Spectrophobia || Jikook

Mission Gone Wrong

Across from Jungkook at the dinner table, sat Jeon Junseo, looking absolutely forbidding with his sharp, obsidian eyes set on Jungkook's. Neither looked away, both far-reaching.

"You don't ever disobey the hospital rules, Jungkook," his father asserts, "They told me you tried to enter a restricted area and harassed one of their patients."

"That's bullshit." Jungkook spat.

"Watch your tongue." Junseo narrowed his eyes.

"You wanna know why it's restricted?" Jungkook snapped. "Because they're afraid people will find out they're practically experimenting on Jimin and abusing him for fun! They're afraid because they think he's some murderer who's out for blood or something, when in reality, he can't control that fucking mirror-touch condition he has!"

"That doesn't justify your reasons for sneaking in when it's against the rules." Junseo barked back.

"You're missing the point!" Jungkook shouted in exasperation. "They're hurting an innocent person for their sick entertainment, and no one knows shit because they made those dumbass rules."

"It's all for good reason, Jungkook. If that boy truly murdered his own mother with his own hands at that age, who knows what else he's capable of! It's so crazy that they sent him to the mental hospital instead of jail!"

"His mother was a psychopath who was so obsessed with Jimin's safety that she killed her own husband!" Jungkook shot back, eyes flaring angrily. "And he felt the pain. He felt the stab in the heart that his dad took, and he felt the anger and madness in his mom. It wasn't something he could control!"

"Then it's for his own good that he's kept there isolated from everyone else! The world's a scary place, Jungkook, and he's going to experience the pain and emotions of other's wherever he goes. He himself would be unsafe in the outside world!"

"Yeah?" Jungkook slammed his fists on the table, his entire body shaking from frustration. "So it's safer for him to stay locked up in that hellhole for the rest of his life? It's safer for him to be abused and mocked by those doctors, starved till he's just skin and bones, until he can't take it anymore? It's safer for him to live the rest of his life alone without any friends or family, no fresh air or sunlight, no chance to do a fourth of the things everyone else out here is able to do freely?"

Jungkook's father shut his mouth in a thin line, unable to refute his argument.

"If it were me," Jungkook's voice wavered, "I'd rather die."

Then, silence engulfed the kitchen. A thick air of tension rested between the two men as they stared intensely at each other. Finally, Junseo spoke, his voice quieter than before yet still dead-serious.

"I don't understand. Why are you so defensive towards that boy, Jimin, was it?"

Jungkook bit his bottom him, clenching his fists into two white rocks over the table. "Because I love him, dad. I love him and I don't want him to get hurt anymore. I want him to be free." His voice cracked and the start of his breakdown overwhelmed him as frustrated tears spilled down his cheeks.

Junseo looked at his son for a while, surprised at his sudden breakdown. In all his life, he's never seen him so broken and fierce at the same time. Jungkook's always done everything he told him to: he's studied hard, never stayed out too long with friends, got into a good college, stayed focused on his goals. He's always been such a good kid, and Junseo was always proud of him for that. He was always quiet and lonely, never showing his true emotions, and he never left his room unless it was for dinner or school.