xxii. "The Darkness"

“The darkness around him returned, and the memory withered away like the leaves in autumn.”

There was nothing but darkness, nothing but the painful and throbbing pit of nothingness that seemed to be never ending. It was a moment of stillness and blindness where he just didn’t know what to do or figure out what just happened.

He felt like he was walking on clouds, but it didn’t feel like the dreamlike scenario that many people describe it as. It felt like the cloud was cold and simply frosty, it was made of ice that was crumbling and with every second that passed, the cloud would begin to fall apart and get colder. It only left behind worry, fear and nothing but a shaking body.

He had seen himself, he had just witnessed a pair of paramedics rushing into a room where he laid on the ground, shaking and unconscious, but he saw it as if it wasn’t him. And even if they had placed a breathing mask on his visage, and carried him out on a bed, he couldn’t believe it was in fact him.

How could it be him when he was simply standing from a few inches away? How could it be him when he was standing, and his body was tumbling down? He wanted to run to his body, to shout and simply hold his own flesh to confirm he wasn’t seeing things. He wanted to go with them, and just as his feet were about to move, the door closed behind the and he was left in the dark.

His vision was simply black.

He felt nothing, he felt empty, if that was even considered a feeling anymore. He just felt like a floating body that went no where and thought of nothing. He was a waste of space, he was simply worthless and everyone would cheer at the thought of his disappearance form the earth.

He hoped he staid in the dark forever, to never see the light again and simply fall in an endless sleep. It was exhausting getting up every morning, the same routine that never changed with the same ty world taking shots at him. He wanted to be gone and yet, there was that small thought that was shouting its lungs out to be hear, it shouted for life.

He couldn’t even feel his body, it felt like he was just a mind, or soul, floating in midair. And the fact that he couldn’t see his hands, nor touch his face, nor feel like he was walking, made him wonder how it was even possible to see his own body crashing down while he was outside of it.

He wondered and kept on thinking of the science behind it, but he could not come up with a logical reason. He just knew, it happened before, when he was sitting in the balcony of his old room and he saw his own body contemplating jumping.

He wished he would have convinced himself to jump, to push the tangible Jungkook off the edge and let him feel free. All of this could have been avoided, but was that what he desired, to have it all end? He paused his shout for death as the little thought began screaming again, it screamed for life yet again. Did he want to continue? For the longest time, the answer was no, he was not strong enough, he was weak and worthless.

“The son of a CEO must dress like the son of a CEO.” His mother spoke, her voice echoing in the darkness, it simply echoed in every direction until it got too far out to be heard.

His mother’s voice lingered, her looming presence was there, he knew it was. He could feel his mother’s voice and her soul lingering there simply because he was shaking to the core. He remembered this distinct feeling, it was a feeling that fear was too light of a word to even describe it.

It was torment. His body, that he couldn’t feel seconds prior, was now trembling. He could feel his knees shaking and his heart racing without any sign of slowing down. His body shivered and felt like it was shriveling, being reduced to nothing because if there was one thing that made him feel like he doesn’t deserve to even breath was the presence of his mother.

“How do you expect to be the CEO with grades like these,” she spoke, the memory of his mother becoming more vivid as the voice just went off with no source nor reason behind it.

With every waking second, he spent there in darkness, he collected another puzzle piece that showed how his mother was. Who his mother was to him, and the more he collected, the more he felt like he was being stepped on and reduced to nothing but a piece of trash on the side walk.

“Why can’t you be a normal kid?” That was the first of many, the first time she had asked him that with a tone full of disgust and the first time he was every struck by the hand of a supposed love one.

Jungkook remembered that day.

The voice, echoing down further, became like a key that unlocked a door that gave him the ability to walk into that day as if it was a movie being played before him.

That question that she spoke, had opened the first door in his memories where his mother began to truly show he has no control of his own life. The scene in which he walked into, it was the day he discovered how much he loved dancing. He could see the little boy, laughing and running around to the music that was simply consuming every piece of silence in the house. He was watching a movie about dancing and he simply was so engrossed in the dancers, that he begun to try and mimic their movements.

He was simply laughing, throwing his body in weird moves and position. He wasn’t good, Jungkook can look at the little boy and only described him as an imitation of a deflating balloon, unpredictable and all over the place. But it was inevitable, the little boy was laughing, he enjoyed dancing.

His heart ached, it felt like a puncture that emitted a heavy and venomous pain throughout his chest. That day, he had found something that made him happy and he had felt like he was at the top of the world. Jungkook never got to feel like that ever again, the feeling of felicity was burned to ashes and all that remained was a painful slap to remind him of that feeling.

What unraveled next was that the little boy could not stop dancing all throughout the day. He was jumping up and down everywhere, still trying to be careful to not knock down anything he could get yelled at for. But the fact that he was all over the house with no stopping him, didn’t set well with his mother. The last straw was when the little boy had put on a pair of sweatpants and one of Jin’s old shirts, he took his father’s old baseball cap and wore I backwards and she hated it all.

Jungkook winced, feeling the cold and rough palm crashing against his face, the pain as raw as that day. The little boy was crying, and Jungkook could feel his entire world coming down seeing how he had cried that day, his fun shattered into pieces. His mother yelled and told him to change and stop parading around the house like a ‘worthless slacker’ as she phrased it.

“I wish Jin was my son.” The next door opened just as the one before him was coming to a close.

Jungkook gulped, feeling his entire body freeze at the sight. This time, Jungkook saw the memory actually consuming the darkness around him, and he was transported into the vivid scenario. It was no longer like a door in the middle of the darkness, but he was actually in the memory of that party that broke him even more than he had imagined.

Jin had invited them over to a party that day, it was the first time Jungkook had seen the older in years. By that point, Yein was out of their life, Mr. Jung broke away from the company years prior and never contacted them at all. Jungkook saw his eight-year-old self, dressed in uncomfortable formal attire from head to toe.

Jin had just turned thirteen, the older was simply celebrating his birthday in the most grown up party he could have for that age. It could easily pass a party for a thirty-year-old business man. There were no fun activities, no games to play, it was simply casual music, a five-star meal and a cake that looked like blocks of dry foam stacked together.

His mother was in awe at how mature Jin was. The older greeted all his guests at the entrance, he would walk around to make small talk with the grownups. He was showing breathtaking admiration for the company business and a great talent for it. Jin’s father was still alive in those days, Jin had no pressure to grow up nor become a man, yet there he was, more mature than any thirteen-year-old of his age.

Jungkook felt his eyes sting, seeing his mother look in awe at the way Jin carried himself. She looked at him a very soft and lovable admiration, a look she has never given him. She was jealous of Mrs. Seok, and she couldn’t quite tell everyone how much she wished Jin was her son, but she didn’t even hesitate to say it to the eight-year-old Jungkook who was busy eating cake.

“Where did we go wrong with you?” The scene changed, it was like water washing away color only to dry, painting a different scenario.

This time he was surrounded by the smell of rubbing alcohol and latex, he looked at the scene before him and he knew, this was the point where his heart was shattered the most. This was the phrase that had destroyed him and he was coming to terms with how worthless his life was.

His mother labeled him a complete broken kid, a boy of ten who wasn’t functioning the same as she thought he was supposed to. He was told by his own mother, whose job was to raise him, that he grew up wrong. The words, the cruel and heartless words had cut deeper than he had showed.

Jungkook was a mere kid who had gotten into a fight with one of his supposed friends.

The other was no friend of his, he was simply another kid brought up in the society of elites. The kid was making terrible remarks about the other girls in his grade, the other having already known too much of his uality for that age and Jungkook was angry. Elite or not, he didn’t think he should have been saying all those gross remarks about his classmates, and a fight had broken out.

His mother had come to the nurse’s office with a stone-cold visage. She didn’t even ask if he was okay or what had happened, she didn’t try to figure out what was going on in Jungkook’s life, whether he was having trouble with others or something. No, she didn’t even look at him, she just took him home, slapped him the moment they entered the house and spat her thoughts.  

“I wish we have another son, that way the company can survive in his hands.” The scene changed again, the same way as before, only this time, Jungkook saw an entire auditorium surrounded by students and the smell of paper and flowers engulfing his senses.

Jungkook had graduated middle school, he could see himself wearing his old middle school uniform, holding flowers that were a gift from his company, it was an entire bouquet. His father said that each small department gave him a flower, congratulating him and wishing him luck on his high school entry.  

Jungkook knew that they were probably doing it to look good with his father. Or simply, to impress the young heir before he begins even stepping in the company. But they still gave him something. Even his father, who had no time to even look for a gift, had offered was a simple hug and a verbal congratulations, even though his presence was well enough for the boy.

He would have taken either, but his mother simply looked at him in anger and offered nothing. He remembered why, it was because she wanted more than an admission to a S.K.Y University, she wanted an acceptance letter to an Ivy League school in the states, and she knew that with his grades, she wouldn’t get any of it. Especially, when he was barely making the top ranks in middle school and was headed to the top boarding school in the capital where she was sure he would be trampled.

She was angry and frustrated with him. Jungkook remembered how much he struggled through middle school, the social life of it all took a toll on his academics. Yet, he threw himself into his work the best he could. And yet, his countless efforts were being meet with a simple look of disgust.

His mother even began wishing it wasn’t too late to have a second son. That day had broken him whole, he was still in large pieces, but he was simply reduced to dust after that. She saw him as a mistake, and she was already trying to find a way to toss him aside and replace him, and she had no compassion for it.

He carried himself very differently after that day. Jungkook looked at the scene and realized that after that day, the reason why High School was nothing but a rage fest with him as the main act, was because of that moment. He began to realize that regardless of what he did and how hard he tried, his mother would never be happy with him, and so he stopped trying to be a model student. He began getting angrier at everything and he became more agitated with everyone because to an extent, he wished it happened.

He wished his mother would get her wish. He wished she’d have another son and all the pressure and all the bull he had to deal with would just blow away. He didn’t want the acceptance nor the attention any more, he just wanted to get away from it all.

“I don’t want you here, you worthless child.” She had spoken that not too long after he went to a boarding school in the northern part of the capital.

She underwent treatment for her cancer too late, the tumor was already much larger than the doctors could handle simply because she let it. She had refused to go to the doctor for medical problems that had been lingering for a year.

Even if Jungkook had decided that he wasn’t going to try, and refused to even look at his mother, he still spent half of his second year in high school at the hospital. He would make the journey back every weekend to tend to the paper work, to the medical bills and the decision needed to be made. He was inevitably taking care of her and all she could think of doing was kicking him out every time she realized he was there.

Jungkook remembered that day now, the day that was manifesting before him. It was a day he never recalled, a day he can only remember ten minutes of. It was the day his mother died.

He remembered where his father was now, since the company was finally getting a big break by acquiring a multitude of small companies, he was busy with paper work and meetings and all the things that come with a deal like that. Jungkook had gone to visit his father, trying to tell him that the doctors think the end is near.

Yeah, his father was still a cold-hearted because he made no time to even go visit his mother. But the thing that Jungkook remembered the most was that the man apologized to him for not having much time to see him or visit him at his boarding school. He had said nothing about his mother, he only asked for a favor. His father had given him a small gift, asking if he could deliver it to her, he looked like he was struggling to even speak and simply walked away when Jungkook grabbed the small box.  

He had gone to the hospital. When he entered, he saw her face full of hope dying out and he knew, she was disappointed. Jungkook could see the scene unraveling, he saw himself standing at the door and saw the disgust forming on his mother’s face. She hated the fact that it was him and not his father, that what could be her last day of life, the last face she would see was of her worthless child.

She had said her line, the line that triggered that memory and he simply shook his head, not even hurt anymore at the comment, he knew already he was worthless. He gave her the gift, she never got to open it, he simply sat at her bedside. There was nothing but silence between them simply because she didn’t want to talk to him.

Those were the ten minutes Jungkook remembered, the silence and the simply outreach on his mother’s part. She stretched her hand, held his tightly and simply waited. She just looked like she knew she couldn’t hold up any more, it was so hard for her and she just knew, this was it. That is why she squeezed his hand, finally looked at him, whispered an ‘I love you’ and never spoke again.

The darkness around him returned, and the memory withered away like the leaves in autumn. He realized something about that memory, he realized that his mother didn’t love him. She chose to say those words not because she realized at her worst that her son was worth something to her. No, that wasn’t it.

The thing Jungkook despised the most about himself is the fact that every time he looks in the mirror, he sees his father staring back at him. The spitting image of the Busan man, who made one of the most successful companies in the capital, was imbedded on his face.

She wasn’t saying she loved her son, she was saying ‘I love you’ to the man he resembled, to the only person she truly loved.

I don't mean to brag, but I think this is one of the best chapters I have written.

Next chapter is called, The Doctor, and it will basically tie in everything together.

The official diagnosis will be said, and basically, everything will be explained, including why his mother was a huge part in his mental problem.

Oh yeah, and the Cinderella's reveal,

Thank you for reading, have and amazing day you amazing human and see you Tuesday.