A walk to remember || Tk

「 Chapter 10 」

—Chapter ten—

The next night, as I was walking him home, he asked me about my father.

"He's all right, I reckon," I said. "But he's not around much."

"Do you miss that? Not growing up with him around?"

"Sometimes."

"I miss my mom, too," he said, "even though I never even knew her."

It was the first time I'd ever considered that Jungkook and I might have something in common. I let that sink in for a while.

"It must be hard for you," I said sincerely. "Even though my father's a stranger to me, at least he's still around."

He looked up at me as we walked, then faced forward again. He tugged gently at his hair again.

I was beginning to notice that he did this whenever he was nervous or wasn't sure what to say.

"It is, sometimes. Don't get me wrong--I love my father with all my heart--but there are times when I wonder what it would have been like to have a mother around. I think she and I would have been able to talk about things in a way that my father and I can't."

I assumed he was talking about emotional things. It wasn't until later that I learned how wrong I was.

"What's it like, living with your father? Is he like how he is in church?"

"No. He's actually got a pretty good sense of humor."

"Dohyun?" I blurted out. I couldn't even imagine it.

I think he was shocked to hear me call him by his first name, but he let me off the hook and didn't respond to my comment. Instead he said, "Don't look so surprised. You'll like him, once you get to know him."

"I doubt if I'll ever get to know him."

"You never know, Taehyung," he said, smiling, "what the Lord's plan is."

I hated when he said things like that. With him, you just knew he talked to the Lord every day, and you never knew what the "Big Guy up-stairs" had told him. He might even have a direct ticket into heaven, if you know what I mean, being as how good a person he was.

"How would I get to know him?" I asked.

He didn't answer, but he smiled to himself, as if he knew some secret that he was keeping from me. Like I said, I hated it when he did that.

The next night we talked about his Bible.

"Why do you always carry it with you?" I asked.

Now, I assumed he carried the Bible around simply because he was the minister's son. It wasn't that big of an assumption, given how Dohyun felt about Scripture and all.

But the Bible he carried was old and the cover was kind of ratty looking, and I figured that he'd be the kind of person who would buy a new one every year or so just to help out the Bible publishing industry or to show his renewed dedication to the Lord or something.

He walked a few steps before answering.

"It was my mother's," he said simply.

"Oh. . . ." I said it like I'd stepped on someone's pet turtle, squashing it under my shoe.

He looked at me. "It's okay, Taehyung. How could you have known?"

"I'm sorry I asked. . . ."

"Don't be. You didn't mean anything by it." He paused. "My mother and father were given this Bible for their wedding, but my mom was the one who claimed it first. She read it all the time, especially whenever she was going through a hard time in her life."