BTS HYYH Notes (Book 1, 2, BUS Game) // COMPLETE [Part 1]

2017, Sep 11 - Jungkook (My Abeoji)

[Place: Jeon's Home]

I waited for ten days, but the birthday card never came. I opened the bottom drawer and lifted a notebook to find four cards. Jungkook, Happy Birthday, from Abeoji, I read these five words over and over again.

It was winter, and I was 7 years old. The voices from the living room woke me up. My room was in the attic, and I could reach my parents' room by going down five stairs and opening the sliding door.

I reached out to open the door and stopped. Although I was still young, I could sense from the heavy atmosphere seeping through the door that this wasn't a good time.

Appa said that it was too difficult to go on and that the world was too heavy for him to bear. Eommeoni didn't reply. She was probably crying silently or not moving at all. A long silence ensued. Appa said he'd be crushed if he went on living like this and he should leave now. Eommeoni vehemently protested, calling him the most irresponsible man.

Then, I heard my name. "What are you going to do about Jungkook?"

I waited for a long time behind the sliding door, but appa didn't answer. Then I heard the sound of the front door opening.

"I'm completely empty, and there's nothing I can do for Jungkook." Those were my appa's last words.

I ran back up the stairs to the attic. I moved my chair against the wall right under the window and stood on it. Appa was walking down the sloping road. First his legs disappeared, and then his waist, chest, and shoulders. It seemed as if an unknown world beyond the road was slowly swallowing him whole.

Someone jerked the door of my room open, and I instinctively pushed the drawer with my foot. It was eommeoni. She said no birthday card will ever come and appa was just that kind of person.

It was her usual repertoire. Appa was feeble-minded, incompetent, and most importantly, a social misfit who deserted us.

Eommeoni was right. No birthday card will ever come. I was the world that was too heavy for him to bear - that world that he gave up on. A child who can never be a reason to endure it all.

That was me.