A MYSTERY TO ME | TAEKOOK

prologue - five years earlier

East Rhode Island had become the perfect summer escape for the Jeon's. It was a place of calm and quiet, an entrapment of historic homes filled to the brim with like-minded people, an excuse to spend time together as a familial unit- even if nobody truly wanted that.

The head of the household would spend hours each day attempting to sneak away, all so that he could cross off work tasks that loomed over him. He'd ignore his wife's nagging about barbecues and bonfires and pool parties- opting to say that it was important and urgent business. Without him handling such affairs, they wouldn't be able to spend summers at the beach house. That always shut her up right quick.

It wasn't that Mrs. Jeon was submissive, she was simply lonely. Her figure would lay out on a beach chair, picking through a stack of books that had been haunting her for years; she'd never finish them. Occasionally her figure would find its way into the shallow end of the pool and it was in those moments that her children saw what true, innocent joy looked like.

To Jungkook, it made his heart full. To Jisoo, it was the perfect chance to sneak away.

In New York, Jisoo hung with a crowd of creatives. They were pretentious- painters, composers, writers that claimed to be working on the next YA breakthrough. She was constantly keeping up, desperate for them to think she was interesting but here, she didn't have to do that. She'd slip into parties that had red solo cups instead of hundred-year-old wine and she'd enjoy meat that was encased in skin like it wasn't absolutely tragic that an animal had been slaughtered for such a monstrosity. If she could, she'd move here indefinitely, but ,the thing about Rhode Island summers was that they always came to an end.

Her friends went back to their respective homes or universities. Some were in Boston, others out West. Some were working in Europe or backpacking through Southern Asia. Jisoo wondered if she should do the same as them, explore, but she thought of her family- Mom, Dad, and Jungkook.

Jungkook was the eldest of the two siblings; handsome, charming, smart. When they had been children it was annoying to be a few years behind somebody who was seemingly so good at everything but in time, they found perfect balance, becoming one another's best friend.

Jungkook always watched his sister with worry, failing to notice that she did the same for him. He got so introspective during the summer; a far cry from the boy he was eight years ago who had crashed his Dad's car after a drunken binge, hooked up with a much older man on the family boat, and of course, dated and cheated on the richest heiress that lived on their block.

He had become an absolute disgrace to the family name for a moment there but Mr. Jeon always knew how to rectify a situation. Jungkook was sent off to school, monitored as he studied and ultimately graduated top of his class. He went on to get his Masters, more business savvy than his Father at this stage, and once he returned to New York that fall he would show the world what he'd been learning the past few years.

Jisoo could see in his heart he didn't want that. He was desperate to get out of here, to do something he was passionate about. She watched him dance in his room, quick to pick up routines. He'd take a morning exercise class followed by a private lesson where he was able to perfect each move with the grace of a ballerina and the fierceness of a runway model. She had never seen anybody move so effortlessly who had such a bulky frame. 

But Jungkook could. He was perfect.

Perfect to everyone who glanced at him but Jungkook housed secrets that were deeper than most. Only his sister knew of his inclination to men, one that had come to fruition more and more every year until he couldn't ever see himself married to a woman. He wondered what his Mom and Dad would say of such a sin. Surely, they'd be disappointed but hell, he was set to run the company in the next decade. How big of a deal could it be?