The True Alpha: Invictus // jjk

12: The one I once was

The next morning, Jungkook's journey towards understanding and reinventing his own identity continued. This time, it was Jinsang, the old man, that he went for answers. He was the only one capable of telling Jungkook, of describing him accurately, how he used to be in the past; before he had a father and a mother to look up to, before realizing the weight that came along with being himself. When he was naïve, foolish, perhaps; above all, transparently pure.

The old man was gazing down at the fast-paced pack. With his hands laced behind his back, from the makeshift ceiling of the cave, he drowned his sight in the multiple faces and actions that surrounded the lake that morning. The Luna was amongst them. On her knees, Hani tended the gash on a young boy's arm. With her kind eyes and ushered words, she attempted to relax him and ease his panicking heart, so that she could work better and so that the procedure wouldn't be as painful. The boy flushed red at her and awkwardly, he shuffled under her touch. He uttered something under his breath, Hani heard it and small laughter slipped from her lips. Brightly, the boy's eyes twinkled and quickly, he straightened his posture and continued, ever so eagerly, talking and talking.

Footsteps, heavy and slow, stole Jinsang's attention from the scene. However, they did not shift; only the old man's mind did. Smiling softly, he welcomed The Alpha. Jungkook nodded his head in reply and in silence, he placed himself next to the old man, following his gaze that trailed and studied Hani.

"She's good, you know?" Chuckling lightly, Jinsang spoke. "With people. She knows how to reassure them."

"I've learned a lot from her." Jungkook replied; the end of his lines turning sweeter and more delicate, as his eyes became filled with her image. "I'm learning every day."

"The Luna really is the lifeline of this pack. I'm sure you have realized it by now, Alpha" Jinsang's gaze gently approached Jungkook's side profile. Utterly compelled and bewitched, Jungkook watched her. The words rang in his head; echoing and reverberating as if they were his own heartbeat. "Everything flows in her. Not that many people can do that. To be able to sway hearts with words, with gazes, smiles or even slight touches."

"She cares for me, guides me. Unites the parts of me that are lost at sea, at the... mess of my self. If I'm in pieces, I can't guide a pack as a unity, for I am not one myself." Sighing, Jungkook's smile faltered from his face; his eyes left her and instead, he stared at the light blue sky above his head. "However, lately, I think that... there are some parts of me that only I can reach and replace. "

"That's the most difficult part of living, I believe. To make sense of the things we have been collecting inside of us, that others cannot reach."

"How was I like? In the past?"

"I figured you wouldn't care about who you were. You only cared about now, about who you had to be." Amused, the old man twirled on his feet and started walking away from the edge. "Changed your mind?"

"Well, it was still me, wasn't it?" Slowly, Jungkook trailed behind Jinsang. "Even if I can no longer remember it, even if I have died and come back, even if... so much has moulded me into who I am, today... Surely, there must be things, characteristics of the past me that have remained. And... if I am lucky enough, I might be able to grab them again, I want to make them mine once more."

"I vowed to you, Alpha, that I would help you with anything. That I would share with you my knowledge and my abilities. You saved me from death and so, I decided I was going to make life, for you, as easy as I possibly could." The old man sat on the ground; calmly, he placed his walking stick at his feet. Smiling, he motioned for Jungkook to get comfortable, for he was about to speak. "If you wish to know who you were in the past, Alpha, then I'll awake forgotten memories for you."