Monsters Within Us || Taekook AU

스물하나

After six hours of staying slightly above the speed limit he’s finally home. Jungkook locks himself inside the empty apartment, exhausted to the bone. He takes a quick look around the place, switches the lights on in every dark room. He finds nothing out of the ordinary; everything is still the same way he left it. No ghosts have been moving things around and the corners are occupied only by shadows. He feels no fear, no impending sense of doom. He’s just really tired.

He skips the shower and makes his way to the bedroom instead, where he flops onto the bed and promptly falls asleep, fully clothed.

Jungkook dreams that he’s six years old again. He’s standing in the hallway outside his father’s home office, eavesdropping to a conversation, one eye peering curiously through a narrow crack in the door. The room beyond is almost pitch-black, filled with boxy shadows and unmoving silhouettes. His father is busy talking to someone sat just out of view, a stranger whose voice is… unnatural. It’s distorted, with an undertone of something that reminds the boy of static, like it’s coming through a set of tiny speakers. Is the conversation happening over the radio? How’s that even possible?

Instant success, the unknown voice says, as though it’s a suggestion. Is that what you want?

“Well…” his father replies nervously, once the lagging static subsides. “Right now I think instant success would seem odd, considering the state of the company. There’ll be awkward questions and I don’t want a bad reputation.”

You want it to seem like organic growth?

“Yes, if possible.”

Why? At this rate your time will be up before you can enjoy the result.

“I know!” His outburst ends on a choked, trembling whisper. “I know that… But this isn’t for me, it’s for my son. I’d like the business to stay afloat until he’s old enough to take over, that’s all. I just want what’s best for him. I don’t want him to inherit my debt and the threats that come with it.”

So it’s a father’s sacrifice, the voice says, slightly amused. Are you sure you want to go through with this without consulting your son first?

“What else can I do? He’s only six. He won’t understand.”

Making a deal on behalf of someone else leaves a void. If something should come along and fill that void in the future, then… I’m afraid we’re going to see some changes. Your sacrifice will be for nothing.

“I promise I’ll teach him to be careful,” his father says quietly. “But please, I have really tried everything. I’m desperate.”

There’s a long pause that makes Jungkook nervous, his small palms sweaty against the wooden door, his pulse racing.

Then seal the deal.

He can hear his father release a shaky breath, soon followed by a stifled groan of pain. The response is a loud buzz that fills the space entirely. It’s so invasive that the young child instinctively clasps his hands over his ears, the itching sound drilling into his mind. The noise rises into a painful crescendo before it abruptly stops, leaving a vacuum that makes his ears pop.

There’s a bit of heavy breathing and shuffling in the dark, before the lights are suddenly switched on, startling him. The sound of footsteps circles the space and then approaches the door, moving closer to him, and he quickly darts into his room across the hall. He’s clutching a toy car in his hands when his father checks in on him and Jungkook tries not to look too guilty. He doesn’t understand why but something tells him that whatever happened just now was not for him to hear.

“You alright, Kook?”

His father is pressing a handkerchief against his palm, which is bleeding from a thin, long wound. Jungkook doesn’t comment on it. He only nods wordlessly and receives a warm smile in response, as if nothing out of the ordinary happened, and his six-year-old mind simply forgets.

He wakes up to the dark present of the apartment and he realizes, for the first time in many years, that it wasn’t just a dream.