Jungkook's Little Sister Imagines

It Ends with Them | 8

inspired by it ends with us

i wish to not marry a guy like dad.

he always hurts us. he always lifts a hand on us. he doesn't get tired of it, and he would do it with every chance he sees.

we live in a suburban place in busan. there were a few trees around the area and there would always be this thump on our door first thing in the morning. we would open the door and a newspaper is on our doorstep. i've always thought that it was magic but jungkook told me that there's someone assigned to throw newspapers on everyone's door every morning. they get paid to do it.

i can say that the area we live in is rather quiet. i haven't seen anyone my age around— just oldies. they would coo around me and tell me how adorable i am. but i'm already eight-years-old, i don't understand why they see me like a baby. so i would just smile and thank them (just like what jungkook told me) and i would walk to my school bus that picks me up every morning to go to school.

jungkook is five years older than me so that makes him thirteen-years-old. he's in middle school— first year, sixth grade. he always has his friends around him which makes me wonder how different middle school is from elementary school. it just seems more . . . complicated.

today was no different than usual. mom would cook us breakfast— eggos with lots of maple syrup on top. mom would then kiss us on our foreheads good morning and tells us to eat up. then we would, thanking her for the meal before digging in. then its the silence's turn to eat us up.  the clanking of our utensils against the place would fulfill the silence that sat on our dining room. but dad would come downstairs, wearing a suit and tie, ready to go to work. an angry frown always sits on his face as he pours himself a cup of black coffee that mom already brewed for him. then he'll break the silence, cuts through it and proceeds to create noise that i hated.

"the coffee is too bitter, areum." his voice is thunderous and it never fails to rumble our insides with fear that he'll lash out again. "i'm sorry . . . i can brew another batch fo—"

he would close his eyes and just shook his head to make mom shut up, "just—stop. i'm already late for work. you know i can't start my day without my coffee and you've fucked it up like you always do," then he would turn his heads on us and scans us with his angry eyes like an eagle hunting for its prey. he would find a flaw, every single time. and today, he did again.

he snatched my plate that has a whole eggo left, i've only eaten one piece out of the two pieces that mom served. then he would take jungkook's too. "i told the both of you to stop eating whatever american food these are. you are born koreans so eat local foods and not whatever these unhealthy piece of shit is." his voice always grows louder with every words, then he would proceed to throw our plates on the sink, leaving us with our heads low.

he would then stomp out of the house, drives the car out of the garage and storms away from the house.

"kids, go brush your teeth, okay? your school buses would be here in any minute. don't mind your dad—he stayed up late last night to finish his work so he woke up in the wrong side of the bed, okay?" mom would always say that. and she would always tell us that everything's going to be all right later when dad comes home.

mom tells us that we should not mind what happened during breakfast and that we should. enjoy ourselves at school. i always try to but as i climb to the school bus, i would look back and see mom with her head low as she closes the door behind her. then my mind would unintentionally fly back to the scene back in the breakfast table whenever i would see kids bidding goodbye to their dads as they drop them off to school.

dad never did that. he never attended school functions and has never dropped us off to school.

but mom was right, though. it would be all right again when dad comes home. jungkook and i would always come home before dad. that night, he came home holding a box of jungkook's favorite fried chicken that we rarely have because the store is located downtown. he would also have this set of chocolate milk that i love— that's his way of apologizing. and we would forgive him for whatever he did last morning.