Chapter 113

Flashback #4

Four days.

Four days since Suho died.

Four days since Jungkook had been rushed to the hospital with a severe cardiac episode and a panic attack so violent the doctors had kept him sedated for the first twenty four hours. Four days since he had last spoken a single word to anyone. Since he had last eaten anything. He was surviving on IV drips and nothing else.

And here was Kim Yoonseong the most feared man was standing outside his sixteen year old son’s bedroom door with a food tray in his hands, knocking.

“Jungkook…. Please. Open the door.” His voice came through the room strained, barely controlled. “Please.”

Silence. “Kook-ah. Appa is sorry. Please” still nothing. Kim stood there for a moment longer. Then he exhaled through his nose and called for the guard. The guard came, unlocked the door manually, and stepped back.

Kim entered alone. The room hit him immediately. It was not even a bit close to his son’s usual room. Even the room was same, the atmosphere was different.

It was dark completely dark, curtains drawn shut, not a sliver of light getting through. The air was stale and heavy. Broken glass from shattered jars lay scattered across the floor. Books and files had been swept off the shelves and thrown pages splayed open, spines cracked. Pillows had been hurled from the bed. The mirror on the wall was broken a web of cracks spreading from a single central point of impact.

And Jungkook was curled beneath the blanket completely beneath it, buried entirely, not a single part of him visible. Just a shape. Just a stillness beneath the covers

Kim stood in the doorway for a moment, taking it in. Then he set the tray down carefully on the nearest table and began to clean.

He did it quietly and without comment picking up the broken glass piece by piece, gathering the scattered papers, straightening what could be straightened, placing the books back onto the shelves one by one.

Kim Yoonseong, who had never cleaned a room in his adult life, crouching on the floor of his son’s destroyed bedroom, picking up the pieces of everything that had shattered here.

Kim finished what he could. He straightened up and walked to the bed. He reached down slowly and took hold of the blanket.

“Kook-ah,” he said, while he worked. His voice was quieter now. “Please eat something. Just a little. You haven’t eaten in four days.”.

Jungkook’s hands appeared immediately gripping it from beneath, pulling it back. Refusing. Kim gently but firmly pulled it away anyway.

What he saw made something tighten painfully in his chest.

Jungkook’s face was pale washed out, almost grey. His hair was damp and matted against his forehead with sweat. His eyes were swollen nearly shut from crying red-rimmed, raw.

Tear tracks had dried on his cheeks and been replaced by fresh ones so many times over the past four days that the skin there looked irritated and sore.

He turned his face away the moment Kim’s eyes landed on him.

Kim sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. The mattress dipped slightly under his weight.

“Kook-ah.” He kept his voice low. “Appa is so sorry. I am really, truly sorry, baby. Please don’t do this to yourself.” He paused. “Come on just eat something. Anything. Just a little. Please…”

Nothing. Not even a flicker of acknowledgement.

Kim reached over and gently but firmly guided Jungkook upright one hand on his back, easing him into a sitting position. Jungkook made a small, involuntary sound of protest a weak whimper but didn’t fight it. He didn’t have the energy to fight it. He just sat there, spine curved, face turned away, jaw set, fists clenched in his lap.

Kim pulled the tray closer. He scooped a small spoonful of rice and held it up. “Here. Just this. Please.”

Jungkook shook his head slowly. Small and exhausted but certain.

“Jungkook…” Kim’s voice tightened slightly. “Starving yourself doesn’t change anything. It won’t bring him back. Please…” He held the spoon closer. “Eat. For God’s sake, just eat!”

Jungkook turned his face further away.

His jaw was clenching and unclenching. His hands were trembling slightly in his lap fists so tight his knuckles had gone white. His eyes were burning again fresh tears rising, unwanted, unstoppable and he blinked hard against them.

Kim sighed and tried again, his voice dropping lower, more careful. “Appa is really sorry, Kook-ah…. I know I made a mistake…. I am sorr—-” The tray went flying.

Jungkook shoved it with both hands sending it off the bed and crashing to the floor, rice and soup and everything else scattering across the dark floorboards. “I SAID I DON’T WANT IT!” Jungkook yelled loud.

Kim went completely still. He stared at his son.

Jungkook was shaking chest heaving, eyes blazing, face flushed with something that was equal parts grief and fury and a pain that had been building for four days with nowhere to go.

This was the first time. In sixteen years, in every punishment and every silence and every terrible thing that had passed between them Jungkook had never once raised his voice at Kim Yoonseong.

Until now. “Kook….” Kim started carefully. “You are not my appa anymore!” Jungkook spat.  The words hit like a physical impact.

“I HATE YOU!!” Jungkook’s voice cracked wide open. “I FUCKING HATE YOU! JUST GO AWAY!” He was breathing in ragged, uneven bursts now, his whole body trembling with the force of it.

Kim opened his mouth. Closed it. For once in his life, he had absolutely nothing.

He took a slow breath and tried again. “Kook-ah…. Appa is really sor—” “YOU ARE NOT MY APPA!” Jungkook screamed. “I DON’T HAVE AN APPA ANYMORE! I DON’T WANT ONE!”

The tears came then fast and uncontrolled, streaming down his pale, exhausted face. His voice dissolved at the edges but he kept going, like something had broken open and couldn’t be closed again.

“I hate you kim….” he said and the shift from appa to Kim landed like a blade. “I fucking hate you…. I don’t want anyone…. Just leave me alone…..”

He broke down completely. Crying hard and loud the kind of crying that had been dammed up for four days and was now coming out all at once, shaking his entire frame.

Kim stood there.

His son was crying and hating him and had just looked him in the eyes and called him Kim and for a moment the most powerful man felt his entire world simply stop.

He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. Then the door opened.

Hyunwoo stepped in suit slightly rumpled, hair down, eyes moving across the room instantly to assess.

“Jungkook-ah….” he said softly. Jungkook looked up at him. For just a fraction of a second something moved in his expression recognition, something almost reaching… And then it closed again.

He turned his face away. Reached down. Pulled the blanket back over himself slowly, deliberately until he had disappeared beneath it completely. Like it was the only safe place left in the world.

Hyunwoo looked at Kim.

Kim said nothing. He stood there for a moment looking at the shape of his son beneath the blanket, at the food scattered across the floor, at the room he had tried to clean. Then he straightened.

“Make him eat something,” he said quietly. And he walked out.

Hyunwoo stood alone in the room. He looked at the blanket. At the small, still shape beneath it. At the way Jungkook was holding it from the inside gripping it close, like it was the only thing he trusted not to let him down.

He didn’t say anything yet. He just stayed

Flashback #5

It had been almost two weeks since the incident.

Jungkook sat in the car. It was night. He was dressed in a soft sweatshirt layered under a warm jacket and even so, he looked cold. Pale and hollowed out, like something essential had been removed from him and hadn’t been replaced.

He had been eating when he felt like it. One meal a day. Sometimes nothing at all. He had simply let himself sink let the sadness take him down without fighting it.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he told the driver quietly. The driver nodded. Jungkook stepped out.

Ahead of him was the park. Their park. His and Eunwoo’s. The one they had been coming to since they were children and there on the favourite swing sat Eunwoo, alone, his breath fogging slightly in the cold night air.

The swing beside him was empty.which was his.

The moment Eunwoo looked up and saw him, he was on his feet.

He crossed the distance between them at a run and pulled Jungkook into a tight hug arms going around him hard, like he had been waiting to do exactly this for two weeks and couldn’t wait a second longer.

“Where were you, huh?” His voice came out immediately thick with tears that were already falling. “Why weren’t you picking up my calls? Why—-“

Jungkook stood there. Arms at his sides. Not returning the hug. Not moving at all.

Eunwoo felt it. He pulled back slowly and looked at him really looked at him. At the blank, flat expression. At the eyes that carried no tears, no warmth, nothing.

“What happened?” Eunwoo’s voice dropped. “How…. How is Su-Suho hyungie….”

He couldn’t finish it. The name got caught in his throat and came out as nothing, swallowed by a sob he hadn’t prepared for.

Jungkook looked at him. “I killed him,” he said. Quietly. Evenly. Like he was reporting something completely ordinary.

Eunwoo stared. “W-what? What the hell are you saying?” No reaction on Jungkook’s face. No flinch. No hesitation. Nothing.

“Appa asked me to kill him for Emilio,” Jungkook said. “So I killed him.”

“Yahhhh” Eunwoo’s voice cracked upward. “What the fuck are you saying?” Tears spilled down his face. He was shaking his head, staring at Jungkook like he was looking at a stranger. “Jungkook this is no—-“

Jungkook cutted him off and spoke “I’m telling the truth.” He paused. “And I don’t regret it,” Jungkook said. “I’m glad I killed him.” The words landed like something physical.

Eunwoo went completely still. He stared at Jungkook at those flat, dry, empty eyes and felt something cold move through him. Pure disbelief. Pure betrayal.

“Kook” he started. “Don’t call me,” Jungkook said. His voice didn’t waver once. “Don’t text me. Don’t try to reach me.” He held Eunwoo’s gaze steadily. “You and your noona are no one to me.”

For a moment Eunwoo just stood there. Then his fist came forward.

The punch landed clean. Jungkook’s head snapped to the side with the impact. Before he could straighten, Eunwoo’s hand closed around his collar and pulled him close, eyes blazing, tears streaming, voice breaking apart even as it rose.

“Yahh!!!” His grip tightened. “Have you lost your mind? What do you mean we are no one to you?” His voice cracked completely. “What the hell happened to you, Jungkook? What did they do to you, huh?”

His tears were falling fast now. And Jungkook just looked at him. Still. Empty. Like none of it was reaching him at all.

Jungkook scoffed. He jerked Eunwoo’s hands off his collar and stepped back.

“I don’t want you or your sister anymore,” he said. His voice was flat and cold and completely steady. “I’d be better off alone. I’ve had enough. I want to end all of this.”

Eunwoo’s tears fell harder. He wiped them away harshly with the back of his hand a rough, angry swipe and when he spoke, his voice came out soft and cracking and desperately hoping for something that wasn’t there.

“Kook-ah…. Hey. Are you….. is this a joke? Tell me it’s a joke. This isn’t funny at all! I swear I’ll kill you if this is a fucking prank or someth—“

“IT’S NOT A FUCKING JOKE.” Jungkook’s voice cracked through the night air. “I said I don’t want you or your sister in my life anymore. I don’t care about either of you. I never want to see you again.”

He turned to leave.

“Are you saying this because your dad forced you to?”

Eunwoo’s voice. Quiet. Breaking at the end. Jungkook stopped. He turned back around slowly.

“No,” he said. “I’m saying it because I mean every word.” He held Eunwoo’s gaze without flinching. “And just so you know if he ever asks me to kill you or your sister, I can. Just like I did to Suho-ssi. So you shoul—-“

Eunwoo’s fist connected with his face before he could finish the sentence. Hard. Full force. No hesitation.

Blood came immediately splitting at the corner of Jungkook’s mouth, running down his chin. His head snapped to the side with the impact.

Eunwoo grabbed his collar before he could recover and pulled him close, his eyes blazing through the tears still streaming down his face.

“YAHH!” His voice shook with fury and devastation in equal measure. “Have you forgotten everything? Every single year between us? How can you stand there and tell me you would kill me and my noona?”

“I said it because I MEANT IT, Park Eunwoo!” Jungkook yelled back.Eunwoo’s grip loosened. Slowly. Like the strength had just drained out of his hands.

He stared at Jungkook. At the blood on his lip. At the eyes that were blazing and burning and desperately trying not to be anything at all.

“You…. You really killed Suho hyung?” he asked. Barely above a whisper. Voice completely cracked.

Jungkook let out a short, bitter laugh. The kind with nothing behind it. “You think I was joking?” he said. “I killed him. With my own hands.” He said it like it was nothing.

But his hands hanging at his sides had slowly curled into fists. And his eyes were burning now the kind of burning that came right before tears and he was blinking rapidly, fighting them back, refusing to let a single one fall.

Eunwoo stood there. “You killed him,” he mumbled. Just repeating it. Like if he said it again it might start making sense.

Jungkook said nothing. He held himself completely still composed on the surface, fracturing everywhere underneath.

“And I don’t actually want to kill you or your noona,” he said finally. His voice dropped losing some of its edge, just for a second. “I said that cuz i mean it. And i’m done. I want to live my life with my appa. Not with you. Not with anyone else.” He took a step back. “So leave me alone. Don’t text me. Don’t call me. Don’t come looking for me. If you care even a little about yourself just stay away.”

He turned. And walked away fast, deliberate steps into the dark. Not looking back.

Even as his eyes finally gave out, tears slipping free the moment his face was turned away falling silently as he walked, unseen, into the cold night.

Eunwoo stood there. Tears running fast and freely down his face.

“Kim Jungkook!” His voice broke through the quiet of the empty park. “I swear I won’t forgive you! Not ever! You are so fucking selfish! And if you leave right now you won’t even get the chance to apologise not to me, not to noona i swear it!”

Jungkook didn’t stop. Didn’t turn around. Just kept walking. “I fucking s-swear….” Eunwoo whispered again to no one, to the dark, to himself.

And then his legs gave out. He collapsed right there onto the ground of the empty park and cried. Hard and loud and completely alone, with no one to hear him and nothing to hold onto.

Jungkook got into the car.

His hands were trembling. He pressed them against his thighs as he settled back into the seat, like he could force them still through sheer will.

“Go home,” he said quietly. The driver nodded and pulled away.

Jungkook turned his head to the window. Through the glass, in the distance the park. The swing. Eunwoo, collapsed on the ground, shoulders shaking.

A single tear slipped down Jungkook’s face. He caught it immediately. Wiped it away with one quick, sharp motion. “It’s okay,” he said to himself. Quietly. Firmly.

Like if he said it convincingly enough, it might become true.

The house was quiet when he arrived.

He stepped through the front door and immediately saw Kim sitting in the living room. He didn’t glance at him. Didn’t slow down. Just walked straight past him, up the stairs, down the corridor and pushed open his bedroom door.

He closed it behind him. He sat on the edge of the bed. And then, slowly, he looked around the room. The photos.

They were everywhere. Him and Eunwoo laughing at something, arms thrown around each other, taken years ago when everything was simpler.

His noona’s face smiling from a frame on the shelf. His eomma. Their family back when family meant something uncomplicated. And Suho. Suho’s face, looking back at him from a photograph taken in better days, warm and bright and completely alive.

Jungkook stared at them. The first tear fell before he could catch it.

“I’m okay,” he said. Out loud. To the empty room. “I’m okay…. I’m fine…. I am okay…. I… I am o-okay….”

His voice cracked on the last one. “I’m okay…. I…. I am…. I a—-” He choked.

“I am n-not….” And that was the end of it. The sob that tore out of him was raw and wretched and he couldn’t stop it couldn’t hold it back, couldn’t compress it down anymore, couldn’t say  I’m fine one more time when everything inside him was screaming the opposite.

“AHHHH WAEEE??” His voice broke completely. “AHHH WAEE”

He curled into himself knees pulled up, arms wrapped around his own body, face buried and cried. The kind of crying that came from losing everything. His hyung. His eomma. His best friend. His noona. The family he had chosen to abandon so they would never have to carry the weight of what he had become.

“I’m sorry…” he sobbed. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Over and over. To Suho. To Eunwoo. To his noona. To his eomma. To every version of himself that had believed, even briefly, that things could be different.

He cried until there was nothing left in him.

Curled up alone in the middle of his bed surrounded by photographs of everyone he loved and had just driven away crying and crying in the dark.

Because he had lost everything. And the worst part was….

He had done it himself

(End of flashback #5)

Since you all completed the target soon I updated!

And some of you cheated by just putting the emojis! So please comment your thoughts plss!

Still I was sooo happy reading your comments! Seeing you all getting mad at Kim just makes me laugh! And good guesses tho! Some were soo close but still completely wrong! I loved it!

I showed how eunwoo and Jungkook got seperated tho! Was it good?

Now again…. What made Kim sooo angry that he made his own son to kill suho? Any guesses? Think properly guys!!

And…. 70+ comments to get a update before 4am TMR?