Chapter Text
“Are you sure you don’t have anything to say to me?” You clench your teeth and white-knuckle your phone in your hand. There is no more room for anger now, not because there’s none of it left but because there’s too much inside of you already. Confusion, anxiety, betrayal. There’s too much all at once, and as hopelessness begins to trickle down from your eyes and down your pale cheeks, you fear you’re making space for more hurt to creep under your skin. “Nothing at all?”
Dohyeon sighs, head lolling back as he shuts his eyes tight, trying to find the right words to say. But there’s not much to be said anymore, is there? He looks you in the eyes again, makes way for more havoc in your chest as he just watches you, making no move to comfort you or talk about the situation.
How the hell did you get to this point? From being so in love with him to crumbling under his mere gaze… Like the rug beneath you is being pulled and you’re slipping, losing grip of this world that you’ve built around him.
You try your best to steel your resolve, grabbing the first coat on the rack as you turn to storm out of the house, ready to brave the rain. You think it can’t be any colder or any emptier than your own home, than your own husband.
“___,” He mumbles hesitantly, and you hate that you turn around so quickly because even now, even as he brings you more pain, you’re so drawn to him. A string wound tightly around his finger, and the other is knotted into your heartstrings.
Stop acting like such a child, you hear your mother’s voice in your head when she caught you crying about your loveless engagement that is now your loveless marriage. Get your head on straight because love is not a priority here.
Your gaze never leaves his face as he walks forward a few steps, and reaches for you. Your heart is so high strung at this point, so ready to break after bending itself to your husband’s will. Now, whether he pushes you away or asks you to remain with him, you loathe yourself because you know you will do whatever he says.
You hold your breath, waiting. Five seconds feeling like eternity in this infinite silence between the two of you.
He does not, however, reach for your hand. He reaches for the wool coat draped over your forearm, and clears his throat, no longer able to look you straight in the eyes. “This is my coat.”
All sense goes out the window, shattering your bones, and you crumple onto the floor, sobbing like everything has been abruptly taken from you. That is half true and half false, actually. True, because Dohyeon is everything to you, everything you’ve known to admire, adore, and eventually love in the last decade. False, because this loss is not abrupt—he was never yours to lose in the first place.
You watch his feet as he steps back, but he doesn’t leave the foyer. The way he stays glued to the floor is like twisting the blade buried deep in your stomach, and your womb aches knowing it is not empty but also knowing that you are alone in this now. The sonographic photos in your pocket burn a whole in your skin, despite their paper thin weightlessness. This is the final straw.
The door behind you opens, and the sound of the heavy rain echoes inside the house. Let me be washed away, you pray to whoever is listening. Let this be the end. Much to your dismay, the rain does not claim you like a wave, instead a pair of strong hands and arms do. There’s a hand on your waist, warm despite the wetness on its skin, and another is offered for you to take. You grip it weakly like a lifeline.
“Come now, hm?” You hear a man say, and the voice sounds like finally coming home after a long, weary life. Your heart knows this as family, a different kind of love that will keep you afloat for now. You wonder if it will be enough. His presence seems to spur an argument from above you, but you are so limp in his hold and your head feels like it is filled with cotton that you let yourself be pulled by your waist and tugged by your arm in opposite directions. There’s a minor scuffle, akin to a punch being thrown, and it shakes you up a little bit before you’re leaning sideways into a solid chest.
And then you’re off the ground, leaving the cold floor of your house and you’re being carried out and down the stairs like a barefoot bride. Your eyes remain closed and your broken heart plays more tricks on you, reminding you that you’ve dreamt of something similar before. Of the love of your life carrying you like this into your new home, of having your love reciprocated.
But the exact opposite is taking place. A different set of arms carrying you out in a rescue attempt that half of your heart does not want.
“Everything’s going to be okay.” The man carrying you says, and it breaks your trance like a rock to a glass window, and you realize the nightmarish reality you are living.
Get your head on straight because love is not a priority here.
You hear him curse the sudden downpour, clearly unprepared as he carries you to his car but effectively gets you both drenched in the process. Oddly enough you relish the rain on your skin. If there are no ocean waves to take you away from the cruel shore, then the rain is welcome to soak your bones. You pray it takes the pain with it when it dries.
Not privy to your thoughts, he apologizes repeatedly, and he holds you tighter as he does so. As if taking the blame for the rain, for the chill, for everything that has hurt you and scarred you and scared you. He doesn’t stop apologizing and whispering reassurances into your hair, not even when you’re both settled in the backseat and you can hear the crunch of wheels over gravel as you drive off. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry, we’ll warm you up, okay?”
The pet name clears the fog in your brain a little, allowing a sliver of light to peek through the dark clouds. And you’re drawn to it, feeling desperate as ever as you try to grapple for any kind of affection and care that’s directed toward you.
Oddly enough, you want to speak up and tell him that being in his arms now, shivering in all your layers, is the warmest you’ve ever felt in the last two years.
The sun is offensive against your closed eyes, but it isn’t long until you hear the sound of thick curtains being drawn, and then the room is cooler and darker once more. The bed beside you dips, and you feel a rough hand gently cover your forehead, as if feeling for your temperature.
Three weeks. You’ve been here for three weeks, and your heart is still refusing to accept that it’s time to cut ties. Your body is barely catching up despite all the sleeping you’ve been doing—feeling much like a dying seed in dry, malnourished land. You do the math in your head, knowing that you’re due for an appointment at the hospital soon for your second trimester checkup. The thought of the baby in your belly forces your eyes open, albeit slowly.
“There she is,” Your best friend is seated next to you, smiling though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. There’s a sadness swimming there, an angry crease between his brows, and exhaustion darkening the circles under his eyes. “I brought you some tea.”
You manage to push yourself up to sit, and he rushes to adjust the pillows behind you so you can lean back comfortably. “Time’s it?”
“Just after nine,” He says, tucking your hair behind your ear. He reaches for the saucer on the nightstand, holding it over your lap to encourage you to drink. You eye it suspiciously, and he smiles at your pouty morning demeanor. “Mint, with half a lemon.”
You accept.
This is routine by now. He brings you tea in the morning and leaves you alone, knowing that you’re in no mood to speak and not in the right disposition to handle or discuss your divorce. He’s been such a trooper, the most loyal companion there is, as he even took on the Herculean task of dealing with your parents. You believe this is what they consider some of the perks of being best friends with a lawyer, a natural arguer.
But the urge to vomit the little tea you’ve had serves as a reminder for you, that a break in routine is in order, and that you’ll finally take him up on his offer to help you with anything you might need.
“Jungkook,” You call for him, voice soft and hoarse but he hears you loud and clear. He abandons the pile of clothes he’s been sorting through and rushes back to sit by your side. The urgency in his movements makes you smile a little, and he seems to catch the expression. “I have a favor to ask.”
The smile he returns you screams of relief. “What is it?”
“I need to do something.”
He nods, already agreeing despite not knowing anything else. “What might that be?” I’ll do it all for you , says his big, waiting eyes. “Seungho hyung should be arriving in about half an hour,” He adds as he turns momentarily to check the clock on the wall. “I just asked him to go to the market but he’ll be back shortly and run whatever errand for you.”
“No, I—” You bite your lip, and Jungkook takes the saucer from you so he can hold your hand. It gives you the courage you need. You’re safe here, you remind yourself. This is your best friend, and he will never hurt you. “I need to see a doctor.”
He’s unable to mask the worried expression on his face. It was clear that he’ll gladly leave the house for you, brave the press that has been constantly lurking around town and awaiting to break more news of your impending separation with Dohyeon. But he was not so sure about you leaving the house. “I can call for a doctor friend, she can come over and check up on you if you’re not feeling well.”
You shake your head, breathing out slowly. There’s no going around this anymore. “I need a different kind of doctor, Jungkook.”
“What?”
“I need to see an obstetrician.” You pick nervously at the dry skin around your fingernails.
“An o— what? ” His back straightens, face looking even more unsure as he regards you, and subtly looks down at your stomach for a split second. “___. Are— are you?”
“Dohyeon doesn’t know,” The thought makes you feel so sick, and reminds you of how exhausted you are. You feel utterly empty despite the life inside you. The way you whispered it must have sounded so pained because Jungkook is immediately wrapping his arms around you, gathering you into a tight hug as he laughs into your hair. “What are you so happy about?”
“It’s a miracle,” He says simply, pulling away but not before he presses a kiss to your forehead. Eyes shining with a genuine glee that you have not seen on anyone lately, not even your own reflection. You wonder if your inability to mirror his joy about this situation is a sign that you’ll be another woman in your family’s long line of terrible mothers.
“I’m pregnant and the father of my child is leaving me, JK. I’m not sure what’s so miraculous about this whole thing…”
“Nevermind that last part,” He says, waving a hand between you. His odd sense of optimism has always been one of his more attractive traits, and his ability to spot the sunshine in a storm has always been the beacon for you in your many years of friendship. “You’re going to be a mother, ___. You’ll be amazing.”
You smile sadly at him. “I’ll be alone.”
He takes your hand, wasting no time to press his lips against your knuckles, and you feel him smile against your brittle bones. “Never.” He whispers into your skin. Time seems to slow as his warmth spreads throughout your body.
It makes something inside you take root.
There’s a swing that’s hanging from a tree in Jungkook’s garden.
He always lived a little simpler than the rest of his family, not having an expansive manor but just a small two-story apartment with a sizable garden at the back. You always loved coming here, and it had been a tradition for you to have brunch together every other week at this place (because brunch is for grown-ups and you thought that if you were going to try such things, it would always be with Jungkook). It started when he moved in right after graduation but ended not long after you got married (Dohyeon was, ironically, easily jealous and easily threatened by one Jeon Jungkook, though you had never understood why). You didn’t have as many brunches as you had hoped, but you treasured each one, recalling all of Jungkook’s experiments in the kitchen, both the greasy and the healthy.
It’s probably been almost a year since you last visited his home for anything, really, and you realize only now, as you’re sitting on the swing again, just how much this place has been an oasis for you.
You’re sitting quietly with a book in your hands and the grass under your bare feet when Jungkook calls out to you from inside the house. You look up, only realizing then that it was already raining. It hadn’t been pouring yet though so the tree you were under was providing enough shelter, keeping you totally dry.
“___!” Jungkook shouts from the door as he steps out. You move to stand and prepare yourself to run to the porch before it rained any harder, but Jungkook beats you to it by grabbing the throw blanket draped over the rocking chair in the porch and running toward you. “Did you not notice that it was already raining?” He asks, looking down at you. You watch him for a moment, a little mesmerized by the droplets rolling down his forehead and the slope of his nose.
“Was reading,” You finally managed to say. He clicks his tongue and places the blanket over you like a veil, and then in the next second he’s sweeping you off your seat and into his arms, making you drop your book on the ground. “Yah, Jeon Jungkook!”
“Can’t risk you getting sick or slipping now, can we?” He hikes you up in his arms, and lightly jogs back to the porch for shelter, quickly leading you inside to dry off even though you didn’t really get drenched. He quickly turns on the kettle to make you tea. “If I had known you had such a habit of staying in the rain, I would have bought more umbrellas to scatter all over the house.”
“Oh shut up,” You roll your eyes playfully, throwing the blanket at him. You’re mad that he catches it so easily. “I was too engrossed in my reading, alright?” The mention of your earlier activity makes you startle. “JK, my book! I dropped it.”
“I got it,” He says, sliding the tin can full of teabags toward you and wrapping the blanket over your shoulders again. You watch from your seat as he goes outside and picks up your book, then it’s like the world slows down when he’s running back to you. You can’t help but admire how much your best friend has matured even more during these past few years, and you realize bitterly just how much of those changes you missed out on because Dohyeon had kept you locked away.
The way his wet sweatshirt clings to his skin shows the shadow of new tattoos on his arm and his torso, and his wet hair clumping together gives you visual access to the new studs on his eyebrow. All new things that you want to ask about to catch up on who this man is now (knowing there’s a story or a milestone behind each one—a difficult court case, a new skill unlocked, a new movie or book that had impacted him) and yet, when Jungkook steps inside, laughing and smiling at you after shaking off the water like a wet dog, you see your best friend as if nothing had changed at all. As if there weren’t gaps in your relationship that you wanted to fill in with how much you had missed each other.
You think maybe, because it’s Jungkook, there are never any gaps to fill. Because everything feels whole and complete whenever you’re with him.
And you think maybe you finally understand why your husband has been insecure.