Empty Space | Jeon Jungkook

Part 15

**

"It wasn't his fault," you tell Yeonjun as he sits next to you and hands you a bowl of food.

"It never was, ___," he replies.

"I know that now."

"So can you tell me why he's blowing up your phone and why you aren't responding to his text messages," he asks, eyeing the gadget and its screen that's been constantly lighting up with Jungkook's name on it.

"He saved his number and told me to call him in case I needed him."

"I didn't ask how you have his number, although yay, progress!" He pats your head. "I asked why you're not minding his texts."

"We almost kissed."

Yeonjun chokes. "You what?!"

You turn to him with a pout. "Why am I like this? Why am I a mess? Why am I—"

"Hold up, please backtrack. How did you go from cursing his entire being to almost kissing him?"

You sigh and lump your body over his lap.

"I fell asleep crying on the couch and I woke up to him asleep on the chair," you narrate, recalling the sight before you that had your heart melting because he still looked as beautiful asleep and in the morning, like always.

"He made breakfast then got called to the station then he hugged me goodbye and he was just looking at me so tenderly and then looked at my lips for a brief moment... and then I turned away and told him he's free to go."

You sit up straight and take the bowl again. "I hate myself because I wanted so badly to kiss him but I just couldn't."

"Why not? I mean, you know now it wasn't his fault."

You sigh at the truth that you're now just getting used to.

"It was one thing to blame him for Yi-soo's death. It was another thing to fall in love with the false version of him, and not have those feelings returned."

**

You take a few days off from work and your friends are kind enough to drop off some food for you. They don't particularly know what happened - that entire experience is a part of your life you try to keep a secret - but they support you just the same. Jungkook still messages just to ask if you're okay and you reply at least once a day, and that seems enough for him to message you everyday.

He's allowed entry in your world again, albeit briefly, and like before, he can't get enough. Unlike you who got the shorter end of the stick, he at least got to know you for you - vulnerabilities, strengths, and quirks included. And he loved every bit of you that he discovered.

You were strong, lighthearted, honest but respectful. There was a fierceness in you that extended to how you loved the people around you. Those things didn't show up in his research. He learned those through your time together.

Seeing you again after four years felt like a dream, the inconceivable type, the kind you yearn for but don't think you'd have. That's what you were before that day, that's what you remained after.

Falling into bed with you was a tactic, but it wasn't his. He wanted you, wanted to kiss you, pleasure you, claim every nook and cranny of your entire being, of your entire heart.

He wasn't pretending when he was in bed with you. Every thrust, every kiss, every moan was real; they were the words he could never say to you because of the feelings he wasn't supposed to have, of the dream he wasn't supposed to dream.

At your words asking him to be with you, he knew he had fucked up because at that moment, he realized he wanted a life, a future with you just as much. And there wasn't anything he could do about it.

**