04. HIS OWN STORY.

It isn't until the display on the corner of my screen flashes 12 A.M. at me that I finally close my laptop shut. I'd tried my best to work, but it became blatantly clear to me—when I'd clicked on the same e-mail five times, to be exact—that there wasn't any work left to do.

Stretching my fingers, a small sigh escapes my lips before I'm out of my seat to find Jungkook.

It takes me a spin of the house before I discover him in the swimming pool upstairs, the lights under the water illuminating the night. His long body ripples through the otherwise unmoving surface, back and forth down the length of the pool, and he doesn't seem to notice me for a while.

Before we'd arrived at the house, we dropped by my apartment to pick up a few overnight things. I'd long changed into a pair of comfortable shorts and a plain t-shirt, and brought a spare change of clothes for the next day along with me—so I sit on the concrete, dipping my feet inside the water as I watch him silently.

He finishes his fifth lap back when his head breaks the water first, dark hair slicking back from his forehead as water droplets drip from his chin to his neck. He's only wearing black swim trunks, and it takes all the self-control I have to keep from ogling.

"Finished working?" he asks, wading over to me as I raise my head.

I nod tentatively. "Yeah, it's not a bad thing, though." I muse, trying not to stare too hard at the taut muscle stretching underneath the smooth skin of his shoulders. A small shiver runs down the length of my spine, almost undetectable, but still enough to put my sensory system through living hell. "It's our first night in the house, after all, and I think that calls for a housewarming party. At this hour, it'll be just us, though." I manage to cough out, despite my neurons going haywire.

My sorry attempt to keep my hormones in check fails gloriously when Jungkook tilts his head, cracking an attractive grin.

"I'm up for it." he says, not seeming to notice the way my gaze has lingered for too long on his collarbone. "What do you have in mind?"

"I don't know, a movie, maybe." I say, tapping my chin with one finger as I force my line of sight back upwards. "Train to Busan? It? Annabelle? Or, you know, we can binge Criminal Minds."

Jungkook only raises a brow. "You're not trying to get nightmares, are you?"

I cackle in reply. "Ah, but you see, I'd rather watch The Conjuring alone in the dark than Toy Story 4 with ten people in broad daylight. Children's films are actually quite horrifying."

Jungkook stifles a laugh of his own, shaking his head at my antics. "How about we start off with something lighter, then? A game?"

I gesture for him to continue.

"I'll tell you one thing you don't know yet about me, and you tell me one thing I don't know yet about you." he then suggests, causing me to groan.

"You're so vanilla for being a drug dealer, Jungkook." I jab humorously, "I thought you'd say Strip Poker, in the very least."

"Yah, Kim Yerim." Jungkook snorts, before his expression morphs into something more serious. "You'll play though, right?"

I nod, shrugging. "Want me to go first?" I ask, wiggling my toes in the water. Almost always, that was the case when it came to activities like these—since I can remember, Jungkook never guided our conversations as much as I did. He just wasn't a talkative guy, and I happened to be the social butterfly who didn't know when to shut up sometimes.

However, today would prove to be an exception.

"I'll go." Jungkook says, catching me by surprise. He swims closer to the edge I'm sitting at, then, pulling himself entirely out of the water, he grabs a nearby towel, drapes himself, and sits down right next to me.

I lower my head, focusing on the blue reflection of the pool on my feet as he begins to speak. I try not to focus on the faint, faint sound of his breathing beside me, or the pounding weight of my heartbeat hammering against my ribcage. I try not to think about the fizzing sensation in my skin, about what it might feel like to thread my fingers through those wet locks of hair.

"Today, when you were telling me about your parents..." he starts, trailing off a bit. "I thought I should also tell you about mine."

I bite my lower lip, hoping he couldn't see the shock undoubtedly evident on my face.

In all my years of knowing Jungkook, he never once spoke about his parents, and even though I'd seen his father around before, it wasn't like I could decipher much about his relationship with Jungkook—if anything, I knew very well that not all things on the surface proved true deep down.

"You don't have to." I blurt out, before finally turning to stare him dead in the eye. "If you don't want to, you don't have to, Jungkook. It's my decision to tell you about my family, and I never intended to use anything I've said as a means to exchange for information about yours."

Jungkook shakes his head. "Either way, you deserve to know."

"I know enough that you don't have to tell me anything." I'm suddenly arguing with him, and I don't know why. There's a harsh edge to my voice that sounds completely foreign as I hear myself speak, and the anger fueling it is blurry—as if it doesn't belong to me. "You haven't ever brought this up to me because it hurts you. I know that. So don't tell me anything unless you truly want to—you don't have to force yourself to open up to me. I get it."

I watch as Jungkook frowns, a troubled flicker in the black depths of his eyes, and regret my outburst almost immediately. Unable to bring myself to face him any longer, I turn away silently, drawing my legs out from the water and pulling them against my chest. A strange emptiness settles in my stomach as I rest my chin against the hard cap of my knee, unspeaking.

The truth is, I'm disappointed. I can't pinpoint exactly why, but maybe because it's been ten years, and he's always suffered alone. Maybe because he's never, ever confided in me until now, because he's always put everything else, everyone else first. Maybe because, even when he's finally confiding in me, he's only doing it because he feels like he has to.

"Yerim..." he mumurs, quietly. "I'm sorry..."

I tilt my head to the side, so that my cheek lies flat on my knees, facing away from him. "You're not fair to yourself, Jeon Jungkook." I say, levelly this time. "You're not fair."

It's silent again, as still as the humid, after-rain air around us. There's no wind tonight, no clouds.

A few minutes pass before I finally stretch my legs back out in front of me. It takes another minute before I turn to the side and wrap my arms around his neck—his hands smooth the fabric of my shirt before his arms curl around my body, holding me against him.

"I'm sorry, too." I whisper, my voice muffled by his towel. His chin presses against my hair in response, before he buries his face in the crook of my neck.

"We'll be okay, right?" I mumble into his shoulder. My breath tickles his neck as I close my eyes.

Jungkook nods in answer. He releases me slowly as I pull apart from him, guilt simmering in his eyes as his gaze meets mine.

"How about I go first instead?" I say quickly, "And when you're ready, you can have your turn. You can tell me whenever you want to."

He nods again, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his thin lips.

"Well," I grin sheepishly, clearing my throat, "Here's something I definitely haven't told anyone..."

My gaze flickers nervously to the pool of water just within my reach.

"I can't swim." I declare.

The next minute, I'm six feet down in blue.

—

"You're a ing idiot sometimes, you know that?" Jungkook curses in my ear as he carries me out of the pool, glaring at me all the while. His dark brow is furrowed as he scowls down at me furiously, a tell-tale crease of frustration forming above the bridge of his nose.

I wheeze at him pathetically in reply, curling my head weakly against his chest.

"Are you trying to put me in cardiac arrest, Kim Yerim? Is that what you want?" he continues to hiss as I hack out a good ounce of chlorinated water from my lungs. "Jumping in the damn swimming pool like you've suddenly grown gills and fins. You've just about lost your mind."

My arms wrap tighter around his neck as his steps hit the pavement. "I...knew...you would...save me..." I rasp, earning myself another slew of profanities.

"Bloody hell." I hear him mutter as he descends—with me tangled up bridal-style in his arms—down the stairs, across the foyer, and up towards one of the bathrooms.

Worry, anger, and helplessness line the edges of his face as he sets me down in front of the toilet, before walking across the room to run me a shower.

I watch, finally feeling a bit guilty, as he runs his hand through the water, testing its temperature. I'd just meant the whole ordeal as a joke, hoping to cheer him up—but knowing my own rash sense of judgement, I'd taken it too far when I'd almost swallowed my lungs' capacity of water diving into the pool abruptly—so when Jungkook turns to glower at me again, I only lower my head in shame.

"I'll go get you a set of my clothes." he says, that unforgiving look of accusation still showing fiercely in his eyes.

That's when I look down at my own clothes, and remember that my shirt was white—at this point, Jungkook's practically already seen me in my lingerie.

"Okay." I nod, sheepishly, "Um, my soap and stuff are in my bag..."

He's out the door briskly after that, leaving me to shiver alone until he returns a minute later, handing me a clean, black t-shirt, a pair of boxers, and two bottles—shampoo and body wash.

"Shower." he then demands in a clipped tone, leaving no room for negotiation.

And that was that.

—

Jungkook's shirt falls down to my knees, and it smells faintly of the fabric softener he uses. As I walk throughout the house, I can't help but bring the fabric to my nose once or twice, just to get another whiff.

I'd left the bathroom after drying my hair as much as I could, and having brushed my teeth back at the apartment, I'd set out to apologize to Jungkook, who I eventually find in the media room, watching the fifth season of Criminal Minds.

"Hey, Jungkook..." I call out from the edge of the room before making my way around the leather sofas. I plop down beside him, nervously fidgeting with the edge of my—his—shirt. It's dark in the vicinity, save for a tall lamp illuminating his seat, and the volume of the show is emitting from the speakers at a minimum.

He picks up the remote, pauses the show, and turns to look at me.

"I'm really, really, really, really sorry." I say as soon as I garner his attention, adding for good measure, "Really, really, really sorry."

The silence ensuing is nothing less than excruciating.

I squirm in my seat as Jungkook seems to stare at me for a while, narrowing his eyes as if to consider whether or not to accept my apology.

"I make pills for a living, Kim Yerim." he finally begins, after a moment—to which I nod vigorously.

"I know." I say, tugging on his sleeve. "I know, and I'm awfully sorry—"

"I'm not a miracle worker. I know you meant well, but next time..." he trails off in warning, giving me a pointed look.

"I won't!" I promise immediately, a giggle of relief rising instantly in my throat.

That's when I finally let go of his sleeve, and it's also when Jungkook lets out a short sigh.

"You really scared me back there." he admits, leaning back in his seat as he finally smiles for the first time in the past thirty minutes. "You're the only person I know who would do something so ridiculous. You know, Yerim, I have plenty of friends who are doctors..."

I scoff, whining, "Yah, Jungkook...I thought you forgave me..."

He shakes his head as he mutters, "Kim Yerim, you drive me crazy."

—

My head is on Jungkook's lap, the rest of my body stretched out on the couch when he speaks again.

The screen goes dark, the episode ends, and that's when I hear his voice—

"My mom...she wasn't well." he says, so quietly that I barely catch it. "She hadn't been well for a long time."

I turn my body, lying on my back, so that I'm suddenly looking up at him. From this angle, I can see slivers of his eyelashes, his cheek, his nose, but I can't make out his expression well. All I know is that he's struggling to say what he wants to say, because his voice is rougher than normal—because the way his tongue skims over the syllables a bit, blurring them together, betrays his uneasiness.

"My mom wasn't like us." His jaw tightens a little as he continues, "She was an employee of my father's when he fell in love with her—she was only a white-collar worker. She couldn't possibly have known that marrying my father would cut off her social circle entirely, until it was too late."

He parts his lips, pauses, then parts them again. "She couldn't fit in with our way of life. She didn't have any friends...didn't belong." Another pause. "The medication started when I was eight."

My first response is confusion—it takes me a moment, but the information sinks in eventually.

"She was depressed." I murmur, as the realization escapes me.

"Suicidal." Jungkook's voice carries a jarring bitterness. "She passed away when I was eleven. My father took her off of life support, after she lost brain function. The woman I call my mom now—the woman you've seen with my father—is actually my stepmother."

—

I hadn't known.

I really, really hadn't known.

"My stepmother is a kind person." Jungkook explains, "She means well, so my brothers and I regard her as closely as we do our blood mother. If anything, all of this was my father's fault, not hers..."

His voice fades in and out of the background.

My ears ring, my heart aches—abruptly, I sit upright, my hands reaching up to cover my face. My lips part and my shoulders shake, a constricting feeling in my chest suffocating me in unspeakable ways.

Jungkook, I'm so sorry...

A sob escapes my throat, muffled by my fingers.

I'm so, so sorry.

"Yerim..."

I wipe my tears, curling my body in towards myself. "I..." I croak out, shaking my head.

I'm sorry, Jungkook.

"Yerim..." He reaches around my waist and pulls me onto his lap, voice raw as he murmurs, "Rim, I'm sorry...don't cry...your eyes will be all puffy and ugly in the morning..."

I let a hand down to hit him half-heartedly in the chest.

"Jeon Jungkook, I'll never be ugly."