the anatomy of love / jungri

01. 心计。

His office is void of much color.

Save for a potted bonsai plant in the far corner (a gift of his late grandfather's, no less), the entire room is a plain, industrial white and washed egret gray. The furniture, neatly arranged across the marble floor, are shades of black and slate. There are silver accents—on the handles of drawers full of files, and a Mac desktop on an otherwise empty desk.

Therefore, Yerim's presence in the room is very notable. Everything about her is a contrasting warm and flesh-colored, nothing like the cool tones which surround her as she curls up on the couch, having previously announced that she planned to nap until noon.

She hadn't gotten much sleep in the past night.

It's only when her close her eyes peacefully that Jungkook thinks back to their wedding:

Yerim's dress was lace. It was sleeved up to her elbows, hugging her skin from the waist, and draping down past her feet. Her hair fell freely over her shoulders, a long veil pinned atop her head. He remembers her peering at him through that veil, eyelashes brushing against the gossamer as the white flowers in her hands brushed against his sleeve. Before then, they had sat together in the front pew of the church after their rehearsal. Yerim hummed a little tune before she spoke—after a month of absence from his life, her first words to him were "How are you?"

Exactly like a stranger.

All that came out of his mouth was "Busy."

A half-truth.

"I know." she said, although her voice still ran with disappointment. She was so disappointed that he had proved herself correct, in fact, that she no longer looked him in the eye. But Kim Yerim was prideful, and she refused to lower her chin—so instead, she turned it. "It's alright. I understand what this means to you." she'd murmured, raising her finger to trace the stained glass beside her.

The angel's wings.

That was what she was tracing—not the angel, but the angel's wings, as if they mattered far more.

"What does this mean to me?" he'd asked.

Her finger outlined the feathers one by one.

"Nothing." she whispered softly, "It means nothing."

After all, it was only a few months ago that he sat next to her and plainly said, "Yerim, let's get married."

That was the premise of their marriage: a simple, monotonous line void of affection.

But if it had been otherwise, Jeon Jungkook could not imagine Kim Yerim—proud, stubborn, beautiful Kim Yerim—ever forgiving him.

—

When Jungkook was eight years old, he watched his mother's body convulse on the checkered marble floor, blue and white pills spilled out beside her. Her hands were clawing at the empty bottle, eyes glazed with a bewilderment, and a month later, he watched a line on a machine fall flat.

The end of her life was uneventful. Everything about it was wrongly peaceful—the steady beeping, the hushed heaves of the respirator before it was terminated.

It even goes to say that to Jungkook, she had been, in a sense, dead a long time ago—his father had never made much of an effort to keep his affair a secret—and at a young age, Jungkook had known that the woman's shoes in his father's closet weren't his mother's, as did even the workers in the house. Yet, his mother never showed signs of anguish. She was inattentive at best, sitting for hours near the window of her room, glass propped open, without a care in the world.