“Umm Mrs Jeon… Here, use this…”, Namjoon utters in his calm voice, handing her a piece of tissue for her to dab away the tears which had welled up. He can’t believe out of all the places on earth Jungkook and you had to recommend Jungkook’s mother to his father’s clinic. And it was the summer vacation no less, where he was obviously going to be helping out and shadowing his father’s counselling practice.  

A piece of paper lay before the refined lady, with an illustration showing two man on each side of a door – one man looked like he was trying his hardest to push the door open, the other man behind the door leaned against it with his back and struggled, using his entire weight, trying to shut it.  

“This is like the conflict you face at home every day…”, Namjoon’s father had an equally soothing voice, “… what do you think will happen if they stay like this for a long time?”  

“Eventually one of them will give up and the other one will win?”, Jungkook’s mother despaired.  

“That I wouldn’t know, whether any of them will give up. But I do know one thing, if they keep staying like this, both of them will become increasingly tired, their arms will hurt, their legs will hurt and they will become more and more exhausted”, Namjoon’s father counselled.  

When the session was wrapping up, Namjoon’s father mentions that “It will be much better if your husband is willing to attend the next counselling session together”.

“Mr Kim, over the years you must have seen so many people facing the same conflict… in the end someone must tire out and give up, right?”, she scorns.  

Namjoon’s father nodded, “You are right, I have seen many of them give up. They walk away eventually. But Mrs Jeon, do you really think the person who walks away gave up because they were weak, they were tired or because they lost?”  

She looked at him, mulling over his words.  

—

“Why would I go for counselling with you? Is this some kind of marriage counselling? Why do you keep doing things that I can never understand?”, Jungkooks’ father snarled.  

“You really don’t know why?”, she stops and he too stops for a heartbeat. “Because I love you… and I want things to change… I-”, she continued.  

Never has he heard words that were more ridiculous. Never has she heard a scoff more demeaning.  

“You love me… that’s why you sleep with other men?”, he mocked her, just like how he always believed her actions were mocking him.  

“I love you… that is why I slept with other men”, she held back her tears. He will never understand, because he doesn’t love her.  

Some of the people who laugh the brightest have the darkest tears. Some of the most social people are the loneliest. So why is it surprising that someone who seem unfaithful can also be the most devoted? We are the ones standing on both sides of the door – the more a part of us tries to close it, the more the other has to push to keep it opened.  

His brow furrows, the lines in his forehead deep and rough, and his lips were tightly shut together. There was no sign of any intention to respond to her, he just sits quietly across from her in the living room.  

“Do you really think the person who walks away gave up because they were weak, they were tired or because they lost?”, this question was called back.

She breaks the long moment of stillness. “Let’s… divorce”, the volume of her voice was so low because she was trying not to hear herself.  

His expression doesn’t change but he slowly lifts his eyes to look at her.  

“What?”, he didn’t want to admit it, but he was shocked, and he thinks he must have misheard her.  

She couldn’t bring herself to repeat it. She shackled him to her side because she loved him, so she didn’t want him to leave her. She shackled him to her side because she hated him, so she didn’t want to be the only one suffering. What is the difference really? It was just two sides of that same door. The conflict was not with him.  

“You probably wouldn’t like it that I am the one initiating it, but that’s the only way in which we can force my father to accept it. I don’t think I need to teach you how to negotiate the terms with him…”, she was doing the one thing she vowed to never do. Actually, she was doing the one thing she never believed she had the strength to do.  

He looks at her for a moment and then looks down, his hands clasped together. She stands up to leave and as she turns around, she sees you standing midway on the stairs. 

Jungkook had come home to take some of the things he needed, so he was busy in his room and you had wanted to get some water from the kitchen.  

Even from that distance you could see her eyes, they looked just like Jungkook’s, they were clear and beautiful but they held a dying universe. You didn’t have to touch her to know – she was in pain.  

She gives you a weak smile as she disappears into her bedroom.  

—

You made your way to the bottom of the stairs, your footsteps finally catching the man’s attention.  

“Ah hello, weren’t you the young lady we had dinner with last time? Good to see you again”, he stood up and adjusted his shirt.  

“Nice to meet you again too, Mr Jeon”, you replied pleasantly. You walked up to him and extended a hand.  

“Has your school been preaching the importance of social formalities?”, he jokes lightly while reciprocating your handshake. You held on for seconds longer than what is socially acceptable and his expression turns queer.  

You waited for it to hit you. But it doesn’t. When you finally let go of his hand, you felt a surge of sorrow. Time has so passed, yet he never loved her.  

“I’ll see you around then”, he declares, intending to leave.  

“Mr Jeon, if I told you I can feel someone else’s emotions when I hold their hands, will you think I am crazy?”, you stopped him.  

“That is a very weird question young lady.”

“Y/N, please call me Y/N”, he must have forgotten your name.  

“Alright Y/N… so you are saying you can feel my emotions too?”, he asks candidly.  

“Yes, if I touch your hand. And there is one thing I have been wanting to know, if it isn’t too rude… can I?”, you asked outrightly, holding your right hand out to him a second time.  

He finds this intriguing. “What is it? What are you curious about? I will decide if I wish to participate in this experiment after you tell me what it is.”

You steeled yourself, he was a gentleman but his charisma still sways you a little. “Jungkook… he relies on you a lot, I was just wondering what you feel about him…”, your words trailed off in your nervousness.  

He was curious himself too, what he felt about Jungkook. And he was curious, whether you were really crazy. He puts on his best businessman smile, “Let’s see then”, and he grabs your hand with a firm grip.  

You waited for a few seconds, his eyes never wavered as he looked straight into yours. “I know he is not your son”, you suddenly blurted.  

There was only a minute change in the intensity of his stare, before he lets go of your hand eventually.   

“So, what is it? What do I feel about him?”, he questions you. You did not answer.  

“I’m not sure what I was expecting… but this is a really weird thing to lie about, Y/N. You can’t actually feel someone else’s emotions, can you?”, he laughs, finding the whole situation outlandish but amusing.  

“I did, I lied… I can’t feel your emotions…”, you replied and he snickers, “I can only feel your pain…”

His smile disappears gradually.  

“I don’t know if you are angry, or if you are upset. I don’t know if you like him or if you hate him. But I feel it, when I said that he isn’t your son… you felt it too, right?”, you asked slowly.  

He only allows himself to falter for a beat.  

—

Jungkook walks into the dark meeting room, planning to calm himself down before the marketing department meeting that was due to start in half an hour. He takes out his phone wanting to read your messages of encouragement to him again.  

“Bring your proposal over”, a deep voice suddenly bellows across the room. Jungkook jumps and quickly switches on the lights, only to see his father sitting at the end of the long table.  

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“I’m the CEO of this company, I can be anywhere I want”, his father replies in hostility. Jungkook walks over and hands him the proposal which he had spent almost a week preparing.  

The hasty sounds of paper ruffling filled the tense silence. “You call this a proposal? You didn’t even put in the methodology you used. Shouldn’t that be the basic?”, his father spoke with derisiveness. 

Jungkook was stunned by the sudden criticism.  

“And what is this? This is from one year ago, this benchmark survey… does it even reflect the market today? Any high school graduate can probably churn up a better proposal than this”, the older man shuts the file and throws it back across the table.  

He doesn’t even look at Jungkook a second time before picking up the phone on the table and calling someone.  

“Cancel the marketing meeting at three. If there’s any other appointment waiting for me, fill in the time with that”, he commanded. As he hung up the phone, he mutters to himself, “this is such a waste of time…”

“Dad, I…”, Jungkook stutters.  

“We are in the office. Don’t called me that”, he stands up to walk out of the meeting room.  

—

“Sajang-nim…”, Jungkook creeps into his father’s office after being allowed in by the secretary. He had revamped the whole proposal, and he needed his father’s approval for it.  

The CEO scans the document quickly with his eyes. “You amended this yesterday?”, from the amount of changes made, he knew Jungkook must have spent the entire night working on it.  

“Yeap, I mean yes…” He started turning into a nervous wreck, but he clears his throat before saying, “there’s this part I am not too sure about because I haven’t really studied it before but I tried looking up some case studies…” 

His father flips the document impatiently, “I highlighted it in yellow here… I am just confused about the differences between the calculation methods”, Jungkook whispered.  

“Shouldn’t you have learnt this in university by now? Obviously you aren’t even paying attention in class. Did you even attend enough classes to move on to your next semester?” He has never seen his father speak so stoically, it really is striking some fear in him. But almost as if outside of his control, the corner of his lips rose up.  

“Why are you smiling?”, his father glowers at him when he looks up at the absence of Jungkook’s reply to his questions.  

“It’s weird… you were always so nice to me last time but I never really felt like you cared. But now, you are yelling at me and I just feel… happy.”  

—

He ran to meet you at the theatre, you two had planned to go to a watch a play that evening. For once, you were the one waiting for him instead. You knew he didn’t sleep a wink the night before, having to rush the proposal, even cancelling your dinner plans. 

So, you were not entirely surprised when you spied him dozing off halfway into the play. You just let him rest his head on your shoulder and stealthily held his hand as you continued watching the show. He snuggled his face close to the crook of your neck. 

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; The more I give to thee, The more I have, For both are infinite”, Juliet says in the ongoing scene on stage.  

It is infinite, Jungkook’s love for his parents. Although it is tiring, and it may hurt sometimes, he still continues to love them. And thus, he hates himself a little less. You can only hope that the adults learn it too, that their love was also infinite, that they too, were mirrors of everyone else and of themselves.