—First life. ______'s flat, year 2018—
I must have had a weak heart.
That would be the only plausible explanation as to why I ended up allowing him to help me. It was not like I had any other choice, however. I had just been released by the hospital a few days ago, and after my parents found out how stubborn I was to stay in my flat despite being unable to function properly on my own—heck, I could not even walk anywhere without having to use my crutches—they insisted to pick me up and take me home so they could take care of me.
Conveniently, right at the day when they were already making their way over, Taehyung suddenly disappeared.
Meanwhile, Jungkook was always there.
Ever since the day he gave me and Taehyung a ride home from the hospital, Jungkook almost never left my side. He may have seemed terribly awkward and out of place at first, when Taehyung handled everything the moment we arrived in my flat, nursing me and setting up the place for me to be able to rest properly. Taehyung even cooked dinner for the three of us, pushing aside his anger which he had for Jungkook for my sake.
But sometime during the night, as Taehyung let himself slipped out of the room, Jungkook immediately took over. He helped me with all the trivial things I was not able to do; from going to the bathroom, preparing myself for bed, he even cuddled with me as we watched TV and even gave me massages when I felt sore. He kept stealing chances of being alone with me and taking care of me when Taehyung was taking care of something else.
In the end, he was the one tucking me into bed after Taehyung suddenly decided to leave early.
The next day, Taeyung never bothered to come. He only called to check up on me, and the moment he found out that Jungkook had been there since before I even woke up, he only told me that he would be busy. All I had from him that day was a few phone calls and text messages to ask how I was doing and to confirm if Jungkook was still there. That continued for the next day and the day after. He never even bothered calling me at all today.
With my predicament and the lack of help, I had no other choice but to let Jungkook lend a hand as I needed to pack up and get ready to leave. He was the only one who was here today, after all, when he came offering to help when I told him about my plan of leaving for a while. So there he was, kneeling on the floor, helping me pack up my clothes and some other belongings into my bags before my parents would come to pick me up, while I sat on the edge of my bed.
"So, you're going to stay home while focusing on your recovery? What about your classes?" Jungkook asked me as he was arranging my belongings into my bag. I already missed finals when during my long stay in the hospital, and the new semester would be starting while I was still undergoing treatments and therapies.
The latter one was the reason why my family wanted me back home. They wanted me to be with them during the ongoing treatments. It was the best option available since I would not be able to attend classes anyway. And that was what I told Jungkook then.
"I don't think I can go back so soon to classes. Not when I'm still like this," I said, waving my hand to point at my body. My very weak, useless body. "And I figured it would be better if I focus on getting better first before I could go back and catch up with classes. I might be graduating a year late, or perhaps more, but at least I'd be able to do things on my own instead of being everyone's burden."
"You're not a burden," he quickly said, cutting me off. Looking a little bashful right after that he looked away. He continued tugging and tightening my bag when he spoke again, "Can't you do it here? It's close to the hospital and I can take you there for each therapy sessions. I—I can stay with you and help."
I held back the piece of clothing that I had in my hands, leaving Jungkook's hand stopping mid-air as he waited for me to hand it over.
"Um, yeah well—my parents insisted," I answered him as I handed him the shirt I was folding on my lap, only after he turned his head to send me an anticipating stare. "I'm completely useless when I'm on my own anyway, I can't move around too much and it feels too painful when I try to do anything on my own. I already missed out an entire semester while I was in the hospital, and I had even missed classes before when—" I stopped, catching myself before I could mention about the lost baby. It was too painful for me to remember about it, much less to talk about it. Clearing my throat, I kept my voice steady.
"Anyway, I already took a break for the next semester. I will stay home until I get better and ready to come back to take my classes again," I told him then, refraining myself from mentioning the fact that I needed to get away from all the weird glances people were giving me since the day I came back to the campus, when everyone literally knew what had happened to me and all that had happened between Jungkook and myself before the accident that night.
I needed some time to avoid those curious stares, and the questions that undoubtedly would follow if I should choose to stay and face everyone I knew. But mostly, I needed some time away from him as well. I had been so dependant on Jungkook ever since we started dating, and it was the hardest part to endure after the downfall, to face a life where not only that I would not be able to be with Jungkook, but to do everything on my own.
To face everything alone.
He held the piece of clothing I had just given him and fell silent for a moment. His eyes kept flickering between the cloth and the bag, and then at me. "I can help you out. I can take care of you."
"No, I can't let you," I told him with a pursed smile. "You no longer have any obligations to do anything for me."
"Of course, I do," he said as he threw everything into my bag, keeping his eyes on them as he spoke. "All of this is my fault. I am responsible for everything. I have every obligation to take care of you."
"No, you don't. We're no longer together, Jungkook. So—"
He instantly turned around when he heard me, reaching for my knees and started to squeeze lightly as he begged. "Please just give me a chance. I will take care of you. I will nurse you, cook for you, or order you take outs when I can't. And I will help you with your study so you can keep up," he pleaded to me desperately. "I want to help you. I just—I understand if you want to be with your family, but I can take care of you. At least please give me a chance to prove that I can make things better."
"Better? How? If you're doing this because you feel sorry for me, or guilty for what had happened, I get it," I told him with a sigh, with the same desperation for him to stop. "I already told you that I can forgive you. And I will. I just need some time."
Jungkook reached out to grab my hands and gave me a squeeze. "If I wait until then, does that mean we can go back together again? Will things go back like before?"
The look in his eyes allowed guilt to grow inside my chest. I have already made my decision, and I was so ready to start living without him. Why must he make things so hard for me? I gave him a frown as I shook my head. "No, Jungkook. I can't."
His eyes grew wide, and he opened his mouth to give me another plea. But I stopped him. "I can't promise you that things will get back to normal because I know that it won't. We can't. Not after—" I took a sharp deep breath when the memory of what had happened brought back all the pain. "Once I am out that door, you are free to move on with your life and I will do for mine. I will be strong enough to be on my own once I'm back, so you won't have to be here like this again."
"Then don't go."
I shook my head. "Jungkook—"
"Tell me what to do to make you stay with me. Tell me what to do—"
"Please, Jungkook," I tried to pull my hands away from his grip, yet he kept tightening his fingers around mine, refusing to let go.
"I love you," he insisted. "I can't lose you."
I locked my eyes on his, taking a moment to study his gaze. Did he really mean what he just said? Should I trust him? Questions and doubts came into my head as I stared deep into his eyes, trying to figure out if he was truly being honest with me, trying to see if I still felt the same. And of course, I did.
"I love you too, Jungkook. With all my heart," I told him, truly, and his gaze softened at my words. But those eyes turned sullen when I continued to speak, "It is the fact that I love you so much that this feels so, so painful. That is why I have to go, to be somewhere far away from you. I need time to recover, Jungkook. Not only from my wounds, not only from losing the baby, but also from you. It still hurts. And it hurts a lot. You know that I'm not talking about the wounds I am having. Because you know that it is not where I am hurting the most. I need time to get through that, Jungkook."
It took so much effort to convince him to leave, to make sure that he would be gone by the time my parents would arrive. I had no other choice but to promise him a chance for us to meet and talk again once I returned, only to have him walk out that door merely five minutes before my mother informed me that she had reached the street where I lived in.
He was out of my flat when my father came and carried my belongings into the car, while my mother helped me to walk out. But just as we passed by the end of the streets, I saw him sitting inside his car, parked at the corner of the street as he silently watched me being driven away from him.
My parents had their eyes on the road and they were busy conversing that they never noticed him being there. But I did. And as my eyes looked at his way, just as our car was passing him by, our eyes met. I could see the hurt he was feeling from the way he was staring at me, as he kept watching us go. As much as I wanted to stop the car and run to him, I knew that it was never going to happen.
Don't give in, ____. It's all over now, and you will be okay, I continued to convince myself as I looked away from his sorrowful eyes with a heavy heart.
—First life. Jung Family's Residence, year 2018—
[03.02 PM] From Jungkook: Are you home yet? How are you feeling?
[11.11 PM] From Jungkook: Have you gone to bed?
[07.32 PM] From Jungkook: Have you had dinner yet?
"Who is it?" my Mom asked me curiously as I pulled out my phone for the umpteenth time tonight. We were preparing for dinner when his text came in. Well, more like I was sitting down at the kitchen counter peeling and cutting vegetables while my Mom did all the cooking. "You have been checking on your phone a lot and it's been vibrating a lot for a whole hour."
Jungkook had been texting and calling me ever since I had arrived home. It all started during my first night, then it continued the more I responded. His text would come nearly every hour of the day and he would call me when it was night time. Sometimes I would reply to him right away, only to make him stop texting me for at least an hour or so.
I looked at my mother, noticing her waiting for my reply. She had always been curious about everything, especially after the accident. I remembered her crying at the hospital, feeling angry at herself when she found out what happened. When she realised there were a lot of things about me she never knew about. And she hated the most when she felt like I had become a stranger ever since I left home.
Ever since then, it seemed like she would never leave me alone. Always asking me things about college life, about my relationship with Jungkook, about my friends, and most of all, always wanting to know who I talk to on my phone.
'It's nobody', was the answer that I wanted to give her, only to get her off my back and let myself breathe for a moment. Her attention was starting to smother me and had become too much. But I knew that I could never lie to her.
"It's, um—Jungkook," I told her as I set my cell phone down on the counter, grimacing when I saw the way her eyes flickered with sadness for a moment. She covered it pretty quickly by forcing a smile.
"Oh," she said as she looked away, switching her attention on her pots and pans all so suddenly. Everything suddenly turned awkward, and even as I kept my eyes on the bowl of salad I was stirring in front of me, I could feel her eyes on me. I braced myself for the question that was about to come. And after a long silence, she finally threw it at me. "You're still talking to Jungkook?"
She was not even looking at me then. So I was literally staring at the back of her head when I answered, "Yeah, we talk once in a while. But that's it." I heard her letting out a hum as an answer, and I suddenly felt the need to explain. "He's just worried about me, that's all. He feels—responsible."
"He should be," my mother suddenly snapped. "He should be sorry for the rest of his life."
"Mom—"
"But I'm glad," she cut me off before I even had a chance to say anything. "At least he does feel sorry. At least he's showing his remorse instead of running away."
"Did you think that he would have done that? Runaway, I mean."
"Wasn't that what he what he was doing then?" She turned, looking at me in the eye and said, "That was what started all of this, wasn't it? You both had a problem, and instead of dealing with it like a man, he ran away. He just—" she stopped, shaking her head before she returned to her cooking. "Well, he did that. He chose to not be with you when you were supposed to find a way to fix it, to deal with your pregnancy. But at least now after everything had happened, he's still around to know he cares."
The tone of her voice may sound bitter. It was not hard to tell that she was still upset about the whole situation, and she was still blaming Jungkook for everything that had happened. But what she said somehow made me smile.
"How are you still able to look at things that way, Mom? I'm starting to think that you probably understand him and this whole thing more than I do. More than everyone else," I said to my Mom. She was the first person I talked to who did not speak of the accident or talk about Jungkook with pure anger or by adding blame to either one of us in the same sentence.
She was silent for a moment, looking at the boiling food inside the pan as if it was holding her whole life, before she muttered, "I don't. I don't understand. I just know, that's all."
That was all she said. And the conversation ended there.
It felt like time was moving terribly slow while I was living at home. It was the second month since I left university and my flat when I was finally able to walk around without my crutches with me. Well, I still needed it once in a while, but I was able to move without it when I wanted to.
But the problem was, I was terribly bored. My mother constantly treated me as if I was a porcelain doll that might break anytime, that she never allowed me to do things on my own or to leave her sight. My father practically ignored me almost the whole time, or constantly scowling when he looked at me. My brother was never there, since he had to return to university to finish his final year.
And Taehyung—well, for some reason, he just never even bothered to call or text or even come to see me. The only contact he made was the day I left the flat and right after I arrived home. And then nothing. As if he just vanished into thin air ever since. I tried to reach out to him for the first week I was away, but when his response merely ranged from late replies to nothing at all until he stopped contacting altogether, I also stopped trying. I was determined to find out what was wrong and if he was somewhat angry with me. But I would not have any chances of doing anything about it until I returned to the university since he never showed any signs of coming home until the end of the semester.
In the end, Jungkook became the only companion I could lean on to. His text messages made me feel a lot less lonely and surprisingly entertaining that I started expecting them to come more and more. And his phone calls advanced from short calls to see how I was doing to long phone calls during the night that would only end when either of us had fallen asleep. He never stopped contacting me, his responses were never late, and he always made sure that I was comfortable enough to talk to him about everything.
Then one day, Jungkook suddenly appeared on my doorstep.
"Jungkook?"
I stood there on the doorway aghast, never expecting to see him there. He was still sending me texts a little over an hour ago, and made a short phone call to ask where I was. The thought of him planning to surprise me had never once come into my mind. I was only glad that I was the one who opened the door when he knocked on the door, with my father being away on one of his business trips and my mother resting upstairs.
While I was stunned and speechless of his sudden visit, Jungkook gave me a wide smile, his eyes glittered with joy despite him appearing terribly nervous about being there. "Hi," he said, finally breaking me out of my stupor.
"H—hi," I stuttered. "Um, what are you doing here? Wait, how did you get here?" I looked around, seeing his car parked outside of my home. When my eyes returned to him, I finally noticed that he was not there completely empty-handed. A bouquet of flowers—a mix of daisies and white roses, all my favourite—a box of chocolate and a small teddy bear covered his broad chest as he held them high in his arms. "What are those for?"
"For you," he said, handing them to me with faint crimson cheeks. "I just—I couldn't stop thinking of you. It's been two months and I just want to see you. Those texts and calls only make it worse."
I kept my eyes on the gifts I was holding tight on me, refusing to look at him when his words made my heart started pacing like crazy inside my chest. Clearing my throat while doing my best to hide my giddiness, I looked up to ask, "What's worse?"
His eyes seemed dark as they found mine. "I missed you. And it gets worse each day every time I hear your voice."
I never responded to his statement. All I gave him was a small muttering of, "Come in," allowing him to enter my home.
There was nothing awkward between us during his visit. Hours passed by, and everything just went on smoothly. Our conversation flowed as if we were back to where we had started, back to when things had not been so complicated and before we were hurting each other. He mostly asked about my therapy processed, the progress I was making, and things I had been doing while I was home. And he told me things about what he had been up to. Never once did the conversation led to our lost or the accident. Those talks had filled the conversations we had right after I was released by the hospital, along with his apologies. And we had mutually decided that in order to move on, we would never talk about it again.
Although I could still catch his eyes lingering around my stomach once in a while, as if willing it to return.
I was also glad that even if he was still worried about me, he never once treated me as if I was made of glass. He still let me go around, from finding a vase for his beautiful flowers to preparing our drinks, and only fussed about me moving too much when he massaged my foot as we were talking together.
That was how my mother found us later after she woke up from her long nap.
"Hello, Mrs. Jung," Jungkook greeted her when he noticed her first.
My mother's expression was unreadable when I looked over to see her. She looked surprised, but she pushed away her uneasiness by giving us both a smile. One that did not quite reach her eyes. "Hello, I didn't know that we got company. "
I carefully stood up, a little embarrassed about being caught in such a compromising position. "Did we wake you up, Mom? I'm sorry if we're too loud."
She only smiled, looking as uncomfortable as ever. "No, it's alright. I didn't notice I was sleeping so long," she said, quickly looking away from us. "Oh, is it getting dark already? Why didn't you wake me up? I probably should start preparing for dinner."
Jungkook and I could only watch silently as she quickly made her escape towards the kitchen. I had noticed how she had been getting exhausted too easily lately that I had to make sure she would be getting enough rest while I was still around. Perhaps taking care of me had taken most of her energy. And it was then when I decided that it would probably be better for everyone if I returned to university and finished my study. Perhaps if I was away, I would also stop being such a burden to everyone at home.
After that short encounter, Jungkook was ready to leave, not wanting to make the situation getting even more awkward after noticing how his presence had made my mother uncomfortable. But my mother surprised both of us when she insisted that Jungkook would stay for dinner. The surprise continued when the three of us sat in the dining table and she was able to converse with Jungkook so lightly. As if the awkwardness that happened in the living room previously never happened.
But what was more surprising was the conversation we had later that night, long after Jungkook had gone home, when she suddenly asked me—
"Are you two getting back together? Or are you still with him?"
I was completely unprepared to answer the question that I diverted my attention to cleaning the table before I finally said, "No. We're just talking. He won't go away even if I told him to, so I just—let him. He's just trying to be a friend and make sure that I'm doing alright. I guess it's just one of his ways of getting me into forgiving him."
"Will you? Forgive him, I mean."
Her eyes seemed concerned. There was no doubt in my mind that she could see the uncertainty I was having. "I don't know, Mom. I think I could. I mean, I'm starting to feel like I can forgive him, but it's still hard not to think of the past when I look at him. One day, perhaps. I'm just going with it at the moment."
As if the surprises that I had been encountering the whole day was not enough, what she said to me next was something that I had never thought she would ever give me. "Everybody deserves a second chance. Whether this second chance comes in a form of a friendship or a relationship, it is all your choice to make. Whichever it is you choose next, just make sure that he totally deserves it."