Family, mental breakdowns and strawberry cake

When I was young...

Jungkook POV (hell yes you read right)

Bliss still lingering in my heavy body, tingling in the tips of my fingers that‘d just touched my boyfriend’s smooth skin a moment ago, I stare at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom, the familiar light of my old glow stickers shining onto me and the heavy breathing of Taehyung filling the air alongside mine.
That is when I reach out to intertwine my fingers with his and I just know… I will never stop loving him.
Ever.
.
.
.
But there is still one thing haunting my thoughts and, knowing I won‘t rest until I at least say it out loud, I speak up with my hoarse voice.
“Angel…?“ I ask, my voice careful as I look over to my boyfriend who is meanwhile curled up under the blankets right next to me.
“Yes?“ he responds, looking at me curiously.
“Well… I just wanted to know if there is a specific reason why you‘re so… reserved around Mum? Like… is everything okay?“
There is a short silence where Tae breaks eye contact and looks away from me, gulping several times and when he looks back at me, my eyes widen in surprise.
I had expected everything… everything but my boyfriend‘s eyes being glazed over with tears, daring to spill over his lashline.
I can see how his chest is rising and falling even faster than before as he is seemingly fighting hard to keep it together all of a sudden,
“Angel?“ I ask, worry sounding through my alarmed voice.
“What is wrong? Oh, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you…“
He just shakes his head and sits up, fingers grasping at the sheets.
“You couldn’t have possibly known…“ he says, his voice small and as broken as I have ever heard it.
“I have never really talked about this to anyone, not my entire life and not even your sister. She just knows that my… that my childhood was maybe not exemplary and so… this might be weird but I really did not know how to act other than how I did. When I was young, I lived in Seoul, in that district where all the actors and idols live and my parents worked a lot. I believe they still do, I haven’t seen them in quite a while. So I had this friend, she was employed as a maid for as long as I remember and she worked for my parents in housekeeping before I was born. Her name is Yoora.”
A smile sneaks across his face but his eyebrows are still furrowed and he doesn’t meet my gaze as I look at him.
“And my mother, her name is… is Chung-ha. Yoora said she took an entire year off when I was born but obviously I don’t remember that. My first memories are kind of blurry I guess, but she was already working. She came home around the afternoon hours and asked me about playtime and stuff like that. I rarely left the house, I was homeschooled for a very very long time. I guess I grew up very um… sheltered.”
Taehyung chokes on that last word and I sit up to look down at him and watch tears rolling down the side of his face as he stares at the ceiling, seeming zoned out. I don’t know if it would be better to hug him or maybe hold his hand or leave him as he is without startling him.
Before I can make a choice, he continues talking, his voice a little more hoarse because he started crying a little but I can still understand every word he says.

“But as I grew older, like… eight or nine years old…. things changed a bit. I started going to an actual school at seven and I was very good at it. I liked competing and studying and learning things. So that went very well and I wanted my parents to be… to be proud of me. How pathetic!” He forces out and scowls in disgust so I carefully reach out and start brushing over the back of his hand.
“It’s not, angel, that’s alright.” I try to soothe him but he doesn’t turn his face to look at me, doesn’t react to me and so it seems as if he didn’t even hear me when he keeps talking, his breath going faster.
“And Chung-ha worked more and more the older I got and later I found out that… that… that my parent’s marriage was not voluntary, it was for the benefit of business and the firm and that stressed her out a lot. I believe my father was very hard on her, never really happy with what she did though I… I googled her and she seems to be quite good at what she is doing. I don’t know though, I never really saw my father much… at… at all. So she started drinking this horrible… I think it was whiskey. And sometimes I think that that was her favorite part about the mansion. The alcohol.”