Love Does Run Smooth ➤ Taekook/Vkook

⚘ prologue ⚘

⚠️WARNING⚠️

This chapter contains sensitive themes, including parental death and SA, which can be triggering to some people. Readers' discretion is advised.

-----💫-----

✧ About twenty summers ago, somewhere on the quiet outskirts of Busan, South Korea ✧

"This is the last warning, kid! Either you arrange the money by next month or-"

"I understand, sir." With the sharp drops of rain artlessly wetting the front of his shirt and the wind messing up his strands, Jungkook bowed to the man outside his door, interrupting his speech midway, because the young omega didn't even want to think about what was going to happen if he failed to arrange the money, no matter how inevitable the possibility of that very thing happening was becoming with every ticking of the clock.

He bowed again, clammy hands gathered before his stomach, "Thank you so much for this opportunity. I'll...I'll do something."

The lightning flashing right that second illuminated the man's chubby face in the pitch darkness of the evening as they curtly nodded, glaring at Jungkook with those swollen eyes while Jungkook caught the sympathetic look the rickety boy holding the man's umbrella was giving him— not much older than Jungkook himself, flinching as the roar of the dark clouds above, as usual, came a few seconds later.

"Hold the umbrella properly, you fucker!" The man growled, making the boy cower and look down at once with a meek stutter,

"Ye-yes, master."

"Piece of shit!" The man glared at him before throwing the same look at Jungkook again, "Just another month, alright?"

"Ye." Jungkook quickly bowed and then saw as the man turned around and walked away, the other boy nearly stumbling in his steps to keep up with the speed over the muddy ground and hold the umbrella steadily for his master.

Another lightning flashed then, and for a split second, before it went dark, Jungkook saw himself in that boy's place, scared and helpless, at someone's mercy after having relinquished his entire life to serving them so as not to starve to death, to have at least some kind of roof above his head...

Cruel, cruel world...Was this its way of showing Jungkook a glimpse of what his future was going to look like within a few days?

No...No, Jungkook. You can't give up already. You have to do something. You need to do something. If not for yourself, then for the only one you have left to call your own...

A small round of breathe-in-breathe-out later Jungkook was finally closing the door, unable to help but think of how wonderful it would have been if he could keep all his problems locked outside such doors as well, but the sharp-clawed worries weren't at all willing to stop lacerating his mind, their distressing voices louder than the thunderstorm going on outside.

With the cold wooden floor squeaking under his socked feet, Jungkook quickly headed towards his parents' bedroom where the concerning sounds of his poor mother's coughs were coming from, so dry that you'd think blood would splutter out of her throat any moment. She'd been down with a deadly fever since last night.

"Ma." Jungkook softly called as he sat down on the edge of the bed with a creak, helping her sit up a bit so that he could make her drink some warm water, her haggard figure burning and trembling under his skin.

"What did they say?" She asked immediately after taking two sips of water, her voice wheezy and hoarse, making it evident that it was taking her a lot to get those words out, "Are they going to-" More coughs while Jungkook rubbed her back, but she still spoke through that, "G-going to kick us out?"