On A Cloud

shift

Chaeyoung assures she can walk on her own two legs like it's nothing but Jungkook watches her with morbid caution, flinching with every slight tremble of her knees. They grumble about it the whole ride from the hospital where she was finally discharged to her small apartment, Mrs.Park in front somehow forced to be a mediator between the two.

"The doctor is full of shit, she needs a wheelchair or at least crutches," he argues.

"You're the one who's full of shit, I can walk just fine. Your arm hovering around my midsection the whole walk to the car was the only thing keeping me from moving." Chaeyoung rebutts.

"You should be thanking me, you almost fell twice!"

"Only because you kept stopping me every few steps!"

"Children," her mother intervenes, "I think this whole ordeal has been rough on all of us, let's just be glad that Chaeyoung is finally able to come home."

Jungkook finds himself sympathizing with the relief in her tone, nodding to himself as he settles back into his seat. He watches Chaeyoung peer out the window, letting the wind sift through her locks and carress her skin. He imagines she's excited to finally be out of the stuffy chemical-scented institution. In retrospect, it would have been a little depressing had she been discharged a little earlier as the weather outside had been horrendously stormy. Yet today the sun is in full view, rays of light cascading down the nearby river and a soft breeze reverberating through the trees. He wonders for a moment if Chaeyoung is also reminiscing about their ventures down there - ditching school to wander around the forest and sing aloud into the open sky.

She takes one last inhale of the cool air and rests her chin in the palm of her hand, the hint of a smile on her lips. He wants to believe she feels that same nostalgic churning in her stomach as well.

"Why a rose?" Chaeyoung says completely out of context as Jungkook sets a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of her. She has her legs perched on top of the table - not by her own will, she's far too concerned with cleanliness to have done it herself - because after Mrs.Park left them alone to buy groceries his insistence on her not using her legs kicked right back up. She stopped complaining after he (embarrassingly) carried her bridal-style from the car to the living room. "On your neck," she points, and he confusedly pats the back of his neck until he feels one prominent outline.

"Beats me, I was drunk. I probably just pointed to the first thing I saw. Why?"

"I feel like I've seen it before."

"What? A rose? Yeah, I think we've all seen a—"

"Shut up," she laughs, slapping his arm, "I mean I've seen that exact one somewhere." She squints in puzzlement, searching her memory for something that at first seems extremely trivia until it sinks in. "Rosie."

"Your guitar?" he hovers over the table for a moment, then ceases. He thinks of gold and red, somewhere near the tips of Chaeyoung's fingers as she strummed and tapped the wooden instrument. He had tilted his head at the time, staring mesmerically at her fingers and losing himself in her voice, but Jungkook doesn't forget the momentary thought of what is that? at the shiny metal that glimmered from the corner of his eye.

"My rose ornament. It looks exactly like that!" she gasps as if it's a groundbreaking discovery, and it may as well be considering Jungkook's shitfaced subconscious managed to remember her during the night that could have gone more disastrously than it did. "Aww, Kookie thought of me," she quips.

Jungkook reddens, slightly defensive. "I thought of your guitar."

"You thought of me playing my guitar."