The Tomorrow Of Us - Taekook

do you want me to leave?

Song: Love Is Weird - Julia Micheals

Raindrops patter on the umbrella he holds over his mother and himself.

Spring seems to be really unsure this year if it wants to show itself in its full glory, always sending mixed signals of sunshine and rain, switching moods every other day. Just like the strange weather, Jungkook finds the situation he finds himself in quite bizarre; his mother and him, here, in this place. A spot he has not come to since that day of a year ago.

The grave is plain.

Apart from the name of his brother, nothing is engraved in the stone. No laces, no patterns, no wise sayings. Nothing.

Even though he has been thinking about coming here for the past year, it feels impersonal to stand in front of his brother's grave.

"I can't believe he's just laying here in the ground..." he whispers the words, them getting almost drowned out by the rain. But his mother seems to have heard them.

"His body is here," she turns to him, "but his soul is in a thousand places. Or at least that's how I imagine it."

"I don't know if I believe in souls."

Jungkook can feel his shoulders slump. He doesn't like it here, not one bit. He has been dreading this visit with his mother for multiple days but according to Dr. Kim this could be a very healing experience. Pffff...

"But you believe in ghosts..." his mother looks at him with an arched eybrow.

"No?" Jungkook looks right back at her, slightly irritated by her statement.

"Oh. I thought you did." She shrugs, while a crease between her eyebrows is forming.

"What, why?"

She shrugs "Because you never set foot in Jung-hyun's room after that day." She eyes the cold stone in front of her with a strange look in her eyes. "I always thought it was because you believed that his ghost is still in there."

This makes Jungkook purse his lips. "I'm not a child anymore. I don't believe in ghosts."

His mother only hums, still staring at the grave with her first son's name on it.

"I really don't"

Jungkook doesn't know why he has to press the topic of ghosts, but his mother's minimal responses have him clench his jaw.

"I just never went because-" he breaks off mid-sentence to find his mother looking at him again with expecting eyes.

"-because..." he tries again but fails.

Because... He doesn't want to. Simple as that, right? Like, who likes visiting the rooms of dead people anyway? The rooms they killed themselves in? Like, what the fuck?

"You don't have to, dear." His mother pads him on the shoulder but Jungkook doesn't like it. He doesn't want her pity, doesn't want her calm and understanding words. Because he is not a child anymore. He can deal with this on his own.

"I don't think your father ever went in as well..." she adds in a low voice.

"But I'm not like him!"

Jungkook is determined to state his case here. Because he is nothing like his father! To his annoyance his mother is still examining him for the side, now worry written on her face.

"What?" he snaps "I'm not like him!"

He clenches his fist with his free hand, the other gripping the umbrella a bit tighter. What is she implying? If this is some sort of plan to get them to make up as a family, Jungkook doesn't appreciate not being informed beforehand! However, he will not throw a tantrum on a fucking graveyard, he tells himself. Family issues or not, that just does not sit right with him.