pick up some rice, totally focused on his food. He barely touches it to his mouth when his father starts the particular conversation randomly and unexpectedly.
“Jungkook-ah. What do you think about marriage?” He asks.
Jungkook pulls the chopsticks away from his mouth, looks at his father, and blinks. “What?”
“Marriage.” His mother provides. “It’s when two people legally validate their union and decide to be spouses. Perhaps you’ve heard the word before?”
The corners of Jungkook’s lips twitch, and he bites back a smile. “Wow, thanks eomma. I didn’t know that at all.”
His mother smiles. “So… do you like anyone? Anyone on your mind?”
Jungkook’s heart skips a beat as a familiar face flashes in his mind. He lowers his gaze and looks at his food, his mind now playing images of taehyung like some kind of mental slideshow, and Jungkook doesn’t know how to stop it. He sighs, clears his throat, and asks. “Um… I’m single. Why do you ask?”
“Well…” His father begins, and glances at his mother. “We have a potential match for you. You might like him. You sort of know him, actually.”
Jungkook looks at him, brows knitting together in surprise. “Appa…” He instantly tries to end whatever this discussion is leading up to. “I’m really not interested in getting married at the moment.”
“Well… I want you to at least hear us out and think about it a bit instead of flat out refusing.” His father argues. “You’re twenty eight, and that’s a perfectly fine time to get married.”
Jungkook sighs. The thought of being married to anyone else except Taehyung seems diabolical to him. Yes, sure he’s hooked up with more people than he can count just to get over him. He’s broken a lot of hearts as a result of nursing a broken one himself. But all of that doesn’t mean anything to him. Being married to someone is a whole other ball game, and he can’t imagine doing it with anyone that’s not Taehyung.
Which probably means that Jungkook is going to remain single for all of eternity, but that is fine by him. Nobody would look at him today and guess that deep down, he’s a pathetic lovesick yearner, but Jungkook never wants to replace Taehyung with anyone in his heart.
He doesn’t think he could even if he tried. All those years spent pining over Taehyung truly engraved him into Jungkook’s heart permanently. He’s never seen someone more beautiful, or someone with a warmer smile or kinder eyes. He’s never heard another person’s voice be so soothing, and he’s never seen anyone light up a room quite like Taehyung does.
So how could he ever even think about a replacement? Such a thing doesn’t exist at all.
“I’m probably still going to refuse.” Jungkook tells him, determined.
“His parents are worried about who's going to look after him. They aren’t going to be here forever, after all, and they don’t really have relatives. One does need family to survive.” His father tells him.
At that, Jungkook feels a little bad, and sighs. However, he can’t marry someone just because he feels sympathetic towards them.
“Maybe we can find someone to marry him, appa.” Jungkook smiles. “It doesn’t have to be me.”
“Considering they’re the closest to us, I just thought it makes sense.” Jungkook’s father said. “I assured his father I’d talk to you. He’s a nice kid, I’ve known him since he was practically an infant. He has the same kindness and good values as his parents.”
Jungkook frowns in confusion. “Closest to us? Who are you talking about, Appa?”
“Kim Taehyung. The restaurant owner’s son.” His father leans forward on the table. “Maybe you remember him? He’s a doctor now, you know. That’s so impressive.”
Jungkook nearly drops his chopsticks on the table. He snaps his head to look at his father again, as if that’s going to make him say it again and confirm that Jungkook didn’t mishear anything. “Kim… Taehyung?”
“Yeah.” his mother smiles. “When you were younger, you always looked at Taehyung like you wanted to play with him and be friends. You were quite shy, though.”
Jungkook blushes furiously, and looks down at his plate. He mindlessly twists some noodles around with his chopsticks, and licks his lips nervously. “Oh. Yes, um… I remember now. He’s… single too?”
“Yes, although he was quite devastated after his relationship with this guy fell apart. It really did a number on him. That’s when his parents started to worry.” She explains. “Taehyung— he’s very emotional and sensitive. The breakup really hurt him, and seeing him lose his color made his parents really upset.”
And Jungkook feels like an asshole when the news of Taehyung being single again sparks hope and relief in his chest. He immediately corrects himself and shakes those thoughts off, and focuses on the fact that Taehyung has also been upset. If it was the other guy’s fault, Jungkook tells himself, he’s going to beat the shit out of him if he ever sees him.
“However, since you seem to be rigid about your stance regarding marriage, maybe I'll look for some other suitable prospect for Taehyung.” Jungkook’s father says. “I really want him to be happy and–”
“Appa…” Jungkook clears his throat and feels embarrassed because just minutes ago, he said with his full chest that he isn’t looking to marry. “I… didn’t say no yet.”
Jungkook’s parents stare at him before they exchange confused glances.
“Okay… well?” his mother quirks a brow. “Would you consider thinking about it, then?”
Consider? They have no clue.
“I’ll do it.” Jungkook says instead, keeping his eyes lowered. “If he is okay with it… then I’ll marry him.”
💭