Chapter Text
“Of course, but we don’t really need anything, Eomma— I mean, maybe? But— Okay, okay. We’ll look… Sure. I’ll text you tomor— Fine, I’ll text you tonight… Mhm. I love you, too. Bye, Eomma.”
Soojin snorted into her drink, watching Jungkook pull the phone away from his ear and drop it to the table with a groan of, “Is it bad to complain about my mother?”
“Depends,” she answered, diplomatic. “What’s wrong?”
Jungkook sighed and flopped backwards on the bench. Soojin shifted her leg to pillow his head. “Nothing, necessarily. She just tries to pawn stuff off to us when she decides she doesn’t want it anymore. Which is fine when we need something! But we have everything we need right now.”
“Just look through the boxes, darling.”
“I’m going to! But next thing you know, she’s going to be calling and asking whether she should buy this or that for us because it’s a good deal.”
That made her laugh. “You know your old folks, Jungkook-ah. Us first-gen hybrids went a long time without much money to spend freely. Daeun’s probably just happy she has a little extra to splurge on her pup,” she told him gently.
Jungkook frowned up at her. “You aren’t ‘old folks.’ You’re, like, forty.”
“Heading towards my fifties,” she answered simply.
He shook his head. “Are you where Hyung gets it from? He’s already complaining he’s old.”
Soojin smiled in amusement. “I wouldn’t be surprised.” She ran her fingers over the soft fur of his ears, which twitched under her touch. “Speaking of age… How is your mother doing with that silver fox of a doctor she’s seeing, hm?”
Jungkook laughed loudly. She ignored the look an elderly couple walking by sent them. The boy could laugh as loud as he wanted. “Sanghoon-hyung isn’t a doctor anymore, he retired. And they’re doing great, I think. They bicker and tease a lot, but it’s like, fond, you know? It’s only been a year and they act like they’ve known each other forever. And it’s so cute watching her be all excited while she gets ready for dates.” His smile was tender, genuine. “I’m happy she’s found someone.”
“Do you think they’ll move in together sometime soon, then?” she asked curiously. She couldn’t imagine Daeun moving so fast with a man. She was impulsive, sure, but also rather stubborn.
Jungkook nose wrinkled as he thought about it. “I… don’t know. Maybe? They’re together all the time. I don’t think they’re in any rush, though.”
“That’s probably a good thing,” Soojin hummed.
“Probably,” he agreed. “I’m not sure what they’ll do when it comes to that. Eomma really likes her apartment. Sanghoon-hyung’s place is way bigger... They wouldn’t really need the space, though. He doesn’t use all of the rooms at his place as it is. And it’s not like there will be more kids entering the equation.”
“She’s in her forties, anyways,” she chucked. “Keeping up with a toddler can be hard. You and Taehyung-ah are in your prime for little ones.”
“We won’t be if the government never lets us adopt,” he reminded her dryly.
Soojin sniffed. “They’ll give in eventually.”
“I don’t know. It’s getting close to twenty years…” he mumbled.
“And it was nearly thirty before we got our freedom,” she reminded him.
Twenty-six. That’s how old she’d been. Her darling cub’s age, now. And they were closing in on seventeen years having passed since then. Soojin felt every minute of it in her bones, even if much of it felt like it was only yesterday.
Taehyung and Jungkook, though. they had so much more ahead of them. She knew that in her bones, too.
Really, she was probably waiting for Jungkook to get on one knee more than her son was. She’d been half sure he was going to earlier when they ran off…
Oh, well. She’d get her way, eventually.
“When you can adopt,” she asked him, running hand through his hair, “what do you think you two would want, hm?”
“A hybrid child,” Jungkook answered instantly. His doleful eyes softened into something fond. “Hyung wants to adopt a predator kid.”
Oh. She hadn’t considered it much, but that was exactly what Taehyung would want, wasn’t it? He’d struggled so much, singled out at every turn. Of course he’d want to help a child like him.
“Not a baby?”
Jungkook gave her an amused sort of grin. “I think Hyungie would vomit daily if he was responsible for a baby, Eomma.”
She hid her smile behind her drink. That was entirely like him, too. “Oh, pup. He’d be so nervous with a baby, you don’t know the half of it,” she told him as she set it aside. “Our master used to make him watch his daughters. Tae-yah wasn’t much older than them, really, and he used to panic if they so much as coughed.” She’d tried convincing him it was simply something kids so young did, something he’d done, too, but Taehyung was simply Taehyung — always worried, even when he didn’t think he was.
Jungkook’s lip twitched a little, but it was more wry than anything. “Probably because he was terrified of getting the shit beaten out of him if he messed up,” he muttered sourly.
Soojin’s smile immediately dropped. He… was right, really. She and Joonho had tried desperately to shield Taehyung from the worst of the abuse as a child, but he’d been well aware of the consequences of mistakes. She’d nursed a number of bruises on his soft skin over those years, and he’d been witness to more of his father’s punishments than she was comfortable with, many of which were originally meant for him.
How many times had she held a devastated Joonho in her arms, whispering reassurances and reminding him that there was only so much they could do?
Taehyung didn’t like Seollal much, always seemed so down when it came around. Today wasn’t the day to be speaking loosely.
“Sorry,” Jungkook said quietly, likely catching her change in scent, if not her expression. “Sorry, Eomeoni. That was rude.”
Soojin sucked in an inhale as she waited for the guilt to subside. She pet a hand over his cowered ears, then gave his nose a flick, drawing a whine out of the dog hybrid. “First of all, what have I told you to call me?”
Jungkook pouted. “Eomma.”
She hummed, giving his nose a little smooth-over with the pad of her finger in lieu of an apology. “That’s right. And second of all, it was true. That was insensitive of me, not you.”
Jungkook shook his head quickly. “It’s your experiences, Eomma. You should talk about them how you want.”
“Not when it can hurt Taehyungie, though,” she refuted him gently. “We all get a bit jaded. There’s nothing wrong with pointing it out to us.”
“I didn’t really mean to, though,” Jungkook mumbled.
She shrugged. “I’m happy you did, anyways.”
Jungkook’s lips twisted, conflicted, but he chose not to say anything, closing his eyes, instead. They sat in silence for several minutes, Soojin humming as she stroked her hand through his bangs, thinking.
Jungkook was such a sweetheart. He’d taken on some of Taehyung’s incessant worrying after learning more about his childhood, always careful not to overstep. Even with his tentative care, though, Taehyung opened up more with him than he ever had with she or Joonho.
Soojin had always heard shared experiences helped people talk about their problems, but maybe it’d been Jungkook’s separation from the pet hybrid class that had made him easier to open up to. Or maybe it’d been his general tenacity. After all, she’d never seen someone so invested from the beginning, so determined to become a friend and maybe more.
Taehyung had walked into the apartment with Jungkook at his side, calling him a “friend,” and Jungkook had been staring at him like he’d hung the moon. She’d been worried, back then. Taehyung had been struggling, and she was scared a bad relationship, his first relationship ever, would send him spiraling. But time and time again she found herself feeling thankful she didn’t run the pup off.
Jungkook finally piped up. “Eomma?”
“Hm?”
Jungkook blinked his eyes open and stared at her. It had to feel a bit awkward, what with the angle, but his earnestness was clear, nonetheless. “You don’t have to worry about him, okay? I’m going to try my best. I want him to always be happy with me.”
Soojin’s heart skipped in her chest.
She pushed her hands into the back of Jungkook’s shoulders, urging him up, and the second he was sitting straight, she pulled him into a hug.
“I don’t believe in happy ever after,” she whispered. “There’ll be road bump after road bump, I know that. But for five years, you’ve made him happier than I have ever seen him. Why would I ever need to worry?”
Jungkook seemed to melt against her, nuzzling against her temple. “I love him so much, Eomma. I’ll take care of him.”
“I know you will. Just don’t guilt yourself when he has his bad days, okay?” Soojin added as she pulled back. Jungkook put so much of himself forward — she didn’t want him to burn himself in the process. “His happiness isn’t your responsibility only.”
Laughter rang from down the hill, loud and unabashed. Taehyung’s voice rose above it, shrieking something about cold water, and Jungkook seemed to melt at the sound, eyes warm as he looked at her. “I won’t. I’ll just keep working towards his good ones.”
Soojin smiled and squeezed his hands.
She couldn’t trust him on that. Jungkook seemed to have a habit of appointing himself as protector, something both helped and hindered by how soft he was at heart — though he tried to hide that at times. There was a good chance his word was doomed to be broken.
Still, she’d take his intentions to heart. There was no one else she’d trust with her son.
“Come on,” she told him, rising from the bench with a swing of her tail. Jungkook’s own gave a little wag. “Let’s make the best of Seollal.”